Siarhiej Paà Âujan (; 19 October 1890, Brahin â 20 April 1910, Kyiv) was a Belarusian writer, journalist and theatre and literary critic.
Paà Âujan was born in Brahin (now a district capital in Homel Province), into a large family. His father worked as a tenant farmer but was later able to purchase a farm in Kryà ¡yÃÂy à(now in KalinkaviÃÂy District, Homel Province), where Paà Âujan would spend most of his childhood. He first studied in Mazyr at a six-year secondary school, and later at a gymnasium in Mitava (now Jelgava, Latvia). Threatened with expulsion for anti-government activities, he terminated his studies and returned to Belarus where he worked on his father's farm.
Paà Âujan's involvement in the 1905 revolution àresulted in estrangement from his father. He left the farm and went to Kyiv where he earned a modest living publishing articles and reviews in Ukrainian periodicals and doing temporary work as a tutor and proofreader, etc. In 1908, he joined the governing body of the Belarusian Socialist Assembly.
Between 1909 and 1910,àPaà Âujan lived in Vilnia and was employed by Nasha Niva. There he met prominent Belarusian literary figures, such as Janka Kupala and Cià ¡ka Hatrny. He persuaded the editors of Nasha Niva to publish poems of Maksim BahdanoviÃÂ, which the editors initially considered "incomprehensible to people". This resulted in friendship between the writers (evidenced by the fact that BahdanoviÃÂ's collection Wreath was dedicated to the memory of Paà Âujan).
In March 1910, Paà Âujan abruptly terminated his seemingly successful literature career with Naà ¡a Niva and returned to Kyiv. On the night of 20 April, in his twentieth year, he committed suicide.
Apart from his literary works "Village" and "Christ is Risen!", Paà Âujan is known for his literary reviews (such as "Belarusian literature in 1909", "Belarusian poetry in its typical representatives", review of Jakub Kolas's textbook "Second reading for Belarusian children") and was described as âÂÂone of the founders of Belarusian professional literary criticismâÂÂ.
He is also known as a theatre critic (notable reviews being "Belarusian party in Vilnius" and "Belarusian parties") and researcher of Ukrainian culture and literature and Belarusian-Ukrainian literary ties.