Maksim Bogdanovich is a classic of Belarusian literature. His poetry is honest and humane. It is fraught with enormous wealth of ideas and experiences and tells about his country and its people in the pre-revolutionary times. He is considered to be one of the initiators of modern Belarusian literature.
Background
Maksim Bogdanovich was born on December 9, 1891 in Minsk to a large family of his father-ethnographer, always busy with his scientific and social problems. He spent a few years of childhood in Grodno. The boy lost his mother Maria at an early age. In 1896, Adam Bahdanovich moved with his children to Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. At that time, Maksim wrote his first poems in the Belarusian language. The father was sceptical at his son’s poetic exercises in the Belarusian language, which was not spoken in their family. The boy, always lonely, suffering from tuberculosis, deprived of warm family relations and even of his favourite philology was longing for the faraway, his native Belarus, where his mother’s tomb was and where his poetic word – the word of Hope and Belief was needed.
Education
Maxim Bogdanovich began to study at the age of six. His first books were "Bukvar"(ABC book), "Rodnae slova" (A native word) and "Detskiy mir" (Children's World) by Ushinsky. He was also taught by his father, who was trying to teach "a small but complete overview of knowledge." In 1902, Bahdanovich attended the first form of the men’s gymnasium in Nizhny Novgorod. During the Revolution of 1905, he was an active participant of the strikes organized by his colleagues. In 1908, he transferred to Yaroslavl school. He graduated from the gymnasium in 1911.
It came time for Maksim Bogdanovich to chose his further life path. He was attracted by the prospect of studying at Saint Petersburg State University. He was recommended to Academician Shakhmetov to specialize in Belarusian language. However, financial difficulties and the poet's state of health did not allow him to study in the capital. Bogdanovich had to put up with his father’s will and to go to Yaroslavl Juridical Lyceum, though he was never interested in any legal professions. He entered Demidov Judicial Lyceum in Yaroslavl. In 1916, he graduated from the Lyceum and returned to Minsk.
The first work by Maxim Bogdanovich "Muzyka" was printed in 1907 in the Belarusian newspaper "Nasha Niva", which was published in Vilnius. It was a short story in which the author expressed his views on art. It is regarded as the beginning of the literary activity of M. Bogdanovich, because his early works have not survived.
Hard work began in Yaroslavl. During the studies in lyceum Bogdanovich was writing and printing, was contributing to local newspapers and magazines ("Russkiy ekskursant", "Golos"), and also to many editions in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev. One of the editions in Moscow issued Bogdanovich’s brochures "Ugorskaya Rus", "Chervonaya Rus," "Bratya-chehn."
The first and the only lifetime collection of his poetry "Venok" (A Wreath) came out in Vilna in 1913. Maksim Bogdanovich became a well known author.
In October 1916, after graduating from Juridical Lyceum Maksim Bogdanovich returned to Belarus, in Minsk, where he got a job in the provincial food committee. Here in 1915, the Committee for Assistance to the Victims of War was organized, where Bogdanovich was working with Belarusian writer Ludvika Voytik, known under the pen name Zoska Veras. The work was hard, selfless and very necessary. A sick poet directed a lot of efforts and time to it, and in the evenings set to write.
Maksim Bogdanovich impressed the reader by the excellent poetic skill, virtuosity and variety of styles. He demonstrated the aesthetic power of the Belarusian word, capable to express the tiniest nuances of poetic statements, as well as the most complicated forms. And he proved it by his prose, also varied in genre and style, using classical forms of other poetries like rubai and tanka. It was also confirmed by his translations of works by Horace, Ovid, F.Schiller, H.Heine, P.-M.Verlaine, E.Verhaeren, Y.Svyatogor, A.Pushkin, A.Maykov, M.Rosenheim. He translated into Russian the works by Y.Kupala, T.Shevchenko, I.Franko, V.Stafanik.
In February 1917, Bahdanovich went to Crimea to be treated for tuberculosis. The treatment was unsuccessful, and that year he died in Yalta.
The poet's papers were kept at his father's house, but the collection was heavily damaged during the Russian Civil War in 1918.
(The collection contains 94 poems located on 120 pages)
1913
Etude
Madonna
1913
story
Forgotten Path (Zabyty Shlyakh )
1915
Musician (Muzyka)
1907
Accident (Neschastniy Sluchay)
1913
Shaman
1914
Exam
1915
Politics
Maksim, following his older brother Vadim, was interested in politics, was taking an active part in the gymnasium’s clubs. He got into the list of "unreliable" for his activity.
Views
As a poet, Bogdanovich stood out from the Belarusian writers of that time. He wrote about the beauty of arts, nature, the woman, and Belarusian future, poetized motherhood, was enchanted by the image of Madonna, the harmony of architectural forms and the old manuscripts. He was an aesthete who cherished the perfection of the form in arts first and foremost. He believed in eternal life. As a poet of the Belarusian people, Bogdanovich reacted painfully to the suppressed position of Belarus at that time. He saw the powers of evil and darkness as broadly and even globally, as those of beauty, love and light. He was pensive, much inclined to meditation and reflection about the human fate, in which he noticed a lot of dark and distressing things. He often expressed his pessimistic views of life.
Personality
He was a man who truly loved people and believed in the bright future of his country
Quotes from others about the person
A.Titov: "Having a sensitive and sympathetic soul, he involuntarily attracted everyone, everyone loved and respected him; you will not have fun with him, but it was warm, pleasant to talk and to share everything from your heart."
N.Chirsky: "Maxim Bogdanovich was not only the author of the landscape, love, social, philosophical poetry, folklore and epic poems, but also a unique prose writer, storyteller, essayist, poetic translation master, brilliant literary critic and distinctive research scientist - one of the founders of literary studies."