Biography of Valery Skakun

Afanasy Botyanovsky with a poet, a bard, prose writer Valery Skakun, I met in the spring of the year at a collection of the Minsk Literary Club Equator. The club was created in the year, and at that time it included about a dozen people. The Belarusian poet and writer Vyacheslav Korbut headed the “equator”. Valera Skakun was that day with a guitar, sang his songs, read several verses.

According to his piercing poems and songs, it was felt that this person experienced a lot, experienced, but difficulties did not break, but on the contrary, tempered him, strengthened faith in themselves, in their significance. We very quickly, easily made friends, as often happens with unfamiliar, but spiritually close people. Valera was an open, sincere man, on the first day of his acquaintance, he spoke with me as confidential as if we were familiar for several years.

From his story about himself, I learned that he was the author of several collections, that Vyacheslav Korbuta knows for more than 20 years and that with him at the beginning of X he went to Litobobean, which was headed by the famous Belarusian writer Ales Masarenko. My further stay in Litklub allowed me to get to know Valera Skakun closer, fortunately, there were opportunities for this: Valera constantly visited the club’s literary assemblies, and took a great hunt in all kinds of, including visiting, concerts.

We talked from the year to March, right up to the death of Valera. I would like to tell a little about this man ... His sinewy, a figure spoke not so much about strength as about endurance, about hidden internal energy, about a mighty character. With his knowledge of people, with his wise simplicity, his nomadic, in his youth, the way of life, the horseman reminded me a little Maxim Gorky.

Many refined intellectuals who have never raised anything heavier than a pencil should have learned hard work and living wisdom from Valera's Hall. For all the love of art, Valery never lost his head. Although literature classes were very important for the horse, nevertheless, it was not literature in the first place for him, but life, communication with people, family, work.

Valera did not perceive literature separately from life, it was in her, in life, he drew inspiration, it was her life, he tried to display in his work. And he completely succeeded: in the works of the horse there is little water and empty detachment, but a lot of life truth. It seemed that there were few valera and songs alone for self -expression, so I was not surprised to learn that the horse began to work on prose.

Valera Skakun spoke and wrote mainly in the Belarusian language. Once, to my question, where he learned the Belarusian language so well, the horse replied that he knew the language from school, and added that he was born in the village, and there, in his village, everyone knows his native language well. It must be noted that the Belarusian language of the horse was clean, he did not say on a trash.

Sometimes conversations with him came about history, often they turned into disputes. I remember that we somehow argued that it was better, the republic or monarchy, but Valera wisely allowed the dispute, saying that with any government, it would be necessary to work with any system. Many artists, according to my observations, are refined, spoiled, selfish, people who require comfortable conditions for creativity and generally for life.

But Valery Skakuna did not pamper, she loaded him, wiped, threw it ... It would seem not to work here. But Valera composed: at night after work, at home, on the road, he wrote when he worked in the north. And also read, read a lot: Jack London, Korotkevich, Bykov ...

In terms of well readiness, he would give a head start to many people with higher education. The horseman often called himself a poet, appreciated this word, but did not trump them and did not like to contrast the townsfolves, believed that “we are all in a sense of the townsfolk” and was most likely in this rights. However, between the inhabitants of the smart and the inhabitants of the Narious, he led a clear border.

Once Valera with a laugh told me about his friend who gave him advice: “Do not write poetry, otherwise you will get into a madhouse, everyone who write poetry falls into a madhouse ...” This friend, the former classmate of Valera, sincerely perplexed, once asked him: “Well, what is the poet? How can you be a poet if you had a three in chemistry at school? He said: “I was an employee at the panenki, and my sisters were panels, but I didn’t want to be an eternal servant, which is why I began to study and read a lot ...” It is always not easy to survive in the environment where you are not appreciated and where they do not believe in you.

Valera said that he was a native of a simple peasant family, a teacher at school did not allocate him, and some, on the contrary, treated him with neglect. Once at a class meeting, the teacher, praising the children from the family of richer, looked towards children from families simpler and said: “And these are future drunkards.” These offensive words were abandoned and Valery Skakun, too ...

can such things be said?Is there so much inner power in Valera, so much craving for good and bright that he wanted to throw off the label, given to him with a silly teacher, and prove that God gives the talent of the one whom he himself wants to endow, and not the one who is richer and more cunning? Being 20 years older than me, suitable for my fathers by age, I remember, he asked me once to contact him not “on you”, but “on you”.

For all the modesty of the character of Valera, the feeling of the significance of his literary classes was inherent, he very much appreciated the participation in the literary life of the “equator” and spoke inspiredly about the almanacs, who were published by five numbers: “They read us, wearing about us, but they will really read us in a year, we will study us, money for us.” It sounded a little naive, but very colorful.

It should be noted that Valera had a good taste. Many random authors, who were in our Litklub, there were many, he reproached for the lack of taste, for vulgarity. The reserve officer, the patriot of his country, Valera Skakun loved to act in military units. In the last year of his life, Valera was very tired. According to his wrinkled tired face, on a strong cough it felt that he needed to take a break ...

But Valera put off everything and put off his vacation. To be in good shape, he drank strong tea and coffee, smoked a cigarette one after one and worked, worked: for himself, for his family, for his wife, his son ... Valera was full of plans and ideas, he wanted to publish a new book of poems, release a disk of songs, join the Union of Writers. Death prevented the implementation of his plans.

The worker, the patriot of his family, the man who traveled almost the entire Soviet Union at work, he died on the road, in a trolley, going home from work ... A philosophical man, a romantic man, a peasant man, a man-poet ... That's how I remembered the Belarusian poet, prose writer and bard Valery Credakun.