Annus Albaruthenicus 2004 2004

ANNUS ALBARUTHENICUS 2004 ГОД БЕЛАРУСКІ 2004 VILLA SOKRATES ANNUS ALBARUTHENICUS 2004 ГОД БЕЛАРУСКІ 2004 ПЯТЫ ТОМ Рэдактар САКРАТ ЯНОВІЧ KRYNKI 2004 Выдавецкае афармленьне ЮРКА ХМЯЛЕЎСКІ Editor: STOWARZYSZENIE VILLA SOKRATES 16-120 KRYNKI POLAND Phone: (0-xxxx-85) 722 81 44 E-mail: [email protected] Друк: OFFSET-PRINT BIAŁYSTOK © Copyright by Villa Sokrates ISSN 1640-3320 ЗЬМЕСТ – CONTENT Cheslau Seniukh (Чэслаў Сэнюх): Why hasn’t the Nobel Prize been awarded to Vasil’ Bykau? ........................................................................7 Arnold McMillin (Алег Латышонак): Vasil Bykau ............................................9 Oleg Łatyszonek (Алег Латышонак): From White Russia to Belarus? ...........13 Ryszard Radzik: Identity of Belarusians and Ukrainians – similarites and differences ...............................................................................................49 Hans-Christian Trepte: Das Problem der „Hiesigen” (tutejsi) im polnisch-weissrussischen Grenzraum .......................................................67 Zoya Mel’nikava (Зоя Мельнікава): The Formula of Openness: the „Termapily” Journal and Modern Belarusian Literary Process .............89 Ivan Burlyka (Іван Бурлыка): Do Belarusians speak Belarusian in the street? .................................................................................................103 Nina Barshcheuskaya (Ніна Баршчэўская): The Role of the Belarusian Diaspora in Preservation and Development of the Belarusian Diaspora Language (based on the Belarusian press published in Germany) .............109 Lajos Pálfalvi: Vannak-e esélyei a fehérorosz irodalomnak magyarországon? .........................................................................................125 Thomas Mehlhausen: Belarus mit den Augen eines Deutschen .....................133 Michael Fleming: Reckoning with low electoral turn-outs in post-communist Poland ..........................................................................................................149 Bazyli Białokozowicz (Васіль Белаказовіч): Jan Baudouin de Courtenay and his attitude towards Belarus and Belarusians ......................................169 Zoltán András: Szent Orsolya legendája Kelet-Euróbán ................................181 Вісэнтэ Бласка Ібaн’ес (Vicente Blasco Ibànez): Марскія ваўкі, і інш., пераклаў Валеры Буйвал ...........................................................................197 Cтэн Стэнсэн Бліхэр (Sten Stensen Blicher): Дзяўчына з Радоса, пераклаў Валеры Буйвал ...........................................................................209 Міка Вальтары (Mika Waltari): Сінхуе, егіпцянін пераклаў Якуб Лапатка ..............................................................................223 Дораты Элісан (Dorothy Allison): Рэчка імёнаў, пераклала Хрысьціна Граматовіч .............................................................253 Jakub Kołas (Якуб Колас): Szymko – muzykant, przełożył Czesław Seniuch ..........................................................................263 Ales Rasanau (Алесь Разанаў): Pools, translated by Alena Tabolich ........................................................................267 Sakrat Janovich (Сакрат Яновіч): Alone on Christmas night, etc. translated by Andrey and Alena Tabolich ....................................................277 Гэнрык Бэрэзка (Henryk Bereska): Перавозчык і інш., пераклаў Сакрат Яновіч ............................................................................297 BOOKSHELF (Кніжная паліца) ...................................................................301 Halina Tychka (Галіна Тычка): A Grievous Recluse under a Christmas star translated by Alena Tabolich ........................................................................305 Ryszard Radzik: Belorusski Sbornik, ..............................................................309 Андрэй Катлярчук (Andrey Kotljarchuk): Кніга, якой нельга абмінуць, ...313 6 WHY HASN’T THE NOBEL PRIZE BEEN AWARDED TO VASIL’ BYKAU? I met Vasil’ Bykau in 1992 in Warsaw. As a member of the offi cial delegation, headed by Stanislau Shushkevich, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, he partici- pated in the Grand Opening of the Embassy of the Republic of Belarus, the fi rst one in a short history of this country. One year prior to our meeting I had translated the Ablava (The Swoop) by Bykau. It was published in the Literatura na Świecie monthly in 1991. It was already at that time when I considered Bykau to be the only candidate who deserved being recommended for the Nobel Prize award. He was one of the Olympus clan of Titans who was destined to fi ght the evil in all of its displays. He would disclose and denounce roundly the governmental forms of crime, which the whole twentieth century was bleeding with. The titles of only some of his novels speak for themselves: The Trap, The Wolf Troop, The Portent of Disaster, The Dead Feel No Pain, In a Fog, The Swamp, The Swoop, The Wall … His literary character is a man, who was hammered by the government-orches- trated swoop to the wall, ready to get the lead. He is far from being happy, and he is not capable of singing the „Ode to Joy” with foolish enthusiasm. His own memory as well as his integrity, pierced with pain of his native people, his earth, plowed by tank tracks and scorched by Verbrennungs-units, SMERSH-brigades (Death to Spies) and the defensive units, his land, which is blood-stained with the blood of the Kurapaty victims and contaminated with the Chernobyl strontium, will never let him do it. Europe dos not need all this memory. Having stuffed its belly with delicious viands, it celebrates with feasting, copulates. It does not want to be reminded about its „achievements, i.e. Arbeit macht frei, inscribed on the Oswiecim (for- merly Auschwitz) death gate, its half-a-century fl irt with Josef Stalin and his loyal followers, for whom personally life was getting better, life was becoming funnier and the fun of life was accompanied by the gun shots targeted at the backs of the heads of „public enemies”… But Bykau would constantly remind them (Europeans) about it. Each single word of his would disturb their sweet dreams. How could they award the Nobel Prize to him for all that? Plus, he was a Belarusian. And, oh, by the way, where is his Belarus? It must be somewhere in Russia, they believe. They have heard about the Russians, they really did! As for the Jews, they heard about them, too. They have even heard about the Poles. The latter ones are said to be learning by heart the 7 „Ode to Joy” to sing it one day on the Vistula banks. One more step, and we will tame them while the rest of the problems will be automatically taken care of. Then we will be able to erect the monument-museum in Breslau – pardon! – in Wroclaw to commemorate the German exiles from the East. We know nothing about Belarus and do not want to. Let President Putin take care of it. That’s, actually, what he is a president for. He has his own agents and let them do their job. Why should we screw up their job, awarding the Nobel Prize to a Belarusian? More than that, Putin has inexpensive natural gas, inexpensive oil, cheap labor force. Plus, our Money is there … And the market stretches from the Bug down to the Sakhalin Island … That is why the Nobel Prize has never been awarded to Vasil’ Bykau. But he managed to have preserved his individuality, his selfhood. He remained to be crystal clear. He passed away as an incorruptible, independent and great personality. He was Great in his selfhood. He joined the majority of Great and Independent individuals. He is on the Olympus now. CHESLAU SENIUKH (Warsaw, Poland) Translated by Ivan Burlyka 8 Arnold McMillin VASIL BYKAU Vasil Bykau, who has died aged 79, was the leading Belarusian writer of the post-Stalin period. As well as being the creator of outstanding war stories, he rep- resented, to the intelligentsia of his beleaguered country, a powerful moral author- ity, speaking out on literary and socio-political issues, particularly against abuses of power in the Soviet era and by the authoritarian regime that followed it. Later, he was forced into exile. Bykau was born into a peasant family in the province of Vitebsk. He studied sculpture at Vitebsk art school (famous for Shagall, Soutine and others), but had to leave for lack of funds. During the second world war, he served in an engineering battalion and, by 1943, was a junior offi cer. The great majority of his fi ction in the Soviet years was, in fact, about the war, but its avoidance of panoramic heroics, and its concentration on small, moraly fraught episodes, won him popularity throughout the Soviet Union – where he was often passed off as a Russian – and abroad. From early on, however, Russian translations of Bykau’s works bowdlerised his texts, removing references to Belarusian national identity and the mildest criti- 9 Arnold McMillin cisms of Soviet reality – so that phrases such as “things cannot go on being lousy forever” were transformed into “the collective farm is good”. None the less, Rus- sian translations were the pass to a broad readership, and so Bykau later made his own. In the early years of his career, as a result of his boldness, he suffered consid- erable KGB harassment, and his courage earned the soubriquet of the Belarusian Solzhenitsyn. Certainly, he was the only prominent Belarusian writer not to join the Communist party. A particular feature of Bykau’s fi ction is the tension of critical situations, where the temptation to make moral compromises is highlighted,

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