The directory «Plots»

Melezh Ivan Pavlovich
(1921—1976)

a prose writer, playwright and publicist, was born into a peasant family in the village of Hlinischy, Homel region, on February 8, 1921. In 1939 he began his studies at the Moscow Institute of History, Philosophy and Literature, and during his first year he was called up to the Army. From the very outset of the WWII he was at the front. After being hospitalised for a serious wound, he was sent back to the rear. In 1945 he graduated from the philological faculty of the Belarusian State University in Minsk. He subsequently taught in the university and worked on the journal Polymia; for many years he headed the Belarusian Writers' Union and was chairman of the Belarusian branch of the USSR-France Society.

His poetry was first published in 1939, and his prose in 1943. He is the author of the well-known novels The Minsk Line of Advance, People on the Marsh, The Storm's Breath and Snowstorm in December. The last three novels comprise an epic trilogy entitled The Palesse Chronicle, which portrays the life of a Palessian village and their release became a notable event in the history of Belarusian literature. He is also the author of many collections of novellas and short stories.

Melezh was a 'People's Writer' (1972), Lenin Literary Prize winner (1972), a National Literary Prize winner (1976) and Yakub Kolas Literary Prize winner (1962).

Belarus, 1999, Gleb Glebov in «People on the Marsh»