Grigory Beryozkin

literary critic

Grigory Beryozkin was a Belarusian literary critic and author born in 1918 in Mogilev. He began his career in the 1930s, working for various literary publications and the Belarusian Writers' Union. Beryozkin was arrested by the NKVD in April 1941, narrowly escaping execution, and later fought in World War II, where he was severely wounded. After the war, he was arrested again in 1949 and sentenced to ten years in labor camps. He was released in 1955, having witnessed the horrors of repression firsthand. Beryozkin's memoirs, recorded in 1979, provide a poignant account of the repressive climate in Belarus from the 1920s to the 1940s, emphasizing the importance of memory in preserving the experiences of those who suffered during this dark period.