General Situation
On the Verge of Great Silence: the Belarusian Book under Conditions of Total Relocation
Cinema. The Beginning of the Story
Faded Summer of Belarusian Theater
Pop&Rock. Risk-taking, Escapism, Partisanship
General Situation
The current state of Belarusian culture is defined by its geographical, political, mental, and stylistic inconsistency.
Even earlier, in the times of relative “stability”, one could speak about some unified culture only conventionally. Nowadays, in the situation of a continuous political crisis, Russian intervention, cultural terror, and emergency migration, such conventionality is becoming even more acute. The incoherence of the cultural sphere is progressing following the inconsistency of political and social spheres.
State models of servile cultural creativity manifested their absolute creative paralysis already at the beginning of our crisis — at the level of Lukašenka’s election campaign as well as during the evolving of the manhunt for “the incredible” [Belarusians who took part in the protest]. The state of general stagnation and evident secondariness, natural for the culture of an authoritarian society, allows us to focus in our review mainly on the events and personalities belonging to the sector of Belarusian culture, which is independent of the state.
Here is an undefined state with non-evident consequences. Previous patterns of cultural communication and creative alliances became disintegrated and static. No new ones are yet visible on the horizon. In fact, the enhanced reproduction of breaches and vacuities is taking place. There are no common matrices of the national culture, but the cultural field is undergoing accelerated atomization instead, being divided into separate projects and private areas of influence.
The intensity of the struggle for resources and goal-oriented project competition is increasing respectively.
The situation of conventions and communications being deteriorated (within the country and in the sphere of international contacts as well), is common for everyone. As a result, creators and culture managers found themselves in a problematic cultural environment, deprived of their previous comfortable status of “the cultural alternative” subsidized by domestic patrons and foreign donators.
How the new territory of the global culture has met Belarusian independent creativity? On the one hand, artistic communities and projects coming from the environment of the former Belarusian “inner Europe”, got a clear impulse for growth, once they relocated abroad and renewed European contacts. They have transformed into independent “embassies of culture”. On the other hand, many things, designed for local consumption, turned out to be unsustainable in a broader context. Natural selection and challenging cultural adaptation practices take place — entry to different dimensions or acquiring a “niche artist” status. It is mainly inertial creative work “for the own people” which is working out — a new old emigrant style. Verses, feuilletons, stand up. Just homemade sketches and no qualitative development.
The prolonged artistic crisis of “the culture in exile”. Many of those who have left Belarus hoped for a short-term trip and the possibility to return quickly — have recently raised the issue of a conceptual and stylistic reset and search for sustainable patterns of up-to-date existence.
Those phenomena, which can be observed within the framework of the “new Belarusian cultural mobility” have neither common benchmarks nor clear growth models. And resemble a chaotic search for a cultural residence in a world that does not really need us. The attempts to sell a remote past mythology-2020, stories of protests and misery, to the public are prevailing at the moment. Those stories, being consistent with their origin of media effects, cannot be exploited in the long term. There is no future in such a situation. In the best case, there is a heroic past.
Fundamental incompleteness of the Belarusian cultural project is inevitably leading to the emergence of “half-done” authors, events, which are not figured out completely, and imperfect texts. Nothing is to be expected yet from our “luggage” creativity and clandestine underground. Competitive ability in the global hypermarket is the goal for tomorrow.
And for the time being, all of us are an unaccomplished nation. Our revolutionism made in 2020 is just a nice episode that has not evolved further, into a story-driven and coherent chain of events. On the other hand, totalitarian degradation, being also unaccomplished, is spreading within society.
The alternative narrative hasn`t been formed yet. That is why we express ourselves mainly in the format of self-reference or gropingly working for the future: designing a culture for a better country that doesn`t exist yet.
Belarusian culture of the transition period is the experience of self-identification and upgrade. The time of fragmentariness. The age of segregated clubs and studios is still not united into one single puzzle, which is yet to be completed.
This is why our topic for today (and for tomorrow as well) is transformations of the cultural field, shifts of meanings, current trends, and creators of new icons and trends. Those who are breaking the obsolete patterns. And increasing significance and influence of the modern Belarusian culture.
It is also worth understanding what doesn`t work and how to live with it.
On the Verge of Great Silence: the Belarusian Book under Conditions of Total Relocation
The Main Trends of the Season:
- A dramatic stratification of the literary field into the “inside” and “outside”.
- Rapid scattering of the reader community across the world.
- Almost a complete impossibility of book publishing in Belarus under conditions of the economic collapse and cultural terror.
- The need to choose between publicity and silence equals to the choice between “going away” and “staying”.
The Map of Meanings
At the end of February 2022 the “brain drain” from Belarus sped up. If in 2020–2021 the leaving of the middle class and intellectuals had an individual-forced character, the explosion of the new Russian aggression in Ukraine made the relocation large-scale and systemic — as a step ahead. In 2021 NGO and independent media gradually left the country due to the risk of imprisonment. In 2022 in the face of complete economic blockade connected to the status of Belarus as a co-aggressor country, IT companies started to rapidly relocate.
What’s going on with literary figures and publishers in this context?
It’s worth noticing that we can’t see a mass departure of writers as a whole. The relocation of authors, hidden or visible, happens mostly because of life circumstances rather than the inability to create. It can be concluded from the latest repression (2020–2022).
Despite the active persecution of people of culture (699 cases for January-June 2022; 98 people of culture in June 2022 were in the list of 1236 political prisoners), nobody was punished directly for their creativity. The reason for attacking them is their active citizenship and protesting in 2020. But there is a noticeable exception which is harassing literary celebrities. Those few who can claim to be influential are comparable with TV stars or sportsmen and they are a subject to symbolic and physical political purges inside the country.
The following were considered to be “extremist”: the book project “The Belarusian national idea” (a collection of conversations with public figures interviewed by Maxim Gorunov and Zmicier Lukašuk for “Euroradio”) and the novel “The Dogs of Europe” by Aĺhierd Bacharevič. A publisher Andrej Januškievič, who was setting the tone for the book publishing industry in recent years, was imprisoned for a month after attempting to open a book store in the centre of Minsk. At the end of August 2022 after the journalists’ phone call to the Ministry of Culture they started “extremism checks” of Sviatlana Alieksijevič’s books.
Besides the aforementioned, Aĺhierd Bacharevič, Tacciana Niadbaj, Andrej Chadanovič, Julija Cimafiejeva, Voĺha Šparaha are those well-known authors who made the fact of their exile public. The public status of regime refugees gives them an opportunity to speak about the Belarusian agenda in blogs, YouTube channels, in the media, at the international congresses and festivals, publish books in European languages while advocating Belarus and reminding about our national literature when the country is hardly mentioned in the international agenda. Apparently, an important mission of literary figures who stayed vocal in summer 2022 was to explain the difference between “Belarusians” and “Lukašenka’s regime”.
Publishers/Expats: What to Do and How to Earn Money
The situation with book business appears to be quite different. As opposed to the authors who export quite a symbolic capital (if they have it) from the country, a laptop or a notebook with sketches, publishers are the entrepreneurs who have material resources. The minimum is the warehouses with unsold books, the maximum is the purchased paper and printing presses. Even realizing the danger looming over the independent book publishing inside Belarus, having the real pressure (the suspension of the license, “extremism checks” of some book releases), publishers can’t leave the country immediately like other culture actors. One of the reactions is the self-destruction(“Limaryjus”, “Halijafy”).
The major issue of both forced relocated publishers (Zmicier Višnioŭ, Andrej Januškievič) and those who stayed (there will be no examples) is how to work with the scattered audience. The first answer is given by the cultural periodicals: the liquidated in 2021 “Literary Belarus” is released in the electronic format. At the beginning of September the magazine “Our history” announced the renewal of publication in the electronic format. But nowadays the market of electronic books is antonymous to the word “sales”. That’s why let’s look at this tendency sceptically even realizing that its goal is to consolidate the lovers of the Belarusian literary language in actual conditions.
You can also suppose that a de facto ban on public activities inside Belarus and the pressure on traditional book stores will contribute to the launch of new Internet stores, in addition to the range of retail book shops. Including the delivery of paper books across the world. The book retailer Alfavit.eu https://alfavit.eu/ is already functional and also the Belarusian Book can be ordered in Poland via Allegro.pl https://allegro.pl/.
Another answer which is given by the literary process in June-August 2022 is the book release in two formats — “internal” and “external”: there was a summer double release of the book project by Hanna Jankuta “Geology: the poems written in the museum” (Minsk: Zmicier Kolas, 2022) and “Constitution” (Bialystok, foundation “Kamunikat”, 2022).
One more answer is the turn to the popular format of an audio book. The voicing of Belarusian books activated during summer 2022. We can name two projects in this regard: “Book cart” https://knizhnyvoz.by/app/ (with an emphasis on children’s literature) and “Belarusian audio books” https://audiobooks.by/ . The foundation “Kamunikat” announced the release of books in the audio format.
Theatre Plays and Hide-and-seek
The festival of the intellectual book «Pradmova» was held in June 2022 in 4 major centres of Belarusian emigration (Tbilisi, Krakow, Warsaw, Vilnius) and revealed the demand for the books in Belarusian among the emigration community. As an illustration for that, “Zhyveteka” — a library of Belarusian books based on one of public libraries – opened in the centre of Warsaw which is today’s significant centre of cultural initiatives. The first offline book shop opened in August 2022 (Belarusian Youth Hub, plac Konstytucji, 6). If the reader doesn’t come to the book, the book must go to the reader. Aliaksandr Čarnucha demonstrated the example of the promotional tour in summer 2022 when he presented his debut novel “Pigs” in the cities of Poland, Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Germany.
The main principle “inside” becomes “it should be quiet”. It’s a well-tested survival strategy which has been practiced by Belarusians for about 200 years.
It comes into conflict with “the theatre society” in the ХХІ century when something is considered to be existent only when it is seen and heard. It seems that if something is not discussed publicly, it doesn’t exist, which increases the frustration level in the Belarusian-centric environment. That’s why an important trend from “outside” is the creation of the Belarusian picture by diasporas – from the manifests on holidays (their canon is being created rapidly: October 29, March 25, July 7, August 9 (16)) to the organizing of literary events in honour of birthdays of the classics of literature alongside holding literary events in the foreign centres where Belarusians are concentrated. As a result, the projects of the Belarusians living abroad activated and modernized the mission in the field of literature: The Skaryna Library (London), an already mentioned foundation “Kamunikat” (Bialystok), a publishing house “Viasna” (Prague), etc.
Conclusions and Predictions
- Recent 20 years have been severely disadvantaged for the book in Belarusian. Contrary to the trend of development of national systems of book publishing in the post-Soviet countries, the Belarusian Book experienced stagnation through the constant control and pressure of the authoritarian system. However, the past three months have demonstrated a rapid deterioration of political and economic conditions which were rather harsh even before that. Paradoxically, today’s kicking publishers out of Belarus into the neighbouring countries with more favourable conditions can push the development of Belarusian book publishing.
- The search for the consolidation of Belarusian literary process and assembling of the scattered readership on online and offline platforms will continue to be the primary concern for publishing houses and literary communities in the upcoming months in order to save the Belarusian book and literature in the chaos of total relocation.
- Finally, in a climate of censorship and self-censorship inside Belarus, in the situation of waning interest to the Belarusian theme on the part of the international community, without a change of the political situation in Belarus and the region in general we can predict the Great Silence of Belarusian Literature outside and inside the country in the upcoming months and years. And it’s a personal choice of every author whether it is leaving the profession or the partisan writing for the desk drawer.
Cinema. The Beginning of the Story
The Main Trends of the Season:
- Cinema became the means of solidarity.
- The universal safe protest narrative is created.
- Atypical protest experience is pushed into the grey area.
- Official cinema returned to the Soviet model of existence.
The Map of Meanings
We have something to congratulate Belarusian cinema on though it’s not perfect timing for any congratulations. It took two years of repression, emigration, scattering of cinema and spectator communities, pushing into the external space, going underground so that cinema could gradually regain its long-lost functions — speak about the reality and serve the communication of people.
Moreover, cinema has started to fulfil an atypical supportive and solidarizing function. Belarusians watch it in order to primarily feel a sense of belonging together. We assume that all upcoming changes of Belarusian cinema will be connected to this odd function. Get ready, we are entering the area of uniting pathos, unification and mythology — do you recognize all that stuff which official cinema has been trying to create for decades with the help of the weak-skilled “Belarusfilm”, only being based on another type of material?
So this is what we had over the summer in the solidarizing foreign film distribution.
In June in Tbilisi there was probably the first beyond the festival screening of the documentary about the protests “The Dream” by Saša Kulak. At least it was the first screening available to the non-festival audience — and in the city where the diaspora lives. In July there was an online premiere of the documentary “Across the rails” by Anton Sivyсh about Lodz expat students, which was actively promoted by the diaspora itself. The film “Courage” by Aliaksiej Palujan has already got the protest manifest status and was regularly shown in all diasporas from Germany to Georgia and across half the globe in the USA. Quite a lengthy documentary “The White Sun of the Red Summer” by Palina Idrysava, Jana Nova and Hlieb Asmaloŭski was shown in Vilnius, Warsaw, Gdansk and Tbilisi. There were screenings of “When the flowers are not silent” by Andrej Kucila in Munich and other European cities. The Belarusians of New York organized the screening of Sierž Charytonaŭ’s documentary “The Long Way Home”.
There was a Tbilisi screening of “The House Is Where I Am?” by Arciom Lobač. In the middle of the summer there was an online presentation of the documentary about Paŭlina Skurko “Letters from prison” by Tacciana Haŭryĺčyk (one of the few cases about the current reality inside the country, which is really significant). All summer long in Warsaw there were museum screenings of protest short films of the “Revolution” art project by Daša Bryjan and Maryja Kruk.
Probably never before has our hopeless narrative of absence and escapism broken through with the help of quite consistent stories about the objective social reality. To a great extent it’s true because of the consistent narrative structure of the protests themselves — the story with the beginning and the ending. The protests are easy to tell. Maybe this is the real beginning of our story.
The language of this narrative is quite the same in every film. It doesn’t have too many techniques because the narrative doesn’t need a sophisticated language: it’s the narrative of a victim and a witness. It’s enough to have synchronized witnesses and victims who comment, reveal their personal but not too unique (which is important) experience about the chronicle shots of protests and repression.
As a solidarizing narrative, the protest storyline lays claim to be a universal myth. And it means that it has to get rid of too individual and unsafe plots and feelings which can not be shared by everyone.
Complying with it, for example, Sierž Charytonaŭ in his “The Long Way Home” starts very early with a family story from the WWII period but then immediately switches to the approved narrative about the shared experience of fighting with injustice. While preserving the same structures of the myth, “The White Sun of the Red Summer” retells what we already know. And sometimes it’s hard to watch the film — both because of traumatic memories, naturally, and also due to that certain structure of the myth which requires to replicate the same plot known in advance.
This is where we’d be worried — what we need more now is solidarity. And for that feeling we are ready to sacrifice both the variety of form and content and the nuances of emotion while displacing such unsafe emotions as doubt, disappointment, mistrust and simply just a too different experience. For example, the uncomfortable story of Raman Pratasievič is not included in the protest myth of any film.
But sooner or later we’ll have to say all that aloud. And the new growing point will be in that specific grey area.
In order to realize it, we’ll have to destroy the established form of the protest narrative. Saša Kulak in the film “The Dream” has already made a significant attempt to break through this wall — so as to pronounce the word “disappointment” without saying it aloud. For that reason impersonality/universality (which became a necessary element of the protest narrative) had to be made a specific technique – masks had to be given not only to the AMAP riot police but to the protesters.
The art project “Revolution”, while not daring to comprehend, raises the same uncomfortable question related to the issue of responsibility. In short staged (which you should pay attention to) scenes the art project shows different protest actors. The project uses depersonalized and generalized images of enforcers and officials in the films “0908” https://youtu.be/-fiZICuaXS8, “000109” https://youtu.be/bv5QtACA8Qo and “2022” https://youtu.be/ebuusyZI9OA. But it gives an exact personality to the workers when recording Siarhiej Dylieŭski’s monologue in the film “1991” https://youtu.be/QREpxr0NQKs — and it’s a remorseful monologue, concerning the failure of strikes at factories.
This will be our next challenge: to finally resolve the issue with impersonality and to personalize everything which was depersonalized/generalized before. In other words, in order to reach another level, we need a documentary or a fiction film where an enforcer (a depersonalized mythologized creature from the other side — i.e. from the other world) becomes a real person. But it will be a very dangerous narrative for both sides of the protest and for both sides of the border line. Here we can give you some hope: nevertheless, we have certain people in the obedient Belarusian cinema who can be so arrogant. One person. Finally do it, Dzima [Here the author refers to Zmitsier Dzyadok who will do it his way anyway and that’s why it will be like it should].
As far as local Belarusian cinema is concerned, we’d like to mention that this year it surprised us with some noticeable events but for now we’ll focus on the most significant one. “Belarusfilm” pleased us with an announcement of the film about Western Belarus in the interwar period.
The news made a splash, but actually only one nuance is worth our attention in this bureaucratic cinema activity: when the Ministry of Culture announced a tender for the creation of the film about unity in November 2021, the only good old sparring partner of “Belarusfilm” producer Viktar Labkovič was in jail.
The tender was unsuccessful due to the lack of players. But it didn’t stop the Ministry of Culture from sponsoring “Belarusfilm” through their bureaucratic rituals and thereby mentioning the fact that the official cinema completely switched to the Soviet model of existence and now it doesn’t need the imitation of democratic procedures, competition, etc. You shouldn’t doubt that the film will be about Poland. “Belarusfilm” has been avoiding statements for many decades not just waiting for the moment to express it purposefully and responsibly.
By the end of the summer “Belarusfilm” even complained in the Soviet apologetic manner that the studio is supervised by the secret policeman/”checkist”, which comfortably explained the “unfortunate turn of events” in the company. It’s so relentless that you can’t go against it. One more time we can only hope for “another” cinema which is made without a secret policeman’s control. There’s nothing new about it.
What’s Next?
Diligently creating an exemplary narrative about protests, we finally started to speak and learnt a simple universal language based on impersonality to some extent. Now we shouldn’t forget to pronounce the uncomfortable words which are missing in this narrative, and it will be quite painful.
We can predict that we’re going to mythologize emigrant agenda further, create a positive myth about Belarusian expats and simplify the image of internal Belarus to the repression: the formula of a “prison country” will give rise to lots of stories in the future.
We’ll be really pleased if anyone at least slightly covers unsafe “grey” areas of the protest narrative and will not be thrashed for that. But most probably we will enter the silence of waiting and will have to do with sporadic amateur reflections on the topic. We are used to it.
Faded Summer of Belarusian Theater
The Main Trends of the Season:
- Private theater in Belarus has almost been banned as a result of successive state policy which has been put into practice since 2020. The new hierarchical system, imposed from above, is prioritizing only the titles and topics approved by authorities.
- This kind of policy along with the support of the Russian aggression towards Ukraine by the Belarusian government has resulted in international isolation of domestic theater and led to the appearance of the “iron curtain” which is bilateral by nature.
- Emigration and further development of theater groups abroad turned out to be an alternative way of Belarusian theater evolution. The theater groups are experiencing management problems and they have no leading stage director with a clearly defined art program.
- The “equal funding” scheme proposed by authorities for financing Belarusian theaters indicates the state of economic crisis and at the same time a lack of culture and cultural policy understanding.
Festivals as Mirrors of Cultural Crisis
The specific and humble geography of the festival movement had formed in Belarus before 2020.
Belarusians were able to attend live performances by world-famous directors at TEART event in Minsk. “М[email protected]” held in Mahilioŭ dwelled on the youth experiment. “Bielaja Vieža” event organized in Brest was mainly academic at its core and aimed at expanding theater geography. The Festival of national dramaturgy took place in Babrujsk every other year. Which was basically a review of the Belarusian plays. Local drama theater along with artistic groups from Bryansk (Russia) and Chernihiv (Ukraine) grouped around the “Slavic Theater Meetings” held in Homieĺ (here we would take the forums organized by the Opera Theater off the table as there were mainly solo performers invited from abroad rather than plays).
The Russian attack on Ukraine has put an end to the Slavic brotherhood as well as to the Homieĺ Festival (at least to its previous format). “Belgazprombank” stopped financing TEART after Viktar Babaryka was sentenced. Hrodna forum named “Liaĺki nad Niomanam” (Puppets over Nioman), reincarnated after the eight-year pause, unexpectedly joined the cohort of the festivals still remaining on a theater map. In total, only four remained, which is literally nothing for a 10-million country.
The program of three of them that will be held in autumn (Mahilioŭ festival takes place in March) was announced just this summer.
Posters of all four forums dramatically illustrate the fact of international isolation of Belarusian theater (we mean those groups that stayed in Belarus). There are only performances of Belarusian and Russian origin on this year`s agenda of the Hrodna and Mahilioŭ festivals, while the Babrujsk festival agenda (according to its concept) has exclusively domestic performances.
In the end, programs coming from some CIS countries got into the Brest festival agenda. Only three plays, included in the program, are of a foreign origin (the other two are the production of the Danish-Russian theater).
The abovementioned facts mean that the number of foreign plays is getting closer to zero.
New Barriers: Farewell to Private, Farewell to Touring
The formation of a theater “iron curtain”, bilateral by nature, is to be acknowledged. On the one hand, the average quality level of Belarusian festivals has decreased dramatically. Only a handful of plays can be considered worthy events. For example, a Russian play “Spotted Dog Running at the Edge of the Sea”, included in the Grodno festival agenda, can be highlighted. In 2021 the play was awarded “The Golden Mask” — the most prestigious Russian theater award, in the nomination for “Best Designer”, and had been nominated for “Best Production”. When it comes to plays of Belarusian origin, we can mention “Pačupki” staged in Brest by the Republican Theater of Belarusian Drama (RTBD). However, most popular theatrical performances from neighboring countries had been delivered on a regular basis to theater forums, especially to TEART and Mahilioŭ festivals before 2020.
In general, among the guests, there were some theatre troupes that had not participated in the festival movement for years. For example, a puppet theater from Chuvashia was invited to the Brest festival. And some so-called “senior plays” were also present: “The Black Lady of the Niasviž Castle” by the National Academic Janka Kupala Theater (the play premiered in 2000) was on the Babrujsk forum agenda as well as “The Theater of Merchant Yepishkin” by the Movie Actors Theater Studio (1993). Despite the fact that such forums tend to stage the latest releases.
On the other hand, the number of tours of Belarusian theater groups has been reduced to a minimum, and this is how the theater “iron curtain” manifests itself. So they can go on tour only in the Eastern direction. But even there, domestic plays are held only in the format of Belarusian Culture Days events. For instance, the two plays by the Janka Kupala Theater, “Paŭlinka” and “The Wedding”, were shown in Moscow in June this year.
Tours are rare. And if they happen, their main destination is Russian regions. For example, the Musical theater went on tour to the Russian cities of Kursk, Belgorod, Tula, Kaluga, and Ivanovo (https://musicaltheatre.by/gastroli-2010-2022) this summer.
Unsurprisingly, those groups which tended to go on tour abroad on the regular basis are now undergoing a rather prompt personnel reshuffle. For instance, one-fourth of the Opera Theater ballet troupe was renewed this summer. But there is no doubt that staff purges and disagreement with the management approach of Kaсiaryna Dulava, the new director, could have impacted the situation.
Change of Hierarchy: Involuntary Shifts
The agenda of the Belarusian cluster of festivals has also indicated changes in the hierarchical system of Belarusian theaters imposed from above. Before 2020 productions of private theaters and platforms had been at the very frontline, figuratively speaking. As well as the plays by top Belarusian directors staged at different state theaters.
The private theater in Belarus has been nailed to a cross: “ART Corporation” was shut down, OK16 has been retrieved by authorities. In total there are only two private theaters that receive touring certificates needed for staging: “Three T Format” (a project of Viera Paliakova, wife of Uladzimir Makiej, the Minister of Foreign Affairs) and the Chamber Drama Theater (a project of Natallia Bašava).
Jaŭhien Karniah is the only director, one of the leaders of his generation, who stayed in Belarus. Jury Dzivakoŭ is now working in the West. AAliaksandr Januškievič and Ihar Kazakoŭ — in the East.
As a result, plays by other artistic groups have come to the fore. Such groups as the Youth Variety Theater, the Movie Actors Theater Studio, and the Musical Theater, which have never participated in the festival movement and have been targeting the mass audience for a long time, got into this year`s festival agenda. The focus has shifted to the titles and topics approved by authorities.
A play named “The Alps. The year 1941” by the Youth Theater, which hasn`t been invited to domestic forums for a decade has now been included in the festivals in Brest and Babrujsk. And as s long as the topic of the Great Patriotic War is trending now, “Alpine Ballad” by the Republican Theater of Belarusian Drama (RTBD) is also doing a guest performance in Babrujsk. No one is concerned about the general superficial level: even one of the best plays of recent years “Marriage with the Wind” by RTBD was taken off the agenda (the play was planned for the festival agenda of 2021, but later the forum was rescheduled to this year).
New “National” and Quiet “Honored” Artists
One can be quite sure forecasting that Vasiĺ Bykaŭ plays are going to be the front-runners of the next National Theater Award. This will become one of the traits of the award depreciation process, which is running fast now. It is related to both festivals and theater titles. In order to get the latter, one needs to demonstrate additional loyalty.
The actors who got these awards this summer and at the beginning of autumn can be divided into two categories.
Those who haven`t expressed their political views over recent years — Anton Kraŭčanka, a dancer in the Opera theater, and Marharyta Alieksandrovič, a singer of the Musical Theater, received the title “National Artist”.
And there are those who on the contrary actively supported the government. Ruslan Čarniecki from the Maxim Gorky Theater was a show presenter of the “For Belarus” forum and obtained the title of “Honored Artist”, Tamara Mironava was entitled “National Artist”. The latter definitely deserves the title, but it is (no) coincidence that she got it by staying in the Janka Kupala Theater while many quit. Meanwhile, some domestic artistic groups haven`t been entitled for a decade. For example, the Puppet Theater or the Musical Theater – there had been an extremely long pause before Alieksandrovič was awarded.
Problems Abroad: Choice of Management, Absence of Leaders
Working abroad has turned out to be the alternative to domestic state theater. Let`s put the work of talented individuals away (for example, Palina Dabravoĺskaja, actress and stage director) and have a look at the artistic groups which left Belarus. Here we see the Belarus Free Theater, “Kupalaŭcy”, “August Theater” and Team Theater.
Such troupes are permanently experiencing a lack of connection with their regular audience, facing the necessity to operate in a different language environment, and they have to choose between online and offline projects. The former make it possible to establish a connection with the Belarusian audience, but their disadvantage is the absence of a keen response to the performance, which artists tend to get accustomed to. While the advantage of the latter is the presence of such a response and the existence of stage presence sensation. At the same time, there is a seat occupancy problem (it becomes very evident abroad that the theater as an elite art has never been a mass phenomenon).
The abovementioned theatre groups have been dealing with those issues in their own way.
The Free Theater seems to be the most successful. In March 2022 they staged “Dogs of Europe” inspired by the novel of Aĺhierd Bacharevič. The creators transferred the performance, which premiered in Minsk as far back as 2020, to the London stage. In Belarus, it was perceived as a typical Belarusian experimental performance with its pros and cons, which didn`t go ahead of its time and fell short compared to the primary source. But in the UK, “Dogs of Europe” got positive attention from the local press.
The presentation of the play at the Paris Festival “Festival d’Automne à Paris” is planned for December. The Free Theater has no match in Belarus when it comes to management and promotion.
“Kupalaŭcy” faced two problems. Resource constraints in the system management: unfortunately, the troupe didn`t manage to exploit its image and positive vibe of the choice made in 2020 to the full extent. Moreover, they have no leading stage director with a prominent artistic program. This position remains vacant since Raman Padaliaka, who staged several plays last season, has left the group.
The latest collaboration experience with Mikalaj Pinihin (“Notes of a Red Army Soldier”) and Pole Pawiel Passini (“Dziady”) led to the production of rather one-dimensional plays with overly straightforward messages appealing to the educational experience of the Janka Kupala Theater as of the 2010s. Being loyal to the aesthetic standards of the past makes it hard for the “Kupalaŭcy” to integrate into the European theater network: the niche of political theater is already occupied by the Free Theater.
A fraction of artists from Hrodno chose another way: they united behind their leader, director Andrius Dariala, and formed a group named “August Theater”. Three of their plays — the educational project “Why?” in memory of the executed poets, and such plays as “The Third Shift” and “The Cancelled Show” found their place in the Old Theater of Vilnius. The actors can use its stage for performances, appear on its posters, go on tours, and progress in general within the structure of a state repertory theater. Therefore, the Old Theater becomes partially responsible for management issues, which gives “August Theater” the opportunity for growth.
Team Theatre which relocated from Homieĺ to Warsaw found its niche and is going to proceed with immersive theater.
Financing: a New Scheme
This summer Prime Minister Raman Haloŭčanka announced a new financing scheme for Belarusian theaters which he called the equal funding scheme. With that he referred to the preceding Aliaksandr Lukašenka`s statement. In February 2021 the latter formulated it this way: “two million dollars earned — we’ll top it with two million budget dollars. Five million earned — five million top-up”.
A unified theater funding model having some specific adjustments is used all over the world. General income consists of three components: approximately one-third is provided by the government, one-third — by sponsors, and one-third is earned by the theater. Belarusian theaters had managed to gain one-third before 2020. According to Natallia Zadziarkoŭskaja, a former official of the Ministry of Culture, in 2017–2019 the off-budget income share in big state theaters reached 34% and made it up to 37% in the regional ones. Nevertheless, here we’d like to add, that such numbers were possible to achieve due to the harsh plan fulfillment and necessity to demonstrate a huge amount of entertaining production which was an obstacle for the development of troupes and actors.
Haloŭčanka`s proposal seems logical from the point of view of the economy facing hard times now. However, officials believe that the cultural sphere is pretty similar to industry or agriculture. If a specific amount of money is invested, the relevant profit is to be expected then. Such an approach testifies that there`s a gross misunderstanding of culture and cultural policy as this sphere is operating in a different way.
Where the Theater is Heading
Theaters operating in current Belarusian conditions are unable to attract sponsors on their own, without resorting to the administrative resource, to provide for one-third of income. At the same time, they cannot increase the off-budget income share, as they have already maxed out.
Haloŭčanka`s words are just declarations of intentions that haven`t been put into practice. But if realized, the domestic theater will go into an even deeper crisis compared to the current situation.
Pop&Rock. Risk-taking, Escapism, Partisanship
The Main Trends of the Season
- Current Belarus became the area of obedient art: it’s almost impossible to get a permission for organizing an event with a Belarusian artist and a database with loyal organizers is a way for destroying independent music;
- Belarusian authorities are loyal only to Russian artists: concert posters almost entirely consist of the names from the neighbouring country. At the same time the repressions against local artists continue;
- There aren’t any conditions for independent music inside Belarus anymore: there is almost no site for presenting their own creativity, each public performance is monitored and can lead to harsh consequences. The bands that earn money by music exclusively, have to search for tour opportunities outside the country. But traditional routes – Russia and Ukraine – don’t function for most of them;
- The “official” variety shows ultimately concentrated on “Dažynki” format and trash dance genre. The authorities try to organize the festivals of “loyal” artists but they don’t have a relevant experience.
The Map of Meanings
Nowadays Belarusian authorities act on the principle of destroyed space in connection to Belarusian culture. An attempt to make loyalty the main tool of the system existence leads to catastrophic consequences – for the first time in the history of independent Belarus. If earlier the state tried to cultivate obedience by the method of “quiet” ban and publicly ignored the existence of “black lists”, now those lists were not just legitimized but made global for all independent Belarusian music.
Almost all organizers talk about the inability to get “a license for organizing events” with the participation of Belarusian artists. And now there is no difference whether an artist has any civic position and an intention to make it public: an official uses a preventative principle and just minimizes all possible risks in order not to get into the list of “the disloyal”. Obviously, it’s a temporary measure: in such a way the system just takes a break in order to create a database of loyal organizers. The committee consisting of proven people makes a decision whether you will have the right to organize mass events – it guarantees the absence of unpleasant surprises for the state.
If previously the state just didn’t notice the existence of independent Belarusian music and faced it only during big festivals or the national selection for “Eurovision”, now the appropriate institutions attentively keep track of social networks and other expressions of public activity. The command “Ignore” was changed into the command “Destroy”, that’s why now even an entirely harmless cover artist can get imprisoned for performing not less “harmless” but a Ukrainian song. This total sweep is aimed at the creation of a pool of obedient artists and the demonstration of loyalty to Russia. If the first part of that statement is quite obvious, the second one needs additional explanation.
The band t.A.T.u with its original members, White Punk, a Nikolai Drozdov’s thematic evening, “Rock hits. Russian rock”, “New Russian grannies”, Hammali&Navai – this is a list of events for the upcoming month in Minsk. Russian artists got complete freedom for their tour activities in Belarus and use this opportunity being applauded by the satisfied loyal audience. Belarusian music was officially and categorically substituted by loyal Russian. Disloyal Russians are also blocked: for example, a concert by the inconvenient Basta was canceled based on a report by “vigilant citizens”. And now the cultural landscape looks as if everything takes place in Smolensk province of Russia and not in an independent state. The hostile Western culture is entirely “cancelled”, Ukrainian music is moved out of the public eye by 100%, the repressions against Belarusian musicians continue.
Again Ihar Bancer from the hardcore band Mister X is behind bars. The band members of “Irdorath” are imprisoned. Mieryjem Hierasimienka was detained for another 15 days. Under such circumstances the state attempts to create the obedient feast of legitimacy and periodically demonstrates its creative potential: a great example of the quality of such events is the concert “You don’t give away your beloved” in Aliaksandraŭski park.
Belarusian variety shows finally got into the agroaesthetic mentality: the official Minsk treats “Parents’ home” by Drazdy band and “For the agronomist” of the immortal Saladucha as hit songs. Saladucha’s act is especially impressive. Such an approach demonstrates that “loyalty is more appreciated than quality”: the acceptance of state postulates guarantees broadcasting, state corporate events and an opportunity of stable income – surely it’s not about creativity.
On the other hand, there are ideological opponents of state aesthetics. The solidarity festivals take place in Poland and Lithuania, well-known bands and performers from Naviband to Hanna Šarkunova release new tracks and albums.
Under the conditions of scarcity of new meanings and the aggravation of national question, musicians use familiar and understandable images which were actual both in the late Soviet period and the first decade of independent Belarus. An illustrative example is the band Relikt which released an album of covers on outstanding Belarusian rock bands of the gold era.
The difference from the “official” variety shows is evident – it’s the artistic quality.
And how do those bands, which made a living by music till 2020, feel under these circumstances? Some of them started building tour routes in the West before Belarusian protests and war. Take the band Molchat doma, for example. The others — Maks Korž and LSP — had to pause the concert activity: it is impossible to continue touring in Russia and they are not able to sustain themselves financially in the West. At the same time Siarhiej Michalok surprises with his commercial sense when touring with his exhumed Lyapis Trubetskoy and random musicians.
Belarusian artists with a smaller appetite got an opportunity to sell tickets in the places where it seemed to be impossible before: Belarusian diasporas provide a stable demand for Belarusian music abroad. The audience didn’t grow but its activity boosted, and this gives an opportunity to such bands as Nizkiz, Petlia Pristrastija and Naviband to successfully go on a tour twice a year.
But we have nuances even in this case: the musicians who continue living in Belarus have difficulty in getting visas, and every coming back after the tour is a serious risk. In fact, Belarusian music lives in the format of total risk and forced escapism.
Which Consequences May It Have?
Firstly, it’s a global scarcity of ideas and meanings. The artists who left Belarus, have to rebuild their lives and seek the sources of income: such conditions can not contribute to creativity. The musicians who stay in Belarus apply the principle of ultra-censorship: every public performance, every word and every Instagram post are examined with high-precision optics.
At the same time a full sweep and formatting continue on different levels. The state reacts positively to the expression of absolute loyalty and offers safety and archaic communication channels with potential listeners as a reward. Meanwhile the state demonstrates extreme loyalty in connection to the neighbouring country and creates the appropriate informational environment. In the short term such formatting will lead to the total escapism of the listener who was never a target audience of state trash dance and low-quality Russian pop music. Quiet and seemingly neutral initiatives for “the chosen ones” will be created: the analogues of Soviet “kvartirniks” (concerts in flats) which will only be available to the proven people.
In the meantime the opposite process will start. Some musicians with no less enthusiasm will focus on the Russian audience and the listener who got into the informational isolation. It’s a simpler and a very safe way to get a large audience and commercialize your success: in the conditions of total “cancelling” of Russian culture a new scheme of creating music for the appropriate audience and the ways of monetizing it will be formed. Taking into account the extremely simplified logistics, “the understandable” market and the activity of the audience, some artists will entirely reorient while losing a certain amount of listeners.
In the more distant perspective and on more high-quality levels of the meanings creation, art will start reacting at events in this or that way. Now artists are busy reimagining and pragmatically rebuild their living conditions. After this process finalizes, a new loud wave of Belarusian-centric music in emigration and a quiet initiative inside the country will commence.
