Most of us know Aloisa Pashkevich under her pen name as Tsetka (Auntie). She left a long-lasting legacy in the Belarusian culture. To this day her poetry is part of school curriculum as her legacy is vital to the Belarusian national revival of the early XX century. She wrote poems, prose, political essays, did theatre, worked as an educator and was actively involved in political and community life.
Aloisa (Alaiza) Pashkevich was born in 1876 in a place called Peshchin of the Schuchshyn area in Grodno region in a modest family with many children. When she was little her father sent her to live on the neighbouring farm. As soon as young Aloisa learned to read, she immediately fell in love with books. However, her formal education did not start until much later.
In 1892 when she was 16 years old Aloisa moved to Vilna. At first, she had to take private lessons so that two years later she could be accepted to the private school. She had to make her own money to pay for her studies and very often had to starve. Around this time, she was diagnosed with TB and on medical advice she had to take a break of her studies to go and live in a countryside. She still managed to complete her education and obtain a certificate of a teacher. Through her education and after working in a village where she saw dire poverty of local farmworkers and peasants, she became passionate about social justice.
In 1903 Aloisa Pashkevich moved to Saint Petersburg to continue her education by joining the training programme of physical education. At the same time, she became actively involved in a group organised by Belarusian students. It is considered that it is during this time she began her writing mainly under the influence of Frantishak Bahushevich. She published her works in the underground publications under various - mainly male - pseudonyms.
After completing her studies in 1904 she returned to Vilna and took a job as a health worker. Around this the same time Pashkevich became involved in the revolutionary movement. Together with the like-minded people she founded the first Belarusian political party BSG, uniting the national movement. Many of her contemporaries admired Aloisa’s public speaking talents, when she took part in activists’ gatherings. In the winter of 1905, she took active part in large scale manifestations that broke out in the Russian Empire. When the uprising was brutally crushed by the authorities, in the face of persecution she had to emigrate.
Along with other BSG members, the Lutskevich brothers, in 1906 Pashkevich founded a newspaper Nasha dolya, which informed people about protests in the country, about the plight of the peasant classes and also printed the works of the Belarusian authors.
While living abroad she continued her education by enrolling first to an university in Lviv and later in Krakow University. During this period, she published two collections of her poetry.
In 1911 Aloisa Pashkevich married Steponas Kayris, an engineer and a future politician and the member of parliament of the Republic of Lithuania. After taking her husband’s surname she felt safe to return home and during that time she was involved in setting up Belarusian schools in Vilna. Pashkevich wrote and edited content for the Belarusian-language publication for children Luchynka which was published in Minsk and was made in the style of encyclopaedia. She is known as one of the first Belarusian poets who wrote extensively for children.
Due to declining health, she often travelled abroad for treatment. Over the course of her life, she visited Italy, France, Finland, Sweden and Germany.
When the WWI broke out, she started working as a nurse at a hospital. But even then, she continued her educational activities. In the beginning of 1915, she opened the first Belarusian language school in Vilna and took part in setting soup kitchens for the poor.
After her father's death in 2016 she returned to her village where she soon contracted typhoid fever and died.
Her life was cut short but she left a rich legacy for future generations. She was committed to ideas of justice and selflessly helped others both when working as a teacher in a village and to the wounded soldiers in a hospital. The ideas of freedom and the national identity awakening run through all of Aloisa Pashkevich’s work.
#Belarus #AloisaPashkevich #AlaizaPashkevich #LiteraryLegend
#BelarusianHeritage #InspiringStories #UnknownFacts