«She did not live to see this day, but this day has waited for her»: Larysa Hienijuš posthumously issued a National Passport of Belarus

The fate of Larysa Hienijuš (1910—1983) is one of the most tragic and at the same time heroic pages in Belarusian history of the XX century.

She was born in the Zhlobaucy estate in the Hrodna region, studied in Vawkavysk, and from the mid-1930s lived in Czechoslovakia. In Prague, she found herself among the Belarusian political emigration and in 1943 was appointed Secretary-General of the Government of the Belarusian People's Republic in exile. She preserved and organized the BNR archive and helped Belarusian emigrants and refugees.

Павялічыць

After the war, Soviet authorities sought the extradition of the Hienijuš family. In 1948, Larysa Hienijuš was arrested in Czechoslovakia, accused of «anti-Soviet activities,» convicted, and sent to Gulag camps. After her release, she was urged to accept Soviet citizenship — but she refused.

Hienijuš considered herself a citizen of the Belarusian People's Republic and did not agree to a Soviet passport — even at the cost of restrictions and life under constant surveillance. This position made her one of the most principled symbolic figures in Belarusian history of the XX century.

It was this unyielding stance that became the moral basis for the posthumous issuance of a passport of free Belarus to her. The initiative coordinated its step with Mikhail Hienijuš, the poet's grandson.

«My grandmother proved with her life how one can and should, and perhaps even must, act. And she, undoubtedly, deserves a passport of independent Belarus, which she did not live to see,» he noted.

War on Memory in Lukashenka's Belarus

The symbolic passport issuance took place against the backdrop of an unprecedented persecution of Larysa Hienijuš's memory in her homeland. In recent years, pro-government and pro-Russian activists have been conducting a targeted campaign to discredit her personality.

The main accusation was alleged collaboration with the Nazis. Propagandists refer to an appeal from the Prague Belarusian Self-Help Committee to Hitler, under which the surname Hienijuš also appears. However, the poet herself stated in her book «Confession» that all signatures were forged by the committee's chairman, Ivan Yermachenka.

Researchers, however, note that there is not a single line in her work approving Nazism, and thanks to the registration with the committee, several Jewish families were saved.

Павялічыць

Despite this, the attacks do not stop. In 2023, on the initiative of pro-Russian activist Volha Bondarava, a monument to Larysa Hienijuš in Zelva, which stood near the church with the blessing of Metropolitan Filaret, was destroyed. And the poet's books were declared «extremist materials» by the Belarusian regime.

In the summer of 2025, propagandists managed to disrupt an evening of remembrance for Larysa Hienijuš in Minsk.

Павялічыць

In November 2025, the Minsk prosecutor's office considered the sale of New Year's toys with the poet's image «rehabilitation of Nazism,» and the store where they were sold was closed.

Against this backdrop, the posthumous issuance of the passport appears not just as a symbolic act, but as a response from civil society to the regime's attempts to erase one of Belarus's most courageous and principled women from history.

«Ms. Larysa, you are a citizen of free Belarus. Now. And forever,» wrote the initiators.

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