Partisanen am Prypjat
Partisans at Prypiat

Author(s): Jakub Kolas
Contributor(s): Felix Loesch (Translator)
Subject(s): Novel, Belarussian Literature
Published by: CEEOL Digital Reproductions / Collections
Summary/Abstract: COVER PAGE TEXT (1960, GDR-Publisher «Kultur und Fortschritt»): Eerily pale moonlight falls through the treetops and lets the figures of the exhausted soldiers emerge indistinctly from the darkness of the night. Fierce battles and days of walking have sapped their strength, and in a gloomy, hopeless mood they await the morning that promises them imprisonment or death. Defenseless - their only weapons are their bare fists - they await the enemy, whose iron ring closes ever tighter around them. Suddenly twigs crack in the thicket. A white-haired old man emerges from the shade of the trees - the partisan commander Talash. He came to the aid of those trapped. // Life was desolate and uniform in the small village on the Pripyat where Grandfather Talash is at home. Like all farmers, he had toiled from morning to night to extract the fruits from the barren land, while the landowners indulged in idleness and indulged in excess. Then a storm broke out in the country, which swept aside the centuries-old ruling class in this remote forest settlement. But the representatives of the old order did not remain idle. In alliance with the Polish Pans, they sought to gain the upper hand over the advocates of the new. Grandfather Talasch, who felt the effects of foreign rule firsthand, fled into the forest and with him a group of like-minded people. All efforts to get hold of the dangerous “rebels” failed. Familiar with every path, with every footbridge of their native land, they inflicted severe blows on the enemy. // Jacub Kolas is one of the most important representatives of Belarusian literature. He writes a lively, figurative language, seasoned with rough peasant humor. The characters in his novel are drawn with great intensity, the plot is exciting and moving at the same time.

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