Branislaw Tarashkyevich

Branislaw Tarashkyevich was born on January 20, 1892, in Maciuliškės. A brilliant student of linguistics at Saint Petersburg University under Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, Tarashkyevich published Bielaruskaja hramatyka dla skol in 1918 in Vilnius. This work laid the scientific and orthographic foundation for modern literary Belarusian, known as Tarashkevitsa.

During the 1920s, Tarashkyevich served as a prominent deputy in the Polish Sejm, defending the civil and linguistic rights of Western Belarusians. In 1933, he was exchanged to the Soviet Union in a political prisoner swap. Tragically caught in the machinery of the Great Purge, he was arrested as an alleged spy and shot at Kommunarka in 1938.