Leanid Marakou

Leanid Marakou (Леанід Маракоў; Леонид Моряков; April 15, 1958 in Minsk – December 17, 2016 ) was a Belarusian journalist, writer.

Biography


Marakou (Belarusian: Леанід Маракоў, Russian: Леонид Моряков, pseudonyms: Vladimir Moryakov, Anatole Sinchukousky) graduated from the Minsk Radioengineering Institute in 1984. He worked as a maintenance engineer at the Minsk Computer Plant, then at the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. In 1990s, Marakou became an importer of electronic equipment.

Marakou spent some years in the 1990s investigating the fate of his uncle, Valery Marakou, a poet in the 1930s, who was executed by the Bolsheviks. Study of the poet's biography (about which L. Marakou has published a monograph later on), as well as those of other perished relatives had grown into a systematic and professional research of history of all repressed during the Stalin's period cultural and public figures of Belarus. That became also possible due to obtaining of temporary access to the classified archives of the KGB in Belarus.

Authorship
Marakou is the author of a multi-volume directory "Repressed literary men, scientists, educators, public and cultural figures of Belarus. 1794-1991" (Belarusian: "Рэпрэсаваныя літаратары, навукоўцы, работнікі асветы, грамадскія і культурныя дзеячы Беларусі. 1794-1991"). The directory contains more than 20,000 biographies of Belarusians executed or who perished in Joseph Stalin's concentration camps (the Gulag).

Marakou's "Extermination" (Belarusian: "Вынішчэнне") is a research book dedicated to repressions committed against Belarusian literary men, "Victims and Executioners" (Belarusian: "Ахвяры і Карнікі"), - a documentary investigation about the fate of the victims and their torturers during the period of mass executions of the 1930s, and the reference "Repressed Orthodox clergymen and priests of Belarus. 1917-1967" (Belarusian: "Рэпрэсаваныя праваслаўныя свяшчэнна- і царкоўнаслужыцелі Беларусі. 1917-1967").

Marakou's first short stories were published in 1998. Stories by Marakou often begin during Stalin's repressions and Leonid Brezhnev's stagnation, and trace the fate of people resisting the regime. Marakou is a member of the oppositional Union of Writers of Belarus and a member of the International PEN.