Editing Pyotr Masherov (section)

==Early life and career==
===Birth===
[[File:Piotr-masherov-i-brat-pavel.jpg|thumb|left|Masherov (on left) with his brother Pavel, 1930s.|217x217px]]
Pyotr Mironovich Mashero was born on 26 February 1919 in the village of Shirki, [[Sennensky Uyezd]], in the [[Socialist Soviet Republic of Lithuania and Belorussia]]. According to family legend his great-grandfather was a soldier in the army of [[Napoleon]] who settled in modern-day Belarus rather than returning to France.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Dovnar-Zapolsky|first=Andrey|date=20 February 2008|title=Did Masherov have French ancestors?|url=https://www.kp.ru/daily/24053.4/104508/|access-date=21 July 2021|website=Komsomolskaya Pravda}}</ref> Pyotr's father was Miron Vasilyevich Mashero<ref>{{Cite web|date=13 December 2016|title=Victims of Political Terror in the USSR|url=http://lists.memo.ru/d22/f168.htm|access-date=18 July 2021}}</ref> and his mother was Daria Petrovna Lyakhovskaya. Pyotr had seven siblings, of whom four survived to adulthood.

===Education===
Masherov's education was troublesome; though he graduated primary school, he originally only received a partial secondary education. He had to walk 18 kilometres (roughly 11 miles) to and from school, on homemade skis during the winter.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Ioffe|first=Emmanuel|title=From Myasnikov to Malofeyev: the Rulers of the BSSR|year=2008|location=Minsk|pages=132}}</ref> During weekends, Masherov, as well as his father Miron and his brother Pavel, worked part-time jobs loading logs into railway cars.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book|last=Velichko|first=Vladimir|title=His Heart was Beating for the People|publisher=|year=|pages=48}}</ref>

According to the memoirs of Masherov's sister Olga, during the early 1930s the family lived hand-to-mouth, both due to harsh weather conditions and incompetency on the recently formed [[kolkhoz]]. The Mashero family was assisted by Pyotr's sister Matryona, who lived in Vitebsk and transferred bread and sugar to Shirki.<ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite book|last=Masherova|first=Olga|title=Our Roots|publisher=|year=|pages=75}}</ref>

[[Image:Личный_листок_Машерова.jpg|thumb|left|Masherov's personnel sheet, circa 1946, on display at the [[National Archives of Belarus]].|255x255px]]

In 1933 Masherov moved to Dvorishche, in [[Rasony District]], where his older brother Pavel was a teacher in history and geography. Returning to school, he completed secondary education in 1934 and went to the [[Vitebsk State University]] where he studied to be a teacher in physics and mathematics. He was very active in sports during his studies, participating in both skiing and skating. Masherov graduated in 1939 and became a teacher the same year.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Masherova|first=Olga|title=Our Roots|publisher=|year=|pages=77–79}}</ref>

Tragedy struck the family in 1937, when Miron was arrested on charges of "anti-Soviet agitation" and sentenced to ten years of corrective labour during the [[Great Purge]]. He died shortly afterwards. He would later be rehabilitated for lack of evidence, but Pyotr and Pavel were forced to become the family's breadwinners.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book|last1=Kandybovich|first1=S. L.|title=Pyotr Masherov in the historical memory of the Belarusian diaspora in Russia|last2=Solopova|first2=O. V.|publisher=|year=|pages=11}}</ref>

From 1939 until 1941, Masherov worked as a teacher of physics and mathematics at the secondary school in Rasony. He proved to be popular among the students and was respected in the area.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Shutskiy|first=V. P.|title=On the Origins of the Partisan Movement|publisher=|year=|pages=96}}</ref> Masherov also supervised the work of the school's drama circle and would even star in some plays, such as [[Alexander Ostrovsky]]'s ''[[The Forest (play)|The Forest]]''.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Masherova|first=Olga|title=Our Roots|publisher=|year=|pages=81}}</ref>