9 August — 100 years since the birth of Janka Zaprudnik (1926–2022)
Today marks the centenary of the birth of Janka Zaprudnik (real name Siarhei Vilčycki) — historian, publicist, one of the most prominent figures of the post-war Belarusian émigré community, and a person who devoted his entire life to the Belarusian cause.
Having travelled from displaced persons’ camps in Germany through the United Kingdom, Belgium and the United States of America, he became one of the leading intellectuals of the Belarusian diaspora and the author of works that introduced the history of Belarus to the English-speaking world.
The Skaryna Library collection contains a number of unique materials relating to the life and work of Janka Zaprudnik. Among them is a bound run of the journal Naperad, which he published together with fellow members of the Belarusian community. Of particular value is the first issue, printed while he was still travelling from the displaced persons’ camps in Germany to the United Kingdom. It contains a poem by the young Zaprudnik, signed with his literary pseudonym Siarhei Jasień
Our archive also holds a portrait of Yanka Zaprudnik from his student years by Mihaś Saǔka-Mihalski, a typescript of his doctoral dissertation bearing the author’s autograph, as well as one of the historian’s major studies, Belarus: At a Crossroads in History (1993), together with its Belarusian edition, Belarus at Historical Crossroads (1996). For several decades now, this book has remained one of the most important works on the history of Belarus in English.
