Review of Periodicals

«Kryvič». No. 1. January–April 1924. Kaunas.—The large issue offers a fair amount of historical material, mostly a compilation from the works of historians in foreign languages that touch on the past of Belarus. There is an interesting little sketch of how the "superior" Polish culture in Belarus destroyed old Belarusian manuscript and printed books by fire in the days of the Catholic reaction. But the most valuable are the photographs of old Slutsk and Hrodna sashes, a collection of which the "Belarusian patriot" Princess Magdalena Radziwiłł presented… to the Lithuanian museum in Kaunas! It is good that at least Belarusians can make use of the photographs.

The work of Prof. T. Ivanoŭski, Łastoŭski and K. Dušeŭski, "Nomenclature of Belarusian Birds", draws attention. Its assessment should be left to specialists, experts in the language and in nature.

Materials on the Belarusian revival movement are given by K. Jezavitaŭ (the Belarusian Military Central Rada) and Jan z pad Łasosny (the Hrodna Belarusian Circle of 1913—reminiscences). From politics we note: V. L—ski, The New Partition of Belarus, and also: Leaflets for the Crown of Belarusian Martyrdom under Poland.

The issue ends with the regular surveys of Belarusian cultural and public life and with the "Bibliography", which, unfortunately, offers no criticism of the more interesting works in the Belarusian language but only lists them.

Out of place in a serious journal are the "poetic" attempts of V. Łastoŭski—his "outbursts of the soul", very far from poetry and crudely unmusical.

«Pieraviasła». No. 2. January–April 1924. Journal of the Belarusian progressive students. Prague.

The striving of our student youth to work out its own ideology, grounding it on acquired scientific foundations, makes a sympathetic impression. From this point of view the article "Self-Purpose or a Side Phenomenon", signed I. D—n, deserves attention first of all; it examines the Belarusian national revival from the standpoint of historical materialism. Next comes the work of T. Hryb, "The Basic Foundations of the Liberation Ideology of the Belarusian Nation", in which the author argues the thesis, generally well known, that the Belarusian "liberation ideal can only be a labour ideal", which T. Hryb understands as socialist, although from this work one cannot guess to which particular trend of socialist thought this representative of the Belarusian Socialist Revolutionaries belongs. The section of ideological articles is supplemented by political articles on current topics.

The poetic work of our Prague students is represented by poems by I. D., V. Rusak, Nal, Ul. Ž., Bialičanka and a series of short stories by Pseŭdanim, Fryc, U. Žylka, Kurijus, Ja, Pyła. Without going into a detailed assessment of them, we note as a general feature the unfeigned sincerity of the authors' experiences and a fairly good command of form. Unfortunately, serious reproaches can be made on the side of language: there are mutilations of the language (especially in the article by I. D—n) that might still be tolerable in a daily newspaper, but not in a quarterly, where there is ample time for proofreading!

The issue closes with a chronicle of Belarusian life in Prague.