Yanka Zhurba Belarusian poet, teacher, translator. Date of Birth: 30.04.1881 Country: Belarus

1. Biography of Yanka Zhurba
2. Teaching and Inspecting
3. Later Life and Contributions
4. Literary Works and Legacy

Biography of Yanka Zhurba

Yanka Zhurba was a Belarusian poet, teacher, and translator. He was born into a peasant family and completed his education at the Polotsk Teacher Seminary from 1898 to 1902. After graduating from the Glukhov Teacher Institute in 1906-1909, he worked as a teacher in various schools in the Russian Empire.

Teaching and Inspecting

In the years 1921-1922, Zhurba served as a member of the scientific-pedagogical commission of the People's Commissariat for Education of the BSSR. From 1923 to 1927, he worked as an inspector for the Bobruisk and later Kalinin (Klimovichi) district departments of public education. He then became a teacher at the Cherekovskaya seven-year school and later at the Mogilev Medical School from 1927 to 1934.

Later Life and Contributions

In 1934, Zhurba moved to Minsk and began working at the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR. However, due to eye disease, he had to leave his job in 1937. From 1941 and after the war, he lived in the Chashniki district, where he worked as a singing teacher. In his final years, he resided in the village of Sloboda near Polotsk and in a nursing home in Polotsk.

Literary Works and Legacy

Zhurba's first ethnographic essays were published in the Vitebsk Governorate Gazette. His first Belarusian poem, "On the Banks of the Dvina," was published in 1909 in the newspaper Nasha Niva. He went on to publish several collections of poetry, including "Zaranki" (Minsk, 1924), "Yasnyya Shlyakhi" (1959), "Vershy" (1970), "Rodnae" (1980), "Maya Pesnya" (1984), as well as collections of poems for children such as "Lastavki" (1950), "Sonechnaya Ranitsa" (1955), and "Svetlyya Dni" (1959). In 1950, a selection of his works was published.

Zhurba also translated Fyodor Dostoevsky's novel "Poor Folk" into Belarusian in 1930. In honor of his contributions, a children's library and a street in Polotsk bear his name, and a monument was erected on his grave.