Uladzimir Liŭshyts
Writer M. Haretski, in the book “Maladniak over Five Years” (Minsk, 1928), analyzing the poems of the young poet Siarhei Famin, wrote: “His poems are smooth, melodious, and in his latest works — polished. The imagery is beautiful and emotional. In his poems, there is a clear tendency toward novelty, toward modernization of old classical forms.”
While noting that Famin also had much of the typical Maladniak poetic paraphernalia, M. Haretski emphasized: “Now he is ascending onto an original path.”
Siarhei Famin
M. Haretski’s prognosis came true. Over time, Siarhei Famin became an original poet. But a difficult fate befell him.
The future poet was born in the village of Pepeleŭka in the Mstislaŭ district on April 29, 1906, into the family of a village teacher. He then studied at a secondary school and a teacher training college. However, he transferred from the final year to the Mahilioŭ teacher training college. That same year, his notes and poems began to appear in the newspapers “Sokha i molot” and “Krasnaya gazeta.”
Here is one of his first published poems (1925):
With hundred-bell pealing,
Autumn rang through the maples,
Rocked the sleepy pines,
Rocked them sorrowfully.
In 1925, he joined the literary group “Maladniak.” After completing the teacher training college, he worked as a teacher in the Barysaŭ region, and then enrolled at the Belarusian State University, directly into the second year.
The time spent at the university was very productive for the poet. He wrote poems about nature and the beauty of life, about love and friendship, and translated extensively from Ukrainian.
And so the university was finished, and Siarhei Famin arrived in Horki in 1930, where he worked as a teacher of Belarusian language and literature. By this time, he was already the author of the well-known poem “The Swamp” and numerous verses.
About his pedagogical and creative work in Horki, docent of the Belarusian Agricultural Academy and former rabfak student A. Zaretski recalled: ”…The beginning of a new academic year at the rabfak of the Belarusian Agricultural Institute. Russian language and literature in the first year was taught by Siarhei Uladzimiravich Famin, a young man of below average height, quick, with impulsive movements, and an inspired face. His neat black suit was often covered in chalk crumbs when Famin enthusiastically explained the rules of morphology to students with examples on the blackboard hanging on the wall.
Belarusian State Agricultural Academy
In our group, Famin taught for some reason only briefly, but he was remembered like no other of the many rabfak teachers. Two performances by Siarhei Famin on the stage of the one-story wooden club remained in memory. The first time, he passionately advocated for the cleanliness of the little Kapylka River, which flowed through the territory of the academy and into which soapy and dirty water drained from the bathhouse and laundry. ‘Kapylka,’ he said, ‘should be clean, with fish, where one could swim and sit with a fishing rod…’
The second time, Famin read his poem about a Red Army soldier who asked his commander for permission to take leave for just one day to see his relatives, who lived in a village very nearby. The commander promised to let him go the day after the battle with the White Guards. But in the battle there were very heavy losses, and there was no one left to let go to see their parents.”
At the academy at that time, there was a multi-issue newspaper “Za proletarskie kadry.” It had a literary circle of students, led by S. Famin.
However, he wrote fewer and fewer poems. Literary scholar H. Yurchanka explained this phenomenon in the poet’s work as follows: “In the late 1920s, the retreat from the ideals proclaimed by October began to become increasingly evident. Not everything created by the poet fit into the official optimism of the time. His works were subjected to devastating criticism. A certain bewilderment of S. Famin is felt. He tried to please orthodox criticism, strove to write ‘to order of the day…’ But even this did not save him.
Unexpectedly, on January 4, 1935, he was arrested. A. Zaretski recalled that all circle members were arrested. They were accused of organizing a counter-revolutionary group. Thirty years later, he met one of the circle members, M. Stelmashuk, who reported: ‘We were arrested on a false denunciation by one of the student informers. We spent five to eight or more years in strict regime camps, and then those who survived were sent to designated localities.’”
It is known that Famin was sentenced to 10 years. He worked in a topographic team. He needed a second profession, which he had acquired at the Horki Aerial Photographic Topographic Technical School. He also continued his literary work. H. Yurchanka, in the article “He Could Not Help Writing…” (“Leninski Shliakh,” 1991, April 27), published several of the poet’s camp poems. One of them was dedicated to his fellow prisoner A. P. Shyshkoŭ, who was supposed to be released in 1940. Here are these wonderful lines:
Farewell! The hour of parting comes,
Not in the rustle of mourning garments…
And we shall shake each other’s hands
With a smile of sorrow and of hopes.
Farewell! Obedient to sweet dreams,
I ask of you: into the open fields —
Please send my greetings to the birches
Of my beloved homeland.
However, A. Shyshkoŭ was released only in 1942. He fought at the front and only after the war did he pass on to the poet’s sister — Raisa Uladzimirawna — some of the poems that S. Famin had written in the camp.
He also reported that on September 29 – October 2, 1941, Famin faced a second trial, and again the poet was accused of creating a counter-revolutionary organization. This time he was sentenced to the supreme penalty. On December 4, 1941, the poet was no more.
Years passed. In 1957 and 1958, both sentences were overturned. And the poet was rehabilitated.
Half a century has passed since we lost poet S. Famin. But his poems live on. As H. Yurchanka noted, “…his poetry shone as a distinctive and attractive flower in the Maladniak wreath. It has not lost its cognitive and aesthetic significance in our time either.” (“Leninski Shliakh,” 1989, January 10).
Liŭshyts U. A Tragic Fate Befell Him // Excavations Around the Horki Parnassus. — Minsk, 2011. — Pp. 98–101.