Sergiusz Piasecki

Sergiusz Piasecki was born on April 1, 1901 in Lachowicze in the Northwestern Krai of the Russian Empire. His father was an ethnic Pole, who worked as a Russian nobleman, named Mikhail Pieasecki. His mother was a Belarusian servant named Klaudia Kukalowicz who became impregnated by Mikhail.

Sergiusz was shunned by his biological family and was raised by his stepmother, Filomena Gruszewska. He was openly hated both at home by Gruszewska and at school, where children jeered him with ethnic slurs against his Polish heritage.

His education ended at the equivalent of seventh grade after a reported incident of violence. He brought a weapon into school and was later convicted for assaulting one teacher.

After being jailed for armed assault, Piasecki somehow managed to escape from prison. He never returned to school after the debacle.

In December 1917, he was in Moscow, Russia. He witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution.

Within months, he declared himself an avid anti-Communist. He then joined a Belarusian anti-Soviet militia named 'Green Oak'. The ‘Green Oak’ militia was commanded by the warlord Wiaczeslaw Adamowicz.

In February 1919, the Soviet Union invaded Poland. Polish troops soon captured and occupied the city of Minsk. When Adamowicz and his militia participated in the assault, Piasecki was rewarded with a scholarship to attend a Polish military academy.

On August 13, 1920, Sergiusz and the Polish Army fought the ‘Battle of Radzymin’. Although the fighting was fierce, he survived the battle unwounded.

Piasecki's novel ‘The Lover of Ursa Major’ has been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Yiddish, Czech, Hungarian, Russian, Estonian and Belorussian. The popular novel played a prominent role in the life of this famous writer as he shot to fame with this publication and was even pardoned from his prison sentence.