Branislaw Tarashkyevich

Branislaw Adamavich Tarashkyevich (20 January 1892 – 29 November 1938) was a Belarusian public figure, politician, and linguist.

He first standardized the modern Belarusian language in the early 20th century. The standard was later Russified by the Soviet authorities. However, the pre-Russified (classical) standard version was and still is actively used by intellectuals and the Belarusian diaspora and is informally referred to as Taraškievica.

Tarashkyevich was a member of the underground Communist Party of Western Belorussia (KPZB) in Poland and was imprisoned for two years (1928–1930). Also, as a member of the Belarusian Deputy Club (Беларускі пасольскі клуб, Byelaruski pasol’ski klub), he was a deputy to the Polish Parliament (Sejm) in 1922–1927. Among others, he translated Pan Tadeusz into Belarusian, and in 1969 a Belarusian-language high school in Bielsk Podlaski was named after him.

In 1933 he was set free due to a Polish-Soviet prisoner release in exchange for Frantsishak Alyakhnovich, a Belarusian journalist and playwright imprisoned in a Gulag, and lived in Soviet exile since then.

He was shot at the Kommunarka shooting ground outside Moscow in 1938 during the Great Purge and was posthumously rehabilitated in 1957.