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Women of Belarus 2
The female triumvirate. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
On April 7, 2021, the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet\nStudies welcomed three guest speakers to discuss the ongoing Belarusian\nprotests. Logging into Zoom from Los Angeles, Ithaca, and Prague, Sasha Razor, a\nscholar and activist, Valzhyna Mort, a poet, and Rufina Bazlova, an artist, had\na lot to say about not only the present, but also the past and future as well\nin Belarus. All three helped to contextualize the protests and the role of art\nin helping us understand them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sasha Razor, a scholar of Soviet culture, started by speaking about Belarusian responses to dictatorship. After displaying a poster showcasing the expansive penal system in Belarus, Razor noted that \u201cpolice brutality and state violence have become a collective formative experience for generations of Belarusians.\u201d Yet, protestors decided to turn away from weapons and, instead, toward the arts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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There has been a return to traditional, Belarussian art forms such as\nVyshyvanka and other forms of embroidery\u2014these artforms, which have been\nimbibed with a political spirit, have collectively contributed to a new form of\nprotest dubbed \u201ccraftivism.\u201d Though craftivism has now become a global movement,\nRazor specified that these crafts are \u201cat the heart of our traditional culture\nand\u2026therefore, what we are seeing today is a part of our cultural memory and a\ncode that we share as a community.\u201d The protests are therefore uniquely Belarusian,\neven if they are part of a worldwide movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rufina Bazlova, a practitioner of traditional Belarusian crafts, said her\nfamily often jokes that the only thing left to her was embroidery\u2014this is a\nstatement not only on the struggles of Belarusians today but a reminder of the losses\nBelarusian cultural life experienced under the Russian Empire and the Soviet\nUnion. Now, as an emigre living in the Czech Republic, Bazlova learns about\nongoing events in Belarus through viral videos and pictures, and, through\nInstagram posts, she responds to them.[1]<\/a> In\na way that may only intuitively make sense to those who are millennials or\nyounger, Bazlova is skipping traditional modes of artistic distribution in\norder to directly reach engaged people around the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Valzhyna Mort, a poet, translator, and professor at Cornell, spoke about\nher theories on the power of art, and read poems from her most recent book, Music for the Dead and Resurrected<\/em> to\nexpress her views on Belarus. She said that poetry opposes the academic\ndiscipline of history, because poetry is based on emotion rather than facts.\nOfficial memory, the memory that historians tend to write, relies on a \u201clocked\narchive,\u201d while poetry relies on remembrance and emotional connections. Mort thus\nsees poetry as a method of explaining tension and creating catharsis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To Bazlova, Belorussian protest art is about energizing\nprotestors\u2014through transforming reality, art connects to people and shows how\nthe world could be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In Razor\u2019s words, \u201c[art] is a transformative experience\u201d and provides \u201cemotional\nprocessing.\u201d Collectively, Belarusian culture and art offers collective\ntestimonies, working as one to keep the protests alive. However, not everyone\nthinks art is the way to bring Lukashenko down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPoetry can create a ceremony of coping,\u201d Mort said, but it is \u201cnot a\nweapon that can be used against a dictatorship.\u201d Instead, Mort argued, poets\nare simply documenting what is happening in the present moment, and they are\ncreating a space for inquiry. Political scientists, she added, are the ones who\nshould be responsible for figuring out how to articulate political change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n One question from the audience was about the feminine aspects in the art\nmovement today. Both Bazlova and Mort said that this seemed like a natural\nextension of the matriarchal traditions in Belarussian families; however, Razor\nwanted to caution everyone to remember that there are women in the police force\nand courts, arresting protestors and sending them to jail. Ultimately, many of\nthe same means of protest are co-opted by the regime, and protestors must\nconstantly stay alert and re-code or invent new ways to keep the movement\nalive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n These three speakers force us to remember that the Belarusian protests are complicated, and the opposition is not fully ideologically unified. However, one thing is clear: most Belarusians want the cockroach out of office. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Alex Adams is a senior majoring in History and Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies. He is an undergraduate fellow at the Havighurst Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n [1]<\/a>\nhttps:\/\/www.instagram.com\/rufinabazlova\/?hl=en<\/a>\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Alex Adams \u201cIf I say it ended in tragedy, this is, in the first place, because of the size of the human toll taken in course of that social \u2013 or chronological \u2013 change. For in a real tragedy, … Continue reading
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