The Vilna period of Teodor Iljaszewicz’s life and creative work in the context of the Belarusian national movement and literary life (adulthood)

Abstract

The article is mainly devoted to the Vilna period of the life and creative work of the Belarusian writer and community activist Teodor Iljaszewicz.
When he studied history at the Stefan Batory University in Vilna (1930–1934) T. Iljaszewicz became interested in scholarly research and at the same time published literary and critical pieces. From 1934 he worked as a teacher at the Belarusian high school in Vilna, but he was dismissed in 1937. To support himself he had to start hard physical work in the countryside near Białystok. His creative achievements of the so-called Vilna period comprise three collections of poems, books about the Mamonicz printing house, about the life and literary work of Jadwihin Sz. (pen name) and many articles, poems and stories published in Belarusian periodicals in Poland. After the Vilna period in the life and work of Teodor Iljaszewicz there came the Białystok period (1937–1944), connected inter alia with his activities in the Belarusian Committee, and then in the Belarusian Union. In July 1944 Teodor Iljaszewicz found himself in Germany – in Wattenstadt, where he continued cultural, educational, literary and publishing activities. On the night from 6 to 7 November 1948  the tragic death of this Belarusian activist, scholar and writer terminated these activities.