The article discusses how The Belorussian writer Leonid Dajneko depicts World War I in his novels ‘People and Lightning’ and ‘Remember Yourself Young’. It is argued that the novels have some typological links with the books of Dajneko’s predecessors, Z. Byadulya, A. Harodnya, M. Haretsky, and K. Chorny. Among the links are the psychological portrayal of a peasant who accidentally went to the war; understanding of the changes which took place in the consciousness of the hero who had radically changed their social status; stories about the impact of German ‘Ordnung’ on the inhabitants of the occupied territories. Special emphasis is laid on the ‘lynching’ episode in a novel: the soldiers took revenge on their officer. It shows the narrator’s attitude to the problems of Belarusian statehood obtained during the war.