The Belarusian language is under attack | Opinions

The Knihauka bookstore in Belarus, which specialised in Belarusian language books, had unexpected visitors on the morning of its first day of operations on May 16.

Rygor Azaronak and Lyudmila Hladkaya, two journalists infamous for spreading state propaganda, visited the small shop and criticised it publicly for its alleged “nationalist ideology”.

A few hours later, the police arrived, searched the store, confiscated more than 200 books – including a translation of George Orwell’s 1984 –  and reportedly sent 15 titles to an “expert” to determine whether they contained “extremist materials”.

During the operation, the shop’s owner, publisher Andrey Yanushkevich, and sales assistant, literary blogger Nasta Karnatskaya, were also arrested on “petty hooliganism” charges that are commonly used in politically motivated arrests in Belarus. They remain behind bars after their administrative sentences were extended.

This attack on Belarusian language publishing was not unique or out of the ordinary. Earlier in March, Andrey Yanushkevitch’s namesake publishing house was asked to vacate its office. A year earlier, its accounts were frozen and equipment confiscated.

Several other publishing houses specialising in books by Belarusian authors or in the Belarusian language – Halijafy, Limaryus, Knihazbor, as well as the printing house Medysont – were ordered to temporarily cease operations “for violation of regulations” earlier in the spring.

This wave of persecution in the book publishing industry rolled on top of another one the year before. “With the current government, I don’t see a future for book publishing [in the country],” a Belarusian publisher who was forced to shut his publishing house and a bookstore recently told me. He asked to remain anonymous out of safety concerns.

Belarus has historically been a multilingual, multiethnic state, with people speaking Belarusian, Polish, Russian, Yiddish (more common before World War II), and a number of local dialects.

When Belarus became part of the Soviet Union in 1918, its ethnic language and culture, just like the languages of many other Soviet republics, came under attack.

Belarusian intellectual and cultural elites were purged, books by Belarusian authors, as well as dictionaries were burned. On the night of October 29, 1937, which is now remembered as the Night of the Assassinated Poets, more than a hundred Belarusian writers, poets, artists and scientists were executed in Minsk on the orders of Joseph Stalin and his associates. From 1937 to 1938, more than 100,000 Belarusians were repressed – arrested, jailed, sent to camps or killed. Before Stalin’s death in 1953, between 600,000 and 1.5 million Belarusians were victimised. Russian became the dominant language.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Belarusian language experienced a brief renaissance, becoming the main language in schools and other institutions. In 1994-1995, at its peak, over 75 percent of middle schools had Belarusian as their main teaching language.

The abrupt transition was hard for many, and the newly minted President Alexander Lukashenko seized the opportunity. In May 1995, he held a referendum on the status of the Russian language, a new official flag and seal, further economic integration with the Russian Federation and the powers of Parliament. As a result, Russian received an equal status with Belarusian, and became the second state language in the country. Today, the enrolment in Belarusian-language schools is negligible – less than 4 percent – and less than 20 percent of the population speak Belarusian in their daily lives. It is officially an endangered tongue.

However, with the war in Ukraine entering its fourth nightmarish month, the language situation in Belarus has started to change. More and more Belarusians now choose to speak their mother tongue. More and more Belarusians are choosing to use the language in their everyday life. The transition is also palpable on social media, with Belarusian Twitter and Instagram becoming more and more dominated by the Belarusian language by the hour.

Recently, a close friend of mine has suggested we speak Belarusian, instead of Russian, between us. Soon another friend started texting me in Belarusian rather than Russian. No explanation was needed.

As Belarusian poet and Cornell University associate professor Valzhyna Mort told me, “[the] Belarusian language came to signify something more than just a system of signs.”

“Just saying a word in it, like ‘thank you’ or ‘hello,’ means more than just ‘thank you’ or ‘hello’ – it is also a political statement.”

As Russia continues its immoral war against our southern neighbour, Belarusians all over the world are coming to a conclusion that returning to our mother tongue is one of the few remaining ways for us to signal our protest against the Russian aggression in Ukraine, and in Belarus, and survive as a nation.

“Russians refer to us as their ‘younger brothers and sisters’; they say that we have a lot of similarities and we’re the same,” Mort told me. “From that position, it is just one step to say that we do not exist at all as a culture, which is not true. We see what happened in Ukraine.”

My attempts to speak Belarusian after speaking English and Russian for decades sound ill-equipped. My Belarusian limps on both feet, but I persevere, like many others.

With limited access to Belarusian language education and media, it is through reading Belarusian literature or translations that countless Belarusians like me try to remember the forgotten lexicon and grammar of their mother tongue. So it is not surprising that Alexander Lukashenko’s regime, which has effectively turned Belarus into Russia’s vassal state, assaults Belarusian language bookstores and publishing houses.

“We are not just in the crisis of censorship, but in the crisis of annihilation,” said Mort, as we discussed the recent decree signed by Lukashenko that allowed capital punishment for attempts at “terrorism”. In Belarus, where thousands have been persecuted on charges of extremism and terrorism for their acts of peaceful resistance, a death penalty for a book – for example, Alhierd Bacharevič’s novel Dogs of Europe is now considered “extremist material” –  doesn’t seem far fetched.

Effectively, day after day Lukashenko is carrying out a cultural genocide of Belarusians which was first started by the Soviets. We hope that the international community will not avert their eyes.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.