Maxim Adamovich Bogdanovich (1891–1917) was a classic of Belarusian literature. He was born in Minsk into a teacher's family. Maxim grew up and studied in Nizhny Novgorod, where he first became known as a poet.
His father, Adam Yegorovich (1862–1940), was a scholar of ethnography and folklore and published a book titled "Survivals of the Ancient World-View among Belarusians." In 1896 he was transferred from Grodno to the Nizhny Novgorod Peasant Bank, and after the death of his wife he arrived in Nizhny with his young sons — six-year-old Vadim, five-year-old Maxim, and two-year-old Lyovushka. He carried with him a letter of introduction from the novelist Evgeny Chirikov to the young journalist and writer Maxim Gorky. From their very first meeting they became friends and even kinsmen by marriage — Adam Yegorovich wed Alexandra Pavlovna Volzhina, the sister of Gorky's wife. But this second marriage also ended in tragedy: Alexandra died in childbirth in 1899. Two of Adam Yegorovich's sisters moved to Nizhny with their families and helped him raise the children. The Bogdanoviches rented an apartment on Gruzinskaya, then on Kanatnaya Street (now Korolenko Street), which opened onto Napolno-Monastyrskaya — the present-day Belinsky Street — beyond which lay ravines marking the city's edge. The street was lined with wooden houses with yards and gardens. It was on Kanatnaya that Maxim spent his childhood and gymnasium years. He received his early education at home. In 1902 he enrolled in the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Gymnasium, where his brother was already studying. The boys were gifted, and their contact with their father's friends — Maxim Gorky and S. Shcherbakov, the gymnasium director who organized a physics and astronomy study circle — fostered in them a keen interest in science and literature. Maxim was close with his gymnasium classmates and with his cousins. They ran about the grounds of the Kremlin, admired the magnificent sunsets over the Volga River, loved to wander along the Otkos, went swimming, and rode with the adults by finnlyandchik (a light horse-drawn carriage) to Mokhovye Hills — a favorite leisure spot for Nizhny Novgorod residents. Belarusian speech rang through the large household, and Maxim loved his native language: he read books in it from his father's library and followed the newspapers. He studied ancient, Russian, and Belarusian history. He loved the poetry of Pushkin and Lermontov and read Gorky's books — which were always in their home, invariably inscribed by the author. At sixteen he sent his first story, "The Fiddler," to the Belarusian newspaper Nasha Niva in Vilna; it was published in the summer of 1907. The editors liked it and had no idea it had been written by a gymnasium student. His poems and stories, which he continued to write in Belarusian, went on appearing in the paper. Maxim Bogdanovich is a remarkable phenomenon in literature. From the age of five he lived in central Russia on the banks of the Volga, yet even as a youth he thought about the revival of Belarusian literature and the spiritual awakening of his people. He was in a hurry to learn as much as possible, as though sensing that fate had not left him much time. It was here, on Kanatnaya, that the seventeen-year-old elder brother Vadim died of consumption. The Bogdanovich boys had weak lungs. In 1908 their father was transferred to Yaroslavl, where Maxim completed gymnasium and entered the Yaroslavl Law Lyceum. In 1911 he visited his native Belarus. Two years later, in the city of Vilna, the first book by the singer-poet Maxim Bogdanovich — Vyanak (Wreath) — was published. In 1914 he paid his last visit to the city of his childhood, Nizhny, and gave the book to relatives. That same year he wrote the story "The Shaman," in which he puts into the mouth of his hero an expression of wonder at the Volga and at Nizhny Novgorod itself. "We approach it by steamboat, and there it is, spread across the whole hillside, the hill all green. Through that greenery peeks the kremlin, white in places and red in others… church domes soaring, their crosses shimmering in the sun… How beautiful it is on our Volga!.. Such open space, such open space!.. How bright — as though red gold has been sprinkled across the river… At night we draw near Nizhny, a sea of lights… The Yarmarka beyond the Oka… glowing and sparkling, music thundering in the Main House…" The First World War was under way. After completing his studies at the Yaroslavl Lyceum in 1916, Bogdanovich came to Minsk to take part in relief work for refugees. He worked intensely, and his health deteriorated. With money raised by friends, Maxim left for Crimea, but the treatment, alas, was no longer of any help. He died of tuberculosis on 25 May 1917 in Yalta. The poems and stories of Maxim Bogdanovich have been translated into many languages. His name stands alongside those of the classics of Belarusian literature — Yanka Kupala and Yakub Kolas. In our city, on 6 January 1984, a memorial plaque to M. Bogdanovich was installed on the building where he studied (now Ulyanova Street, 1, which houses the pedagogical university). One of the streets of Nizhny Novgorod bears the name of Maxim Bogdanovich. In the translation of Nizhny Novgorod residents Arkady Barakhovich, his poems were published in our city. …And pressing dimly on the heart — Echoes of my sorrowing Fate, my song Rising from the Belarusian field…