Belarus: persons and events (Makayonok Andrey)

Andrey Makayonok was born on November 12, 1920 in the village of Borkhov, Rogachev district, Gomel region, into a peasant family. He received his secondary education at the Zhuravichi school, then entered a military school. He worked as a mass communicator at the district House of Culture. He taught military affairs in one of the Georgian villages. He worked as a mass communicator at the district culture house. In the fall of 1939, he was joined the army, served in the Caucasus, and participated in the Great Patriotic War. He was part of the Feodosia-Kerch landing force, and was seriously wounded. For the rest of his life, Andrey had thirteen fragments from an enemy mine in his feet, and there was a risk of amputation, but he was saved in a rear hospital in Krasnodar. After his commission, he taught military affairs in one of the Georgian villages.

After the liberation of the Gomel region, he returned to his homeland and worked as a secretary of the Zhuravichi District Committee of the Komsomol. After studying at the courses of propagandists, he became the second secretary of the City Committee of the LKSMB in Grodno. After graduating from the Republican Party School under the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, A. Makayonok began working as the Head of the Prose Department of the magazine «Vozhyk». In 1966-1977 he was the Editor-in-Chief of the magazine «Neman».

A. Makayonok's literary work began with war diaries, various sketches, psychological sketches and etudes, skits and notes that were not published during the writer's lifetime, as well as humorous stories and feuilletons intended for the magazine «Vozhyk». The magazine's popular column «Excuse me, please» founded and written by Andrey Makayonok, was a popular column. The writer's publications were characterized by their uncompromising sharpness in exposing various crooks, swindlers, and scoundrels.

His first serious attempt at drama was the play «At Dawn» (1951), a performance based on which was staged by director K. Sannikov in 1952 at the Y. Kupala Theater. The author's famous play «Excuse Me, Please» (1953) was staged by the Belarusian theaters named after Y. Kolas and Y. Kupala (1954) and by more than 200 theaters outside Belarus.

For almost 10 years, A. Makayonok did not offer new plays, searching for new means of stage expression. As a result of intense searches, the tragicomedies «The Stunned Apostle» (1969) and «Tribunal» (1970) appeared. The performances were successfully staged on the stages of Soviet and foreign theaters for a long time.

In 1974, A. Makayonok was awarded the State Prize of Belarus named after Y. Kolas for the plays «Tribunal» and «Tablet under the Tongue». In the 1970s, the satirical comedy «Nightmare» (stage name «Holy Simplicity», 1974), the sentimental feuilleton «Verachka» (1979), and the tragicomedy «Breathe Economically» (1982) appeared. The films «In a Single Family» (1957), «Happiness Must Be Preserved» (1958), «Kondrat Krapiva» (1961), «After the Fair» (1973), and others were produced based on the author's scripts.

Awarded with the Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, the October Revolution, the Badge of Honor, and various medals. Member of the Union of Writers of Belarus since 1949.

A. Makayonok is an artist of bright, unique talent. He creatively developed many genre traditions of Belarusian drama, raising the level of domestic comedy to the best world examples. The Grodno Central City Library, a secondary school in Zhuravichi, where a literary museum has also been established, and streets in Gomel and Minsk are named after the playwright.

Based on the materials from the National Library of Belarus.

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