Andrej Mryj (; 13 O.S._1.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/> O.S._1">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html"_;"title="nowiki/>Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O.S._1September_1893_–_8_October_1943)_was_the_pen_name.html" ;"title="Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 1">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 1September 1893 – 8 October 1943) was the pen name">Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 1">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 1September 1893 – 8 October 1943) was the pen name of Andrej Šašalevič (), a Belarusian satirical writer, journalist, translator and a victim of Great Purge, Stalin's purges.

Life

Mryj was born into a middle-class family in the Mogilev Governorate of the Russian Empire (nowadays the Mahilioŭ region in eastern Belarus). In 1914, he graduated from a seminary in

Mahilioŭ Mogilev (russian: Могилёв, Mogilyov, ; yi, מאָלעוו, Molev, ) or Mahilyow ( be, Магілёў, Mahilioŭ, ) is a city in eastern Belarus, on the Dnieper River, about from the border with Russia's Smolensk Oblast and from the bor ...

and continued his theological education in

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyi ...

. In 1916 he was conscripted into the Russian Imperial Army. After the

Bolshevik revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

, he served in the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...

In 1921, Mryj became a teacher and also got involved in amateur theatre, ethnography and journalism. His articles were published in leading newspapers of

Soviet Belarus The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, or Byelorussian SSR; be, Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка, Bielaruskaja Savieckaja Sacyjalistyčnaja Respublika; russian: Белор� ...

. In 1933, he was appointed an editor of a popular newspaper, ''

Zviazda ''Zvyazda'' ( be, Звязда, , literally: ''"The Star"'') is a state-owned daily newspaper in Belarus. History and profile ''Zvyazda'' was founded in 1917 as an organ of the Minsk Committee of Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolshev ...

'' (The Star; ). Mryj was arrested by the

Soviet secret police The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

as a "member of an anti-Soviet counter-revolutionary organisation" in February 1934 and deported to

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...

and then to

Murmansk Murmansk (Russian: ''Мурманск'' lit. "Norwegian coast"; Finnish: ''Murmansk'', sometimes ''Muurmanski'', previously ''Muurmanni''; Norwegian: ''Norskekysten;'' Northern Sámi: ''Murmánska;'' Kildin Sámi: ''Мурман ланнҍ'') ...

in the North of Russia. In June 1940, he was re-arrested and sent to one of the

Gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...

forced labour camps. In March 1943, he was registered as a disabled person by a medical commission. Mryj died on 8 October 1943. The place of his burial is unknown. Mryj was posthumously exonerated during Khrushchev's

de-Stalinisation De-Stalinization (russian: десталинизация, translit=destalinizatsiya) comprised a series of political reforms in the Soviet Union after the death of long-time leader Joseph Stalin in 1953, and the thaw brought about by ascension ...

in January 1957, however there is no place of his commemoration in present-day Belarus.

Work

In 1929, Mryj published his best-known work, a satirical novel "The Notes of Samson Samasuj" (). "The Notes" tell a story of a fictional head of a local department of culture in

. An inept official, he compensates his lack of competency by extraordinary activity in accelerating a

cultural revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...

in his district. He organises a series of absurd cultural events and initiatives intermingled with his turbulent love life. The novel was badly received by the authorities. It was branded "vicious libel on Soviet reality". In Belarus, it was only fully published during

Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to the country's dissolution in 1991. He served as General Secretary of the Comm ...

's Perestroika in 1988. A film adaptation by a film director, , soon followed.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mryj, Andrei Belarusian male writers 1893 births 1943 deaths Executed Soviet people from Belarus Soviet rehabilitations