Vasil Bykaŭ was born in the village Byčki, not far from Viciebsk in 1924. In 1941 he was in Ukraine when Germany attacked the USSR. At first seventeen-year-old Bykaŭ dug trenches – then he volunteered for the Red Army. He was arrested and almost shot as a German spy. For years after the war he continued to serve, returning to the USSR only in the mid-1950s. There he started to work as a journalist for the Hrodna Pravda newspaper. In that same decade his first novellas began to come out, of which the most famous are "The Ordeal", "The Obelisk", "To Go and Not Return", and "To Live Till Sunrise". "The Ordeal", titled "Liquidation" by the author himself, but originally published under the title "Sotnikaŭ" after the main character, inspired director Larisa Shepitko's film "The Ascent", released in 1977 and winner of the Golden Bear award at the 27th Berlin International Film Festival. During and after the Perestroika, he participated in pro-reform movement (e.g. Popular Front of Belarus). In October 1993, he signed the Letter of Forty-Two.