In a week it will be forty years since the Belarusian girl went to another world.

However, her monument, which was stolen at night from the territory of the Zelven church, still bothers someone.

We are talking about a woman who became a symbol of anti-Soviet resistance and who still inspires prisoners.

Born in Poland, lived in the Czech Republic for 11 years

Larisa Geniyush was born in an estate on the territory of the current Vaukavy district, then in Poland, 112 years ago.

She graduated from the Waukavy Polish Gymnasium.

As a young girl, she helped her father Anton in his activities.

"Dad put all matters with taxes, governments, debts, loans on my shoulders.

He didn't like such things, and I didn't like them, but I helped dad as much as I could," Larisa wrote.

Larisa Genius at the age of 18

At the age of 25, she got married and gave birth to a son.

When the little one was two years old, she moved to Prague, where her husband studied and worked as a doctor.

It was 1937.

Genius lived in the Czech Republic for 11 years.

When Western Belarus was forcibly annexed to the USSR in September 1939, Larissa's father was arrested, placed in the city prison and soon shot.

The poet's mother and two sisters were sent to Kazakhstan.

She failed to lead the BNR government in exile because she was a woman

In Prague, Larisa Geniyush worked in the government of the Belarusian People's Republic in exile alongside the "fathers of the BNR".

The then head of the government of the BNR, Vasyl Zakharka, when he was dying of tuberculosis in 1943, wanted Geniyush to be his successor, the obstacle was... her gender.

"I don't trust anyone, daughter... I could only put you in this position, so that you wouldn't be a woman," Zakharka Geniyush wrote before her death.

Geniyush died at Zakharka's funeral.

After his death, she took the post of General Secretary of the BNR, organized the archives of the BNR.

She took care of Belarusian emigrants, political refugees, prisoners of war in Germany.

Took part in the Second All-Belarusian Congress.

Czechoslovakia was issued by Geniuses of the USSR

For three years, the Soviet authorities sought the extradition of the Geniuses from the Czech Republic.

Larisa turned to the president of Czechoslovakia and the American ambassador for help.

Thanks to this, all three received Czechoslovak citizenship, which, however, was taken away from them a year later.

The questionnaire filled out by Larisa Geniush in Prague for the issuance of documents.

April 1940. Document provided by the National Archives of the Czech Republic.

Michas Geniyus against the background of the last house in the Czech Republic, where his grandfather and grandmother lived for a short time

In 1948, the couple was still arrested and transferred to Minsk.

The formal reason was the participation of both in the Belarusian self-help committee, which helped fellow countrymen during the war.

This was regarded as "anti-Soviet nationalist activity".

Here is a fragment of the eviction order:

"You will be forcibly staged to the Czechoslovak state border... The conducted inspection established that during the occupation you and your wife were involved in illegal activities in anti-Soviet nationalist organizations.

Thus, it is in the interests of the state to extract you... Escort you by the shortest route to the state border."

They were staged through Soviet prisons in Vienna and Lviv.

Larisa was then 37 years old, their son Yurk was 12.

Larisa Geniyush with her husband Yank and son Yurk before the war in Prague

Larisa Geniyush with her husband Yank and son Yurk before the war in Prague

He interrogated Tsanava himself, they gave him 25 years in the camps

In addition, the Geniuses were accused of "wanting to separate Belarus from the USSR", and the poetess was accused of "slandering the Soviet Union" in her poems.

In Minsk, she was interrogated by the Minister of State Security of the BSSR Lavrentiy Tsanava himself.

He demanded that she hand over the BNR archives.

Larisa refused.

During the interrogations, Tsanava complained to his subordinates: "You spoiled her, she behaves like a lady... Beat her, interrogate her day and night."

From the archives of the State Security Committee under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

Request to issue Geniuses with the "arrest required" stamp

In the Minsk prison, Larisa met a compatriot warden whom she knew when she still lived with her parents.

"This stupid, dark man... could not even dream of getting close to me... He was now an important person... and mocked me like the last sadist... He came to my cell and took me personally to the bathhouse , where he was present at our bathing, smoked our things in the frying pan, made fun of us," Geniyush recalled.

The process took only a couple of months.

The geniuses were each given 25 years of imprisonment in the camps.

Larisa was sent 4 thousand kilometers from home.

She spent 7 years in camps in Komi and Mordovia.

Even in the Gulag, Geniyush took an active part in independent activities, preparing concerts with imprisoned female artists.

"My business was a conference and various song lyrics.

I also helped draw scenery, dress ballerinas in gauze bundles," recalled the former police prisoner.

After Stalin's death, she and her husband were partially rehabilitated, their sentence was reduced and they were released.

Yurka's son was taken by relatives from Poland

Yurka Geniyusha's son was brought up in an atmosphere of Belarusianness.

When they were captured, the 12-year-old boy was taken by his relatives from Poland.

There he studied to become a pediatrician, became a writer, settled in the Polish Podlasie.

When his parents were released, Yurka often visited them in Zelva, but in fact he never lived with his parents again.

The Soviet authorities allowed the mother to visit her son in Bialystok only once.

The relationship with her son worsened after her 8-year absence.

"Yura is our pain... I feel sorry for him to the point of a desperate cry... Yura has a weak character, and a sober, male mind wakes up a little later... The past and loneliness have affected his nerves and a little on those, almost genius, abilities that were visible in childhood," Larisa later wrote about her son.

Yurka Geniyush died in 1985, buried in Bialystok.

His two sons, Mihas and Ales, remained.

Larisa Geniyush with her son Yurk

She refused to accept Soviet citizenship

After the release, the spouses settled in Zelva, in the husband's grandfather's house.

Larisa fundamentally refused to accept Soviet citizenship, she considered herself a citizen of Czechoslovakia, although that citizenship was canceled by the authorities.

The girl wanted to return to Czechoslovakia, despite the fact that this country extradited them.

"In general, the Czechs were such Slavs that I never dreamed of.

They considered Slavs not as a race, but as a brotherhood related by blood with love and great hope for him in the future," she wrote in her memoirs "Confession".

The House of Geniuses in Zelva has become a center of creative Belarusian youth.

Poets, writers, artists, and scientists often came there, although the KGB continued to monitor the family.

Alyaksei Marachkin, Yevhen Kulik, Piotr Sventakhovsky, Larisa Geniyush, Vladimir Basalyga;

sitting - Iryna Marochkina.

1981 year

On her release, Geniyush spoke critically about some of her friends, nationally conscious Belarusian prisoners.

"It seems to me that these people are a little sick, well, of course, after years of captivity... They are all kind of insincere, strained, pretending and playing characters.

I felt sorry for myself, and I don't know how long I will look at them.

I have outgrown them by many years, and they are going to dictate their minds," she recalled.

The Belarusian woman, despite the difficulties of her life, kept noble habits, dressed tastefully, wore beautiful hats, liked to play chess with her husband, was a great lover of movies, both Soviet and foreign, was an intelligent and witty woman.

"I love either elegant hats, like once, or such a flowery handkerchief that speaks!", "My bed must be soft, clean, best on a net, and I had to suffer on bunks for so many years!", "Sometimes it helps in life we need a good "horse move" so that it does not give us checkmate," she wrote.

It was forbidden to write poems for 10 years

Geniyush wrote poems even in gymnasium, she started publishing in Prague in Belarusian émigré periodicals.

The first collection of her poetry was published in the Czech Republic.

"I was inspired by the Belarusian folk element and Shakespeare! After me, my husband taught me to reason, who was the first to read Kupala to me," the poet admitted about her youthful passions.

The poet continued her work in the camps.

The Soviet authorities considered her poems so dangerous that they forbade her to write for 10 years after her liberation.

Geniyush's first collection of poems in Soviet Belarus was published when she was 57 years old.

For a long time, she was allowed to speak only as a children's writer.

The most significant collections of her works were published only after her death, including the book of memoirs "Confession".

The steadfastness of the Belarusian poet supported those who faced the repressive system.

Her poems empowered Belarusian prisoners of war during the Second World War, Stalin's prisoners, and dissidents of the Brezhnev era.

Today, Larisa Geniyush's work also inspires people behind bars.

Viktor Babaryka wrote in a letter that he had discovered Larisa Geniyush's work in the colony, calling her "an excellent poet".

A fragment of Viktor Babarika's letter from the colony, 2021

Six months before his death in the colony, activist Witold Ashurak sent perhaps the most quoted lines of Larisa Geniyus from behind bars:

"Everything we did and are doing is for our dear Belarus.

Here are four lines that I carry through prisons and that inspire me to live:

I will not lose sight of the only goal,

And my heart will not tremble!

How to live, live for Belarus!

And without her - it's impossible to live at all!"

"Larisa Geniyush once wrote, when she was sentenced to 25 years, that you can be innocent of anything, but you cannot prove your innocence.

And in 2021, you are not guilty, but you can't prove it, you can't be protected," said Kateryna Tkachenko, a former political prisoner and Tut.by's legal advisor, in an interview with Svaboda.

Olga Vyalichka, the director of the city children's hospice, called Larisa Geniyush and Kastus Kalinovsky her ideals, who served a day in prison and hurriedly left Belarus in 2020 due to the threat of taking away her children, but took "Letters from Zelva" with her.

After the funeral, the house was searched

The persecution of Larissa Geniyush did not stop even after her death.

She died before the collapse of the USSR, she was 72 years old.

The poetess was buried at the Zelvin cemetery.

On the second day after the funeral, the authorities searched their house.

They wanted to investigate the archive of the poetess and transfer the found evidence of "anti-Sovietism" to the special services.

Writers Adam Maldis and Ales Adamovich intervened in the situation.

As a result, it was possible to preserve the Genius archive.

In 2010, activists installed a commemorative sign on the Genius house, but it was torn down by the authorities a few days later.

The police forced the owners of the house to put up signs, as if this board was bothering them.

Even five years ago, the local authorities also forbade hanging the sign, citing the residents' disagreement.

However, as the writer Mihas Skobla claimed, these people were always "in favor" of honoring the poetess.

Last year, pro-Russian propagandist Olga Bondarova attacked the museum of Anatoly Bely in Stary Dorogy, complaining about it to local ideologues.

Then the busts and bas-reliefs of Natalya Arsenneva, Larisa Geniyush, Kastus Kalinouski disappeared from the museum.

The bust of Genius was replaced by the bust of Yakub Kolas.

At the opening of the Anatoly Bely museum in Stary Dorogy, photo of 2012

This year, Bondarova made a similar attack on the Genius monument in Zelva.

The district executive committee refused to remove the bust consecrated by Metropolitan Filaret on the territory of the church.

But the bust mysteriously disappeared on the night of March 30.

Svoboda film about Larisa Geniyush