Belarus and the ghosts of the wild hunt

Why are books being banned and their authors not permitted to fulfill with readers in immediately’s Belarus? Why are there artists who can’t exhibit their works, and whose concert events are banned? Why do writers in growing numbers discover themselves behind bars, with the consequence {that a} vital a part of our up to date literary scene – in addition to our classical writers of a century and extra in the past – now consists of jail literature? Why does the Belarusian language undergo discrimination, marginalisation and, in the end, destruction much more severely than in Soviet instances? And this in a rustic that’s nonetheless referred to as Belarus!

Some will say that it’s because now we have in our nation an age-old, cruel battle of cultures, by which one in all them, believing itself to be higher and superior, tries to dominate the opposite and destroy it. Others will keep that we’re coping with a battle in opposition to tradition typically, waged by one thing completely bereft of any tradition. I’m not going to attract any ultimate conclusions. As an alternative, I’ll limit myself to touching upon two points. The primary is to ask how far concern of tradition and hatred of books can go. The second is to ask what this tradition and the books it produces are at instances able to attaining.

Calibanism

No, that isn’t a typo.

Oscar Wilde as soon as wrote ‘It’s the spectator, and never life, that artwork actually mirrors’. I’ve at all times thought this to be a tremendous flip of phrase, even when too paradoxically exaggerated. Wilde goes on to call this explicit spectator, when he writes of the trend of Shakespeare’s Caliban at seeing (or not seeing) his personal face in a mirror.

I now realise that the grasp of paradox was not exaggerating. This 12 months Belarusians have been in a position to see a Caliban with their very own eyes. And never only one: they’ve witnessed the entire idea of state calibanism. The Miensk Metropolis Prosecutor’s workplace is packed to the rafters with Calibans, who in August 2023 delivered a verdict on a number of works of literature by naming them ‘extremist’.

It’s not solely up to date authors who discovered themselves on the checklist; so did classics of the 20th and even nineteenth centuries. It’s uncommon certainly for authors who died way back to fall foul of the legislation immediately. There’s, for example, the well-known playwright Vincent Dunin-Marcinkievič (1808–1884); streets are named after him and statues erected in his honour in our cities and cities. The query of demolition of statues and renaming of streets has not but arisen; a extra ‘elegant’ answer has been discovered. It’s completely doable for just one a part of a e book to be seen as prison. Two verses from a bit of quantity of our playwright’s works, and the introduction to the e book written by a up to date literary scholar. With out attempting to mimic what occurs within the movie Lifeless Poets’ Society, allow us to now, my expensive college students, all tear out of our copies these pages of the introduction. Come on, don’t be shy, and don’t overlook these two verses, tear them out too!

There are occasions when the regime’s hatred of sure authors is clear. Take, for instance, our up to date Uladzimir Niakliajeū, who just isn’t solely a widely-known poet, however who additionally entered politics and took part within the 2010 presidential race. On election day he was attacked by members of the safety companies wearing plain garments and brought to the emergency division of a hospital. He was kidnapped from there, and for a number of days his household had no thought whether or not he was nonetheless alive. Finally he was discovered within the KGB jail. He spent forty days there and was then saved below home arrest for a number of months. He took no direct half within the 2020 presidential marketing campaign, besides was repeatedly hauled in for questioning and in the end compelled to go away Belarus. Not for the primary time in his life, he now lives overseas. An apparent extremist!

One other e book considered as extremist is the one by Łarysa Hieniuš (1910–1983), a poet who lived in emigration. After the tip of the Second World Battle she was forcibly faraway from Czechoslovakia to the USSR and sentenced to 25 years in a labour camp. She spent eight years there. However her spirit was by no means damaged. She continued to assist different prisoners along with her poetry. They got here to treat it as ‘glucose’, so nice was the energy they derived from what she wrote. After being freed, she refused to take Soviet citizenship, and lived out the remainder of her life below surveillance by the safety companies. She has by no means been rehabilitated. All that has been achieved is to formally cut back her sentence to the interval she really spent within the camp. No doubt an extremist!

Then there’s the e book by one other poet within the diaspora, Natallia Arsieńnieva (1903–1997). Her patriotic prayer-like poem ‘Almighty God’ has been the unofficial anthem of a number of generations of the Belarusian opposition, however it reached the peak of its fame throughout the Belarusian road protests of 2020. This was the hymn carried out by masked musicians and singers wherever folks gathered; it was from these protest performances that the well-known ‘Free Choir’ ultimately grew. In fact, the writer of a piece that’s extremist in each single observe couldn’t be something however an extremist herself.

The Calibans from the Prosecutor’s Workplace might cope with all these. However now begins probably the most attention-grabbing half, the purpose at which they must face a mirror. The fifth merchandise on the checklist of extremist literature is the collected works of Lidzija Arabiej (1925–2015), a author that one would have thought completely innocent for the regime. I used to be amazed once I examine this as a result of I had grown up on her kids’s writings and noticed nothing seditious in them. A number of days later I positioned a duplicate of the ‘condemned’ e book in query and started to leaf by way of it fastidiously – and I used to be dumbstruck once more once I got here throughout her story ‘The white Pomeranian’.

It’s essential at this level to make a quick digression into the research of Man’s Greatest Good friend. The nub of the difficulty is that the third place on the checklist of the best-known sources of jokes and memes in Belarus, after the illegitimate president and his equally illegitimate son Kolia, is occupied by a bit of white Pomeranian. His title is Umka and he’s a home pet. Apparently Łukašenka’s most dependable buddy, Umka first began showing on Belarusian information broadcasts within the spring of 2020. That’s to say, a couple of months earlier than the routine falsification of elections and the explosion of protests and repression. On the peak of the pandemic.

In April 2020 the dictator – one of many few leaders on this planet to overtly deny the existence of the coronavirus – was peacefully planting pine bushes for the good thing about tv cameras; and in a basket there was a bit of white canine. It wasn’t lengthy earlier than conspiracy theorists maintained that the pair of them – the little canine and his grasp – had been meant to attract Belarusians’ consideration away from the issues of the pandemic.

In one other TV programme Łukašenka was seen chopping wooden whereas the white Pomeranian ran round barking. He (the Pomeranian, not Łukašenka) might later be noticed sitting on the desk just like the lord of the manor, taking tid-bits from plates whereas his mate was giving an interview to a overseas journalist. On the feast of the Baptism of Jesus, Łukašenka even supplied him some holy water to drink; regrettably, the white Pomeranian refused to partake. And so it was {that a} third camera-ready newsmaker emerged in Belarus, after ‘Kolia’s daddy’ and Kolia himself.

That is the place Lidzija Arabiej’s story is available in. Allow us to attempt to image the response of the Calibans of the Prosecutor’s Workplace. They see that horrible title within the e book’s checklist of contents, they open the e book on the appropriate web page and discover that they aren’t hallucinating, however that there actually is a narrative referred to as ‘The White Pomeranian’. To make issues worse, it ends with the much more horrifying phrases, ‘Drop dead, you bastard’. It’s not of any curiosity to anybody that the comment was directed at neither the Pomeranian nor his grasp.

The 1975 takes readers again to the Miensk winter of 1943 below Nazi occupation, to the starvation of the time, and to the black market as the one technique of not dying of it. A girl brings to market a pot stuffed with mouth-watering sizzling potato pancakes… At this level the Belarusian coronary heart of the censors begins to beat joyfully, they virtually handle to relax, however sadly that wretched white Pomeranian makes an look. And never solely that, he’s misplaced his grasp.

What’s this, then? ‘It has lost its master.’ Does it imply that they, officers of state who know solely how you can search no matter just isn’t permitted after which forbid it, have misplaced their employer? What are they to do? Their empathy for the hero of the story grows vastly, whereas at this very second the Pomeranian himself … Let me quote the ‘extremist’ Lidzija Arabiej:

Then the canine turned to the girl, the dispenser of the potato pancakes, and, as if he had instantly remembered one thing, sat up on his hind paws and started ‘sitting pretty’. He tried arduous to beg on this manner for a while, he appeared happy to have the ability to stay so lengthy in what was for him an uncomfortable pose, his eyes gazed at her with devotion and sincerity, pleasure and hope…

His entrance paws hung trembling like rags, his pink tongue trembled – there was drool dripping from it, the canine was making an enormous effort to keep up his place, it was as if his complete physique was saying: have a look at how arduous I’m attempting for you, how arduous I wish to please you, I certainly deserve a reward, don’t I?

‘Clear off.’ Finally the girl had had sufficient and brandished a fork at him.

No two methods about it, that’s a daunting prospect. Ban the e book directly! However then the state-appointed readers see how the story ends. The little canine has one other feeling, one that’s stronger than starvation. Out of the blue he sees a member of the occupying forces strolling by and begins to bark at him with all his would possibly. The person in a overseas army uniform takes fright and retreats. This delights the Belarusians on the market a lot that the little canine receives an surprising (and long-awaited) reward:

The canine continued to face and bark at him as he retreated from the scene; he barked with all his doggy would possibly, he barked till he was hoarse, till he despaired of ever barking once more. When he had quietened down a bit of he heard an unknown voice behind him:

‘Who’s an excellent doggie, then?’

And a bit of heat, aromatic pancake plopped down on the snow in entrance of him.

And that very same voice went on:

‘What a clever little pooch. Drop dead, you bastard.’

Critical researchers of Lidzija Arabiej’s work might fairly probably object to what I say and provide a special clarification for her ‘extremism’. They’ll point out tales within the e book that cope with the epoch of Stalinism and repressions, with the sentences handed all the way down to ‘enemies of the people’ and the households that had been separated when the youngsters had been ordered to resign their ‘criminal’ mother and father or given new names and life tales, in order that it grew to become inconceivable for the mother and father to search out them even after rehabilitation. They’ll point out the story One Chilly Could which portrays the work of the key companies, who drive folks to spy on their nearest and dearest and denounce them. I’ll agree with them and add that the present-day servants of the dictatorial regime really feel themselves to be the heirs and successors of Stalin’s thugs; that explains why repressions have as soon as once more develop into a taboo subject.

However, I get pleasure from imagining how this explicit story concerning the white Pomeranian was the one which our Calibans’ eyes stumbled throughout, and the way they realised that masters unavoidably die and that their lackeys are left with nothing after years of service on their hind paws besides being instructed to ‘clear off’. They’ve lengthy had a alternative in entrance of them; both go on serving or begin barking. I believe they will need to have skilled a surge of rage on the writer when this thought occurred to them. Nonetheless, the thought is now caught of their heads and isn’t going to go away.

Letters of Hope

Uladzimir Karatkievič (1930–1984) is the author of whom Belarusians are most fond; his works should not but burning on bonfires or hidden away in particular labeled, closed library collections, and haven’t even but been deemed extremist. Nonetheless, his most well-known novel, Ears Of Corn Beneath Your Sickle was this 12 months instantly withdrawn from the college syllabus. Maybe this was as a result of the Calibans might see themselves unmistakably mirrored within the writer’s mirror and realised the menace.

The novel is dedicated to the religious and mental maturation of the Belarusian elite, to the youthful technology who took half within the anti-Russian rebellion of 1863. The rebellion was savagely suppressed by imperial troops, and its leaders annihilated. Certainly one of them was Kastuś Kalinoŭski, included by Karatkievič as a personality within the novel. This will clarify why the writer accomplished the primary two volumes of the e book however didn’t end it; he was unable to take occasions as much as the homicide of his beloved heroes.

This novel, together with different works by Karatkievič, acquired cult standing. Within the Soviet instances folks would queue exterior bookshops every time a brand new e book of his appeared. (The author himself mentioned, ‘You need to write in such a way as to make people steal your books from libraries. They steal mine.’) His books made such a strong impression on readers, particularly younger folks, that they started to take an curiosity in Belarusian historical past and tradition. Even when they’d been raised in Russian-speaking households, they usually switched to utilizing Belarusian.

In 2020 – on the eve of the falsification of the presidential elections and the following mass protests and brutal repressions – Belarusian web customers often quoted one explicit extract from the novel. It units out the true nature of Russian imperial reactionary coverage in the course of the nineteenth century:

It was a horrible, arduous time.

The complete immense empire had already been mendacity moribund for twenty-six years, ice-bound beneath a horrifying political frost that heaved like an amazing shaggy beast over its huge expanses. Those that tried to take deep breaths would freeze their lungs…

…There was no happiness wherever.

All the pieces was sacrificed to the idol of state energy.

The key phrases listed here are ‘twenty-six years’; in 2020 this was precisely the size of time that Belarus had been dominated by an illegitimate president. After the routine falsification of the election and the regime’s suffocation of our try at an rebellion, repressions had been intensified to an unprecedented degree of savagery, the remaining vestiges of legality lastly ceased to function, and the Russian imperial presence in Belarus grew to become rather more seen. The beginning of Putin’s battle in opposition to Ukraine demonstrated {that a} politically impartial Belarus not exists; the puppet dictator, now virtually utterly below the management of the Russian aggressor, is free to behave in a single space alone – administering unrestricted terror to his personal folks. There are millions of prisoners of conscience, a few of whom die in jail in mysterious circumstances. A whole bunch of hundreds of Belarusians have been compelled to go away their nation, those that keep behind reside in inward emigration. None of them can cease rockets flying in direction of Ukraine. There’s a metaphor that may be heard an increasing number of usually: Belarus is within the grip of a ‘wild hunt’.

The metaphor sends us but once more to Karatkievič, this time to his ‘gothic noir’ novel King Stakh’s Wild Hunt. You’ll be able to argue to your coronary heart’s content material about how precisely to elucidate makes an attempt to carry literature and actuality nearer collectively. How a lot do they depend upon writers’ perspicacity or skill to formulate issues which can be common and due to this fact at all times important? Or how a lot depends upon the story itself, one which goes spherical and spherical in a circle and offers us no probability ever to interrupt out of an everlasting nightmare. Both manner, each acutely aware Belarusian is conscious of simply how rather more related the Karatkievič story has as soon as once more develop into. It’s a story of colonial strain. Of the degradation of an ‘elite’ that suppresses its personal folks whereas abjectly serving the overseas masters. Of how a concern is engendered that paralyses and enslaves.

Nonetheless, it is usually a narrative of the cultural function of intellectuals in returning to us reminiscences that had been virtually completely erased by the occupying aggressors. A narrative of the energy of the powerless. Of non-violent resistance which can in the future not be sufficient, after which there might be no choice however to reply to violence with violence. Of the ‘soft power’ of affection that stops us from going mad when the darkness is at its most oppressive. Of solidarity and mutual assist amongst those that are threatened by a typical enemy. Each Belarusians and Ukrainians are concerned within the Karatkievič story, simply as they’re in actual life immediately.

The Belarusian Karatkievič entered the Taras Shevchenko College in Kyiv as a younger man. Right here he got here below the affect of mental pals who had been deeply concerned within the research of Ukrainian tradition; they impressed him to take a stronger curiosity within the tradition of Belarus. He ultimately conceived the thought for his novel and started to jot down it. The theme of Belarusian-Ukrainian unity runs proper by way of it, and there are particular autobiographical components within the determine of the younger mental Andrej Śviecilovič, a former scholar of Kyiv College. Right here is his dialogue with the novel’s protagonist Andrej Biełarecki:

‘Why did they exclude you from the university, Mr Śviecilovič?’

‘It all began with an event in memory of Shevchenko. Students of course were among the first. The authorities threatened to bring in the police,’ he even blushed. ‘So, we started shouting. And I yelled that if they so much as dared do such a thing within our sacred walls we would wash the shame from them with our blood. And the first bullet would be fired at the man who would give such an order. Then we poured out of the building, there was a tremendous hubbub, and I was grabbed. When they questioned me at the police station about my nationality, I answered, ‘You can write that I am a Ukrainian.’

‘Well said.’

‘I know that it was very risky for those who had joined the struggle.’

‘No, it was good for them too. A single answer like that is worth ten bullets. And that means that everyone is against the common enemy.’

The younger Belarusians who after the presidential election in 2006 – impressed by the Orange Revolution – put up tents on October Sq. (that they renamed Kalinoŭski Sq.) had undoubtedly learn Karatkievič. As certainly have those that are actually combating for Ukraine within the Kalinoŭski Regiment.

In opposition to the background of battle, a superbly comprehensible strategy of renaming Ukrainian streets obtained below manner. The Ukrainian literary scholar and translator of Karatkievič, the poet Vyacheslav Levytsky, put ahead a proposal to alter the title of Dobrolyubov Avenue in Kyiv to Karatkievič Avenue. His proposal was ultimately adopted.

That is what Levytsky wrote:

I hope {that a} road bearing this title will assist to clean over a minimum of a number of the misunderstandings between Ukrainians and Belarusians who oppose dictatorship. I would love this renaming to be proof of our respect for and gratitude to the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment, Belarusian partisans and all these free-spirited Belarusians who discover alternatives to assist Ukrainians.

Many because of Vyacheslav and to everybody in Ukraine who voted in assist of his proposal! By the way in which, there isn’t a road in Miensk named after Uladzimir Karatkievič. I don’t want to elucidate why not, do I?

However, two complete operas have been based mostly on the Karatkievič novel King Stakh’s Wild Hunt. The primary was written by the composer Uładzimir Sołtan. The premiere happened within the Miensk Opera again in 1989. It was revived in 2021, expanded with materials from the composer’s archive and with new units and particular results within the Gothic model. Nonetheless, life itself proved to be the principle Gothic particular impact: the staging of the opera collided with the Calibanist censors.

The problem right here was a vital phrase reduce out of the libretto when the riders on the wild hunt frighten the mistress of the palace with the decision ‘Raman in the twentieth generation, come on out!’ This will conceivably be as a result of, on 12 November 2020 on the peak of the protests throughout the courtyards of residence blocks, Raman Bandarenka was crushed to demise by ‘persons unknown’. He had gone all the way down to the yard in entrance of the block the place he lived, leaving a observe on his Telegram chat ‘I’m going out!’ His murderers in masks had been suspiciously harking back to the antiheroes from Karatkievič’s e book.

The second model of the opera appeared this 12 months, and I used to be lucky sufficient to work on the libretto. The music was written by Volha Padhajskaja, the administrators had been Mikałaj Chalezin and Natalla Kalada, and the conductor was Important Aleksiajonak. The premiere was held on the stage of London’s Barbican Arts Centre. It’s troublesome to think about a extra becoming ensemble for immediately: actors from the Belarus Free Theatre that continues to exist in compelled emigration and Ukrainian opera singers.

The Belarusian actors spoke their components, and the Ukrainian individuals sang – in Belarusian. It was important for Belarusians to listen to this now, at a time of trials, traumas, wrongs and synthetic divisions. I believe that it was necessary for the Ukrainians too to listen to about how a lot Ukraine meant to the beloved Belarusian author.

I had the privilege and pleasure of working with the Ukrainians on their Belarusian pronunciation. Our languages are very shut lexically, however utterly completely different phonetically; it is vitally simple to inform when a foreigner is talking. The musical ear of the Ukrainian singers had a job to play right here: their pronunciation on stage could be the envy of many voters of Belarus.

I can’t say whether or not it was the magnificent composer or the excellent singers Tamara Kalinkina and Olena Arbuzova who performed a better half in making the character of Nadzieja Janoŭskaja within the opera extra highly effective, emancipated and vivid than the relatively passive picture of the heroine within the unique e book. In my humble opinion Nadzeja’s components had been probably the most highly effective and unforgettable. Fairly probably, anything would have been unthinkable after the protests of 2020 and the function ladies performed in them.

The premiere was attended by Belarusians from numerous cities, nations and even continents, the Belarusians and Ukrainians of London got here, however a lot of the viewers was British. There have been 4 performances, every one performed to a full home. After every efficiency there have been shouts of ‘Slava Ukraini’ (Glory to Ukraine) and ‘Žyvie Biełarus’ (Lengthy reside Belarus), and naturally again got here the replies ‘Heroyam slava’ (Glory to the Heroes) and ‘Žyvie viečna’ (Could it reside perpetually).

Awaiting the viewers, there was on every seat a ‘Letter of Hope’, a postcard in an envelope ready by the organisers, designed and signed by Ukrainian kids who had suffered from the battle. Some had misplaced their house, a few of them had misplaced their father on the entrance, some had misplaced each mother and father in a bombardment. Nonetheless, within the letters there are not any complaints of ache – fairly the alternative, they present a need to assist those that learn them; maybe the readers are additionally going by way of a troublesome time. There are expressions of affection in them, even an urge to joke.

‘There are times when you have to lose something in order to find something new,’ writes Lev, fourteen years outdated.

‘Don’t fear, I’ll at all times be with you,’ writes Sasha.

‘Be kind and kindness will come back to you,’ writes Valik, 9 years of age.

On his postcard Artyom from the Kherson area has this to say: ‘Never give up. Respect your parents. If you don’t respect them, I’ll come and chew your ear off.’

The Barbican theatre seats 1,500 folks; 4 performances imply 6,000 letters. I collected 4 of them and maintain them secure.

 

This translation was supported by the S. Fischer Basis. The article was first revealed in Dekoder in German as a part of the sequence ‘Belarus – glimpsing the future’.