Piatruś Broŭka

Piotr Ustsinavich Brouka (; − 24 March 1980) was a Soviet Belarusian poet, better known by his literary pseudonym Piatrus Brouka .

Biography Brouka was born into a large but poor peasant family in Pucilkavičy, a settlement in present-day Ushachy Raion, Vitebsk Region, on 25 June 1905. His first published works were printed in 1926, and the young poet briefly served as executive secretary of a local newspaper in 1927. In 1928 he enrolled in the Literature-Linguistics Department of Belarusian State University, graduating in 1931. In 1966, Brouka edited the first volume of the Byelorussian Soviet Encyclopedia, the year he was given the title of People's Poet of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. He was elected a full member of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences in 1966.

Apart from literary work, he served several terms as a representative of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, but maintained his literary career even as a political delegate. Some of his later verses made their way into Soviet pop music when they were adapted by the Belarusian Soviet folk rock band Pesniary.

Minsk's Literary Museum of Petrus Brouka was established in his honor in 1980, when Brouka died at age 74.

In 2005, Belarus issued a postage stamp celebrating the hundredth anniversary of Pyotr Brouka's birth.

Honours and awards

Hero of Socialist Labour (1972) Order of Lenin (1949, 1965, 1972) Order of the October Revolution (1971) Order of the Red Star (1943) Order of Friendship of Peoples (1975) Order of the Badge of Honour (1939) Lenin Prize (1962) - a collection of poems "And the days go by ..." (1961) Stalin Prizes; 2nd class (1947) - for the poem "Bread" and "Thoughts about Moscow", the poem "The People's thanks", "Brother and Sister", "If I be", "Meeting" 3rd class (1951) - a collection of poems "The Road of Life" BSSR State Prizes; 1970 - a collection of poems, "Among the red mountain ashes" 1976 - for participation in the creation of the Belarusian Soviet Encyclopedia Yakub Kolas Literary prize (1957) - for the novel "When the merge of the river" (1957) People's Poet of the Byelorussian SSR (1966)