Belarusian Books

Сяргей Дубавец. Майстроўня: Гісторыя аднаго цуду. Радыё Свабодная Эўропа / Радыё Свабода, 2012. ISBN 978-0-929849-45-4

This is a very fine book - fifty interviews with founders and participants of Majstroŭnia, an informal group of mostly young then people, which effectively became the precursor of the Belarusian national revival at the end of the Soviet Union era. The group existed in 1979-1984 in Minsk; it attracted dozens, possibly hundreds of mostly students, for its weekly singing gatherings, folk celebrations and dramatic performances. And all this - in Belarusian which was the language hardly anyone hoped for to survive for another generation. Majstroŭcy themselves talk about it as a miracle - miracle for the group to appear and survive in the thoroughly Soviet Belarus for so long; miracle for each of them to find a way there; miracle of what followed...

Majstroŭnia is, perhaps, the brightest episode of the dissident movement in the Soviet Belarus. For the majority of its participants, the group was about folk traditions, language and identity - about belonging to something that was very much alive in their hearts, but hardly existed anywhere else. The group, however, was led by a tiny nucleus of leaders who understood from the very beginning that being Belarusian in Belarus was itself a subversive act; speaking Belarusian was the first step to shaking the centuries-old shackles.

When Majstroŭnia was dispersed in 1984 by KGB, it soon re-emerged in multiple cultural, formal and informal initiatives which led to Talaka, Martyralioh Bielarusi and Belarusian Popular Front - to the Belarusian independence in 1991.

A book on the events of the apprising of 1863 in Viliejka paviet is about to be published by the Knihazbor publishing house. The book’s title is “Падзеі паўстання 1863 г. на Вілейшчыне: гістарычныя на­рысы” (Events of the 1863 Appraising in Viliejščyna: Historical Sketches). It is written by local historians, Źmicier Chacienčyk (Зміцер Хаценчык) and Dzianis Kaniecki (Дзяніс Канецкі).

The book describes the 1863 appraising (Kalinoŭski appraising) events that took place in Viliejščyna, the history of their commemoration and memorials from different periods. The book contains over 30 photographs and engravings. Some of the documents are published for the first time.

Abridged translation of the interview published by the Belarusian Service of the Polish Radio

For three years, a Polish researcher, Dr Ewa Golachowska, was researching the language of Roman Catholic population in western and eastern parts of Belarus. She visited nineteen towns and cities and published a book, Jak mówić do Pana Boga: Wielojęzyczność katolików na Białorusi na przelomie XX i XXI wieku (How To Speak To God: Multilingualism of Catholics in Belarus at the turn of 20th and 21st centuries).

Glagoslav, a publisher specialising in East Slavonic books in English and Dutch translations, has brought back to print two previously published Belarusian titles, King Stakh’s Wild Hunt by by Uladzimir Karatkevich (Karatkievič) and Khatyn by Ales Adamovych (Alieś Adamovič).

King Stakh’s Wild Hunt is marketed as a suspense mystery thriller. It belongs to the best examples of the Belarusian historical fiction. Its author, Uladzimir Karatkievič, is rightly regarded as the most prominent contributor to the genre who inspired many readers in the then Soviet Union to discover the forgotten glorious past.

The first edition of Adamovič’s Khatyn was censored and the reader outside USSR never saw the original. It is a book based on historical documents about destruction of the village Khatyn (Chatyń), with almost all their inhabitants burnt alive, in 1943. This revised translation brings to light the unaltered version of the novel as was the author’s intent. “Today, the world is still marred by war crimes committed against communities of noncombatant. Khatyn is a testament to an event that must not be forgotten, and to a reality that must not be repeated” – says the publisher’s website.

Прэс-фота Беларусі 2011. Мінск: Логвінаў, 2011. 160 с. ISBN 978-985-6991-63-3.

After 41 copies of the Press Photo Belarus 2011 album were confiscated at the border, a local court in Ašmiany (Hrodna district) decided that the publication contains extremist materials and its distribution has to be banned. The court’s decision is mandatory across the country.

The book containes over 200 photos of the winners of the annual competition, Press Photo Belarus, in various genres, incl. photojournalism, nature and sport. This volume includes a number of photographs from the presidential election 2010, however not only those images were found objectionable.

According to the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), while possession of the book in a private collection doesn’t constitute crime, possession for distribution does.

Victor Martinovich, Paranoia. Northwestern University Press, 2013. ISBN 978-0810128767

Victor Martinovich’s novel Paranoia has appeared in an English translation in the United States.

Originally written in Russian, it was published in St Petersburgh in 2010, shoot straight into the bestseller lists of the Belarusian online shops, but was soon banned for sale in country. The novel tells a passionate romantic story developing on the backdrop of the totalitarian state.

A new issue (no. 6, 2012) of ARCHE, the top Belarusian popular journal dedicated to history, culture, literature and politics, is undoing the tight knots of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania military history (16-17 cent.). On about 500 pages, the topic is discussed by scholars from Belarus, Poland, Lithuania and Russia.