Vasil Bykaŭ was born in the village Byčki, not far from
Vitebsk in 1924. In 1941 he was in
Ukraine when
Operation Barbarossa began. Seventeen-year-old Bykaŭ was drafted into the
Red Army, where he was assigned to digging trenches. As the war progressed, he later joined the fight against the Germans, rising to the rank of junior lieutenant. After the war, Bykau was
demobilized, but later returned to the Red Army, serving from 1949 to 1955. He then began work as a journalist for the
Hrodzenskaya Prauda newspaper. In the same decade his first novellas began to be published, of which the most famous are "The Ordeal", "The Obelisk", "To Go and Not Return", and "To Live Till Sunrise". "The Ordeal" inspired director
Larisa Shepitko's film
The Ascent, released in 1977 and winner of the
Golden Bear award at the
27th Berlin International Film Festival. During and after
Perestroika, he participated in the
Belarusian Popular Front. From 1990 to 1993, Bykaŭ was the first president of the
World Association of Belarusians. In October 1993, he signed the
Letter of Forty-Two. Bykaŭ sharply criticized the regime of
Alexander Lukashenko, believing that an alliance with the West, not Russia, would be better for Belarus. Bykaŭ lived abroad for several years (first in
Finland, then in
Germany and the
Czech Republic), but returned to his homeland a month before his death in 2003. The memory of his turbulent life and uncompromising stance on the war have only enhanced his reputation at home and abroad ever since. == Literary work ==