Branislaw Adamavich Tarashkyevich, russian: Бронисла́в Ада́мович Тарашке́вич, lt, Bronislavas Taraškevičius, pl, Bronisław Adamowicz Taraszkiewicz (20 January 1892 – 29 November 1938) was a Belarusian public figure, politician, and linguist.
He was the creator of the first standardization of the modern
Belarusian language
Belarusian ( be, беларуская мова, biełaruskaja mova, link=no, ) is an East Slavic language. It is the native language of many Belarusians and one of the two official state languages in Belarus. Additionally, it is spoken in some p ...
in the early 20th century. The standard was later
Russified
Russification (russian: русификация, rusifikatsiya), or Russianization, is a form of cultural assimilation in which non-Russians, whether involuntarily or voluntarily, give up their culture and language in favor of the Russian cultur ...
by the Soviet authorities. However, the pre-Russified (classical) version of the standard was and still is actively used by intellectuals and the
Belarusian diaspora
The Belarusian diaspora refers to emigrants from the territory of Belarus as well as to their descendants.
According to different researchers, there are between 2.5 and 3.5 million Belarusian descendants living outside the territory of the Rep ...
and is informally referred to as
Taraškievica
Taraškievica or Belarusian Classical Orthography (, be, тарашкевіца / клясычны правапіс) is a variant of orthography of the Belarusian language, based on the literary norm of the modern Belarusian language, the fir ...
, named after Branislaw Tarashkyevich.
Tarashkyevich was a member of the underground
Communist Party of Western Belorussia The Communist Party of Western Belorussia ( pl, Komunistyczna Partia Zachodniej Białorusi, KPZB; be, Камуністычная партыя Заходняй Беларусі, КПЗБ) was a banned political party in the Second Polish Republic, I ...
(KPZB) in Poland and was imprisoned for two years (1928–1930). Also, as a member of the Belarusian Deputy Club (Беларускі пасольскі клуб, Byelaruski pasol’ski klub), he was a deputy to the Polish Parliament (
Sejm
The Sejm (English: , Polish: ), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (Polish: ''Sejm Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej''), is the lower house of the bicameral parliament of Poland.
The Sejm has been the highest governing body of t ...
) in 1922–1927. Among others, he translated
Pan Tadeusz
''Pan Tadeusz'' (full title: ''Mister Thaddeus, or the Last Foray in Lithuania: A Nobility's Tale of the Years 1811–1812, in Twelve Books of Verse'') is an epic poem by the Polish poet, writer, translator and philosopher Adam Mickiewicz. The b ...
into Belarusian, and in 1969 a Belarusian-language high school in
Bielsk Podlaski was named after him.
In 1933 he was set free due to a Polish–Soviet prisoner release in exchange for
Frantsishak Alyakhnovich, a Belarusian journalist and playwright imprisoned in a Gulag, and lived in Soviet exile since then.
He was shot at the
Kommunarka shooting ground
The Kommunarka firing range (russian: Расстрельный полигон «Коммунарка»), former dacha of secret police chief Genrikh Yagoda, was used as a burial ground from 1937 to 1941. Executions may have been carried out th ...
outside
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
in 1938 during the
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
and was posthumously
rehabilitated in 1957.
Notes
References
External links
*
2 pages from original ''Belarusian grammar'' by Branislaw Tarashkevich*
1892 births
1938 deaths
People from Vilnius District Municipality
People from Vilensky Uyezd
Belarusian Socialist Assembly politicians
Communist Party of Western Belorussia politicians
Belarusian Peasants' and Workers' Union politicians
Members of the Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic
Members of the Sejm of the Second Polish Republic (1922–1927)
Prisoners and detainees of Poland
Belarusian scientists
Great Purge victims from Belarus
{{Belarus-bio-stub