Who is Ales Bialiatski, the imprisoned Belarusian Nobel Prize winner? "Those who changed our world smiled a lot and were optimistic"

Ales Bialiatski, director of the famous Viasna Center for the Defense of Human Rights, established in 1996, this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, philologist, writer, and social activist, is currently in Belarusian prison. He is an important figure in the recent history and culture of Belarus.

Aleś Bialacki

Foto: PAP/EPA/ANDREI LIANKEVICH

Ales Bialiatski was born on September 25, 1962 in Wiartsili (currently located in the autonomous Republic of Karelia in the Russian Federation).

READ MORE ABOUT ALES BIALATSKI BIOGRAPHY >>>

The story of the life of the human rights defender was written down by a well-known biographer and chronicler of the opposition's lives, the recently deceased Aleksandr Tamkowicz - and it was in a similar form was also included in his book "The Cold Wing of the Fatherland" by Ales Bialiatski himself.

The parents of Ales Bialatski's father, Viktar, and five other children, lost their property due to collectivization in the USSR, so they had to move to Karelia to feed their family and survive. There, Viktar met future Ales’s mother, Nina, who came there from Belarusian Narowla. 

The Bialatski family returned to Belarus in the 1960s, when industrial plants began to open there and a workforce was needed. They hesitated between Salihorsk and Svetlahorsk, a city where the chemical industry was established (until 1961 the city was called Szaciłki), where they eventually settled down.

Ales Bialiatski recalled that when he was a child, there were no flats where newcomers could live in Svetłahorsk, so it was necessary to build a "temporary" makeshift hut, e.g. made of boards and earth. As he was a little child, nearly started a fire several times trying to “light the campfire” at home as a young child. One may guess that makeshift hut was cold in winter.

Alaksandr Bialiatski went to the high school in Svetlahorsk, where, as he recalled, the students were very friendly toward each other. Then he studied at the department of “Russian and Belarusian philology” at the University of Homel. There he made friends with a group of future famous Belarusian poets and writers - Anatol Sys, Siarzhuk Sys, Eduard Akulin, and others. He tried to travel around Belarus whenever it was possible, to visit the significant historically places. During such trips he met and made friends with a group of activists from the capital of Belarus, Minsk - who later formed a pillar of the "Belarusian revival", the Belarusian movement towards independence from the USSR. After graduating in 1984, he began his doctoral studies in Minsk at the Institute of Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR.

Instead of a political career, he chose to found a human rights organization

After graduation, he briefly worked as a teacher. He completed his military service in 1985-86 as a driver in an anti-tank battery near Yekaterinburg.

He participated in the organization of Dziady in 1987 and 1988 - the first public rallies in memory of ancestors, during which the victims of Soviet repressions were commemorated, as well as in the rally in Kuropaty.

In 1988, he participated in the creation of the Martyrologist of Belarus, one of the first human rights organizations.

He was also a member of the organizing committee of the Belarusian Popular Front "Revival" - in 1996 he was its secretary, and in 1999-2001 - vice-president. Later, however, he resigned from political activity, because as the head of the Viasna Center for the Defense of Human Rights, he was supposed to stand up for all the persecuted, also from various backgrounds and political parties.

In the fall of 1989, he won the competition for the position of director of the Maksim Bahdanovich Museum of the History of Belarusian Literature. He remained in this position until 1998. Under his leadership, the museum became a very active center for spreading Belarusian culture.

In 1991, after completing his doctoral studies, he wrote a monograph "Literature and nation", and in 2006 a collection of essays "Running on the shore of Lake Geneva". In February 2013, Ales Bialiatski's book "Enlightened by Belarus" was published. It contains articles, literary studies, and essays; he writes e.g. on Belarusian prison literature, reviewing e.g. poems by Uładzimir Nyaklajeu and Alaksandr Fiaduta written in prison. In 2014, a book "Cold Wing of the Fatherland" was published in Vilnius.

For the sake of independent Belarus: to free it from the USSR

At that time, in the 80s,  the well-known Maistrounia group was active in Minsk, and it attracted many people who later became important figures of Belarusian culture. Ales Bialiatski recalled that several hundred people were somehow related to this organisation, and that they still constitute the core of the Belarusian cultural environment. Then the equally famous Talaka group was formed. Ales Bialiatski himself, together with a poet Anatol Sys, founded a group of young writers, Tuteszyje.

In his writings, Aleś Bialiacki recalls how he printed the first issues of the underground magazine Burachok at night on a typewriter buried after using it, in the ground (the name Burachok, comes from the pseudonym of the 19th century writer and poet Francishek Bahushewich, who wrote in Belarusian and about the plight of the Belarusian people, and was the militant of the January Uprising; one of his friends however recalled he felt himself Polish). This happened in the last years of the USSR.

Ales Bialiatski explained that Burachok was important because he wanted that "the whispered conversation about Belarusian independence, democracy and freedom would become the subject of an open discussion."

In his book "Cold Wing of the Fatherland", he recalled the opposition activity in the late 1980s.

 (…) In secret and in underground movement, "we developed action plans and set political goals. Let me remind you that it was only 1986. If the secret services found out about everything, it would not end well for us..."

"All our activities were divided into two parts. Underground. Not more than a dozen like-minded people decided on the strategic directions of action and the most effective ways to achieve our goals. (...) Then we wrote about it in Burachok" ..

"The second part - legal. It's about the work of the so-called informal organizations that united young people through their interests - for example, the association of young writers Tuteszyje" - he wrote.

Smile and kindness

There are many observations of great value, not only historical, but also universally human, in the writings of Ales Bialiatski. While organizing the Dziady demonstration in the late 1980s, when he himself was arrested, but many people came to the demonstration, he noticed that sometimes a personal failure does not mean a failure of the actions that are being carried out by you.

He also noted that when he brought to mind such people as Vytautas Landsbergis, Vaclav Havel and other leaders who, as he said, brought freedom from communism to the world and independence to their countries, they seemed to have one thing in common.

As he writes in the book "Cold Wing of the Fatherland": "While recalling each of them - and I met them, I was talking to them - I think that in the human dimension, they have one thing in common. They were always optimistic in life. And they all smiled a lot."

"I'm afraid of gloomy and harsh people. Behind a serious and mysterious facial expression, there is often a simple emptiness. Surely such people do not change this world for the better. A sincere smile is a sign of a person's inner kindness. It seems that we all need to learn patience, to smile for the next 25 years. Even if here it's not funny at all..."

Ales Bialiatski wrote these words in prison. July 16 - 17, 2013, in Bobruisk. He almost always has a kind smile on his face, especially when he is addressing another person.

While recalling each of them - and I met them, I was talking to them - I think that in the human dimension, they have one thing in common. They were always optimistic in life. And they all smiled a lot.""I'm afraid of gloomy and harsh people. Behind a serious and mysterious facial expression, there is often a simple emptiness. Surely such people do not change this world for the better.

The full Nobel speech will probably be written in the future. "The whole of Belarus is in prison"

In Oslo during the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony on December 10, Natalia Pinchuk, Ales Bialiatski's wife and greatest love, reported that her husband managed to convey only a few sentences to her, so at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony, she could not read the whole speech that the Nobel Prize winner should have written. However, she presented as well fragments of Ales Bialiatski's writings.

Natalia Pinchuk stressed that in Belarus, thousands of people are in prison, like Ales.

"The whole of Belarus is in prison" (...). "This award belongs to tens of thousands of Belarusians who went through torture, detention, prison" and to those who fought for human rights", she said.

"This award belongs to all human rights defenders, all social activists, tens of thousands of Belarusians who were beaten, tortured, arrested and imprisoned. It goes to millions of Belarusian citizens who stood up for their civil rights. It underlines the dramatic situation with human rights in the country," said Natalia Pinchuk.

Natalia Pinchuk recalled some of the Ales Bialatski's writings. Below only part of them:

"I began to be critical of the Soviet reality quite early in my life. Among other things, I encountered sharp restrictions on the use of the Belarusian language, a policy of de-Belarusianization - which was carried out earlier - and which is still being carried out today. The old colonial dependence of Belarus has remained. It threatens the very existence of Belarusians as a nation"

"It is a dramatic mistake to separate human rights from the values of identity and independence. I have been in the  underground movement for the sake of independent Belarus since 1982 (...) Its task is to create a democratic, independent Belarus in which human rights will be respected".

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Agnieszka Marcela Kamińska, PolskieRadio24.pl

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Address where you can write to Ales Bialiatski (Due to censorship, it is better to write in Belarusian or Russian, you can just use an online translator)

Аляксандру Віктаравічу Бяляцкаму

СІЗА-1, 220030, Мінск,

Валадарскага, 2

Беларусь

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Sources: 

Tamkowicz, Aleksandr, Ales Bialiatski, e.g. https://spring96.org/be/news/44983

Bialiatski, Ales „Cold wing of Fatherland”, Wilno 2014; kamunikat.org 

And also: Spring96.org Svaboda.org Biełsat