Tavlai, Valentin Pavlovich

He was born in a family of railway telegraphers in Baranavichy of the Minsk province of the Russian Empire . He spent his childhood in the village of Rudavka, Slonim district . Parents were active members of the Belarusian national liberation movement in Western Belarus , were part of the Belarusian peasant-labor community , and his father was arrested by the Polish authorities.

Received primary education in a Polish school. In 1925 he entered the preparatory class of the Slonim Polish teacher’s seminary, but was forced to leave it, because he did not receive a scholarship because of his Belarusian origin and political views. In 1927-1929 he studied at the Vilnius Belarusian gymnasium. He was expelled from the gymnasium because of his participation in a rally of solidarity with prisoners of the Belarusian national liberation movement.

In August 1929, he was arrested by the Polish authorities as secretary of the Ozernitsky underground Komsomol district committee, imprisoned in the Grodno prison, and subjected to torture in the Slonim defensive. After reviewing the case and release from prison in 1930, by decision of the Komsomol underground, he was transferred to the Byelorussian SSR .

In the Byelorussian SSR he worked as an instructor at the Rechitsa district committee of the Komsomol, editor of the newspaper " Zvyazda ", studied in the evening course of the newspaper department of the literary faculty of the Belarusian State University .

Since 1932, again at underground work in Western Belarus. He was a member of the central editorial office of the KPZB ( Warsaw ), the literary editor of the unofficial legal body of the Kuzbasskaya Gazeta newspaper in Vilna . One of the organizers of the Literary Front of the peasant-working writers of Western Belarus (December 1933).

In 1934, he was arrested by the Polish authorities and sentenced to 8 years in prison. In 1939, on the eve of the arrival of the Red Army, he was sentenced to death. Thanks to the quick release of Grodno, the sentence was not carried out. After the reunification of Western Belarus and the BSSR in 1939, he worked for the Lida district newspaper Uperad.

Member of World War II . Member of the partisan movement in the Baranavichy region , intelligence officer, head of the Novogrudok intelligence network of the Burevestnik special group (January – July 1944).

Since 1944, executive secretary of the Novogrudok district newspaper "Zvyazda", since 1945 - researcher, then deputy director of the Yanka Kupala Literary Museum in Minsk .

He died in 1947 from heart disease. He was buried in Minsk at a military cemetery ^[1] .

Engaged in literary activity since 1928 . The first poem was published in the Belarusian newspaper "Strength" ( Vilno ). The first collection of poetry came out after the death of the author in 1947 (Minsk; “Chosen”). He wrote literary and critical articles about the works of Y. Kupala , Y. Brylya , P. Pestrak . He translated an excerpt from the poem “Konrad Wallenrod” by A. Mitskevich , several fables by I. Krylov , poems by N. Kukolnik , A. Tolstoy , V. Shefner into Belarusian.

The works of Valentin Tavlai were translated into Russian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Georgian, Korean.

The creativity of Valentin Tavlaya is characterized by a high poetic culture. The poet focuses on the historical fate of the Belarusian people, their struggle for social and national liberation.

• The name Valentina Tavlaya was given to the central city library in Baranavichy and the central district library in the city of Lida.
• Streets in Baranavichy, Grodno, Lida, Molodechno, Slonim, in the villages of Ganki, Zhirovichi, Slonim district are named in honor of V. Tavlai.
• Museum of V. Tavlai was opened in Slonim Secondary School No. 1.
• In Molodechno, on the hotel building, where in 1934 V. Tavlay was arrested by the authorities of bourgeois Poland, was under investigation, a memorial plaque was erected.
• The name of the poet is carved on a chronicle stone near the village of Myasota (the 62nd km of the Minsk-Molodechno highway), established in memory of famous people traveling along this highway.
• In the library named after Yanka Kupala in the village of Velikaya Krakotka, Slonim district, a bust is installed ^[2] .

• Arochka, M. Valyantsіn Taўlay: covered-bi-ryagrafny narys / M. Arochka. - Minsk: Belarus, 1969 .-- 165 s.
• Valyantsin Taўlay: Documents, records, artykules / Warehouse. G.V. Taўlay; Kament. L. S. Taўlay. - Minsk: Mastatsky Literature, 1984. - 239 p.

• Valentin Tavlay on the site Belaruskaya palіchka (belor.)