Ciotka (Цётка), poet, teacher, political leader. The pseudonym of Alojza Paškievič (also spelled Aloiza Pashkevich). She was born on the Pieščyn estate, Ščučyna township, Vilna province, on July 15, 1876. Paškievič graduated from a private girls' school in Vilna and studied at the Courses of Higher Education, the Lesgaft Courses, in St. Petersburg and the Universities of Cracow and L'vov. Even prior to the Revolution of 1905 she was closely involved in the revolutionary movement: she organized clandestine meetings, women's groups, and distributed proclamations. From the beginning of her revolutionary involvement, Ciotka was a devoted promoter of Belarusian culture and Belarusian political ideas. As soon as the ban on the Belarusian language was lifted, following the 1905 Revolution, Ciotka gave all her energy to setting up a nation-wide network of Belarusian education and publishing. She became a steady contributor to the newspaper Naša Niva, translated several primers, and compiled and wrote several of her own. Through education and books, Ciotka wanted to raise a new generation of nationally-aware Belarusians. In 1914 Ciotka started a magazine for young people, Łučynka, the first of its kind for Belarusians. Ciotka was known at the same time as a talented and successful revolutionary poet. Many of her revolutionary verses were distributed as leaflets in tens of thousands of copies. She also wrote prose and published several memoir-type works. The theme of social and national oppression were dominant in her literary works. She called people to be freedom fighters, she aroused patriotic feelings in the masses, and gave them the notion of national self-esteem and independence.

Ciotka died prematurely of an illness on February 2, 1916. She did not live to see the development of the Belarusian movement, but she belongs to the group of those who prepared the ground for this movement and, as a poet and Belarusian leader, she belongs to the vanguard of the Belarusian national and political elite responsible for subsequent events.

References: Bieł. Sav. Enc., vol. 11, 1974, pp. 108-109; Baćkaŭščyna, Munich, no. 634, March 1966; Byelorussian Youth, Brooklyn, N.Y., 24, 1966, p. 5; Biełaruski Śviet, Grand Rapids, Mich., no. 9(28), 1981, pp. 4-6.

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