Charot, Mikhas

(pen name of Mikhail Semenovich Kudzel’ka). Born Oct. 26 (Nov. 7), 1896, in the settlement of Rudensk, in what is now Minsk Oblast; died Dec. 14, 1938. Soviet Byelorussian poet. Member of the CPSU from 1920.

Charot, the son of poor peasants, served in the Civil War of 1918–20. He was one of the leaders of the literary organization Molodniak. Charot first published his works in 1918. The poetry collections The Snowstorm (1922) and The Sunny Ways (1929) and the narrative poems The Barefoot Fire-Walkers (1922), Lenin (1924), and Byelorussia in Lapti (1924) reflected the heroic deeds accomplished during the Great October Socialist Revolution and the great changes that took place in the life of the Byelorussian people in the years of Soviet power. Charot was also the author of the collection of short stories Spring Has Come (1924) and the folk drama On St. John’s Night (1921).