Natallia Arsiennieva


Natallia Alyakseyewna Arsiennieva was a Belarusian playwright, poet and translator who authored the lyrics to the hymn "Mahutny Boža" ("Almighty God"). She was married to Francišak Kušal.

Biography

Early life

Arsiennieva was born on 20 September 1903 into a middle-class family in Baku, a major oil-producing centre of the Russian Empire.
In 1905, Arsiennieva's family moved first to Volhynia and then to Wilno where she spent her childhood and graduated from the Belarusian gymnasium of Wilno in 1921. She later studied at the Arts Department of the University of Wilno.
In 1922, Arsiennieva married Francišak Kušal, a prominent figure of the Belarusian independence movement and Nazi collaborator.

World War II

Following the Soviet invasion of Poland, her husband, who was at the time an officer of the Polish army, was taken as a prisoner of war and spent a year in Soviet incarceration before being sent to Minsk in 1941. After Minsk was captured by the German army in 1941, he became a Nazi collaborator, rising to become a commander in the Belarusian Home Defence.
Arsiennieva worked for a regional Soviet newspaper but was soon arrested and deported as a "bourgeois nationalist intellectual" to Kazakhstan with her two sons. However, in early 1941, she was released after a petition by the Belarusian Union of Writers and moved to Minsk, where during the German occupation she also collaborated with the Nazis, working for the pro-Nazi Belaruskaya Gazeta. She wrote several librettos for operas and was engaged in translations.

Later life

In 1944, Arsiennieva moved to Germany, and in 1950, to the United States. She was involved in the establishment, and was a long-term secretary, of the Belarusan-American Association. She was also the editor of the newspaper Biełarus and worked for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the.
Arsiennieva died on July 25, 1997, in Rochester, New York, and is buried in a local cemetery.

Legacy

Arsiennieva's works were banned in Soviet Belarus; however, she lived to see their return to her homeland. Since Gorbachev's perestroika, her poems have gained popularity, especially "Prayer", which, set to music by composer Mikola Ravienski, has become the hymn "Mahutny Boža" ("Almighty God"). In 1991, the publishing house "Mastackaja litaratura" published her facsimile "Under the Blue Sky". In 1996, in the series "Voices of the Belarusians Abroad", a collection of selected poems "Another Spring" was published, and in 2002, a compilation of her selected poems was published.
However, since 1998, her works have been excluded from the school curriculum by the government of Alexander Lukashenko.
In 2003, a monument was erected in her memory in the town of Staryya Darohi, Minsk Region, on the territory of a private museum. In November 2022, the monument was removed.

Works

Poems

  • Люблю я сонца залатое. Вечар неба фарбуе // Родныя гоні : месячнік літаратуры й культуры Заходняе Беларусі,1927, сакавік, No. 1, p. 3, 4
  • Сьміялася ў вочы вясна. Вячорная часіна // Родныя гоні : месячнік літаратуры й культуры Заходняе Беларусі, 1927, красавік, No. 2, p. 1, 2
  • Паралель // Родныя гоні : месячнік літаратуры й культуры Заходняе Беларусі, 1927, май, No. 3, p. 4.
  • Веснавая калыханка. Ішла вясна. *** // Родныя гоні : месячнік літаратуры й культуры Заходняе Беларусі, 1927, чэрвень, No. 4, p. 2-5
  • Маячэньні... Калі... Вясёлка. // Родныя гоні : месячнік літаратуры й культуры Заходняе Беларусі, 1927, ліпень—жнівень, No. 5, p. 1, 2
  • Пад сінім небам: Вершы, 1921—1925, Vilnius, 1927
  • «Жоўтая восень»
  • Сягоньня: Вершы, 1941—1943, Minsk, 1944
  • Між берагамі: Выбар паэзіі, 1920—1970, New York, Toronto, 1979
  • Натальля Арсеньнева. Пад сінім небам. Вершы. — Факсімільнае выданьне. — Менск: Мастацкая літаратура, 1992, Natallia Arsiennieva. Under the blue sky. Poems. - Facsimile edition. - Minsk: Mastackaja litaratura, 1992,
  • Натальля Арсеньнева. Пад сінім небам. Жоўтая восень. Сягоньня. Не астыць нам. На ростанях. // Укладаньне, прадмова й біяграфічныя даведкі Барыса Сачанкі. Туга па радзіме: паэзія беларускай эміграцыі. — Мінск: Мастацкая літаратура, 1992, с. 10–169, Natallia Arsiennieva. Under the blue sky. Yellow Autumn. Today. We do not come down. At the crossroads. // Layout, introduction and biographical information by Barys Sačanka. Longing for homeland: poetry of the Belarusian emigration. Minsk: Маstackaja litaratura, 1992, p. 10-169,
  • Яшчэ адна вясна: Выбраныя вершы, Minsk, 1996
  • Выбраныя творы, Minsk, 2002

Plays

  • Сваты, 1955

Libretto

  • to Ščahloŭ's operas "The Forest Lake", "Usiaslaŭ the Sorcerer", in Belarusian
  • to the operettas "From the Magic Land" and "Kupalle", in Belarusian
  • words to the cantata "March", in Belarusian

Lyrics for hymns

  • «Магутны Божа», in Belarusian

Translations