Vasil Siomucha

Vasil Siomucha was born on January 18, 1936, at the Jasienec homestead (Pružany district, Brest region, Belarus). His mother, Maryla Vasiljeuna, graduated from the Pružany gymnasium and was proficient in Polish, German, Russian, and Yiddish. His father, a forest ranger, enjoyed woodcarving as a hobby and crafted musical instruments.

In July 1942, his parents were arrested by the Nazis on suspicion of connections with partisans and executed at the Slabudka tract. The orphaned brothers Vasil and Yauhen were raised by their aunts Hanna and Halenia from the village of Smalanica.

From 1954 to 1959, Vasil Siomucha studied German studies at the Romano-Germanic department of the Philological Faculty of Moscow State University. Defying his state assignment to work in Penza, Russia after graduation, Siomucha made his way to Minsk, Belarus. He worked as an editor at the Belarusian State Publishing House (1959-1964), later fired and expelled from the Writers' Guild for ideological reasons and for several years had no permanent housing, earning money through technical translations and teaching German in schools. Thanks to the support of his colleagues in the literary community, he obtained a part time position as a literary contributor to Literature and Art, where he worked from 1967 to 1972. From 1972 onward, he served as an editor at the Mastatskaya Litaratura publishing house but was later dismissed on political grounds following Lukashenko’s rise to power. After retiring, he taught world literature at the Yakub Kolas Belarusian Humanities Lyceum, which was dismantled and closed by Belarusian authorities in June 2003.

Vasil Siomucha, a co-founder of the Belarusian PEN-Center, was an outstanding Belarusian translator from German, Polish, Latvian, Latin, Norwegian, Ukrainian, Old Slavonic and other languages. He translated works by Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Nietzsche, Brecht, Dürrenmatt, Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann, Rilke, Patrick Süskind, Tuvim, Rainis and many others.

The pinnacle of his translation work was the translation of the Bible into Belarusian, published in 2002. The work took 14 years. The translation was blessed by Mitropolit Mikalaj, First Hierarch of the Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, for use in the Belarusian Orthodox Church. The Bible was published on donations from the Belarusian Diaspora in the USA and Canada and personal funds from his daughter Alesya and son Siarhiej.

Vasil Siomucha was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the highest award of Latvia — the Order of the Three Stars, Medal of Merit for Belarusian Revival by Rada BNR, and is a laureate of the Yakub Kolas State Prize of Belarus.

Vasil Siomucha had a close friendship with a writer Uladzimir Karatkievič, whose works he edited. Karatkievič became the godfather of his daughter Alesya. Towards the end of his life, Siomucha lost his sight but continued translating until the very end. He died on February 3, 2019, and is buried at the city cemetery in Pružany.