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[PUBLISHED WHEN AUTHOR HELD IN PRISON] Maliunki [i.e. Images]

Item #2573

Vilnia: Zoska Veras (L. Voytik); Drukarnia Ya. Levina, 1928. 16 p. 16,5x11 cm.

Original wrappers. Slightly foxed covers, otherwise very good. Owner’s inscription on the front wrapper, indicating that the book was in Vilnus in 1942. First edition. First book by the author.

Mikhas Mashara (1902–1976) – Belarusian poet, one of the key voices for the liberation of Western Belarus in the 1920s–1930s. During the occupation of Belarus by Polish troops, he was arrested, but soon released under police supervision as a minor. In 1920, he voluntarily joined the Red Army, served as a signalman in the 18th Northern Rifle Division, and participated in military operations. After the division was surrounded and interned, Mashara spent 11 months in a prisoner-of-war camp in Saxony, and after the conclusion of the Riga Peace Treaty, he spent another 8 months in the
Szczypiorno concentration camp in Upper Silesia.
Then he returned to Tobol. In 1923–25, he served in the Polish army. After demobilization, he actively participated in the national liberation movement, and was one of the organizers of the circles of the Belarusian Peasant-Workers' Community. At the end of 1926 he moved to Vilnius, edited the newspaper "Nasha Volya", published in the children's magazine "Zaranka".
In 1928 he was arrested and imprisoned for 4 years in the Vilnius Lukishki prison. He was able to pass on the poems written in prison to freedom, and thus the first poetry collection of M. Mashara "Malyunki" was published in 1928 by Zoska Veras (L. Voytik) at her own expense.

After the Second World War he moved to Minsk and joined the Writers' Union of the Belarusian SSR. Zos'ka Veras (1892-1991) was a Belarusian revolutionary, publisher and a poet. In 1920s she
was one of the centers of Belarus life in Vilnus, publishing the periodical of the Belarusian Peasant-Worker Community, with the help of which this edition also was produced.

Extremely rare. Not in the Worldcat.

Price: $1,250.00