VILLA SOKRATES – THE CONTACT WITH EUROPE
The Belarusian culture is not widely known in Europe. It is connected with a little importance of Belorussia itself, and its only recent independence. The wall of ignorance about spiritual achievements of the Belorus’ is slowly being crumbled by the national literature, for example Wasil Bykau, a candidate for the Nobel Prize, translated into many languages.
The Belarusian literature has only recently started to seek place in the European awareness. In order to grant this phenomenon features of regular enterprise, we initiated the Villa Sokrates Society (Stowarzyszenie Villa Sokrates), located in Krynki in the eastern part of Poland, in the Podlaskie region. The idea brewed within the group of significant Belarusian artists who recognized their natural background in the broadly-conceived ethnos of the Belarusian national minority in the Polish Republic.
The Villa Sokrates as a legally established structure has existed for two years now. It is a non-governmental organization, whose activity is based on communal engagement of its members and financial support of Polish and foreign organizations.
The first initiatives of the Society were limited to a modest group of writers and historians of literature from Germany, England and France, who had been interested in Belarusian writing much earlier. It resulted in the inauguration of the Belarusian Trialogue in scenic Krynki, an event in the form of a summer symposium 1999. As the proceedings of this event we published the zero number of the Annus Albaruthenicus annual (The Belarusian Year). The editorial conception of this periodical, addressed to literary Europe, comes down to a simple principle of publishing texts in the languages they were written in, and devoting much attention to the Belarusian translations from Western literatures, scarcely popularized in Belorus’. The only detour from this rule is publishing texts by Belarusian and Polish authors translated only into one of the Western languages. It results from the generally accepted role of the Annus Albaruthenicus as a publishing initiative addressed to the Western-European readership. The aim of the Belarusian translations, in turn, is to deepen the process of Europeization of the Belarusian literature, to a large extent hidden in the shadow of Russian and Soviet literary traditions. Certainly, we also provide resumés in Belarusian, as well as in other languages.
In the context of this preliminary information we should also explain the reasons why we took on the name the Villa Sokrates Society and the title Annus Albaruthenicus. Practical reasons were the most important: the name of the famous philosopher of classical Greece somehow automatically implies the cultural orientation of the Belarusians (mostly of the Orthodox Church denomination). The title of the periodical, due to its linguistic universality, does not require any additional explanation.
The launching events of the Society were followed by a welcome tendency towards stabilization. The periodical enjoyed keen interest of the humanities circles. The issue was soon sold out. Moreover – to our surprise – we got very positive reviews in the press, both in Poland and abroad. We interpreted them as proving both the aptness and maturity of the initiative.
The Belarusian Trialogue: Poland-France-England which took place at the end of July 2000 in Krynki, although only second in turn, attracted a large number of participants from other countries, e.g. Sweden. This makes us very happy and gives us a lot of strength and energy for further endeavour. We also gained serious sponsors who guarantee realization of our plans on an absolutely professional level, without amateurish improvization and forever non-perspectival self-sacrifice.
The Villa Sokrates supported financially and organizationally the publication in Minsk of the anthology titled ‘Belarusian writers in Poland. Second half of the 20th century’. This is a very important publication, making it possible for the interested readers to get to know Belarusian literature created in Poland. Among its almost twenty most outstanding writers, some are known to the readers of literary magazines in Germany, England, Norway, Sweden, France and Italy. Poland has become a nation of two literatures. The Polish Belarusian literature, as different from the post-Soviet one, is more infused with European values, which in itself is clearly understandable. Its additional advantage lies in the fact that, according to critics, it is seen as the fragment of the general Belarusian literature which greatly intensifies the very process of writerly creativity in post-Soviet Belorussia, violently trampled by by colonialism of the Russian provenance.
The dream of the Villa Sokrates founders is to gain in the future a chance of continuous publication of the Belarusian writers in translation. Perhaps we will succeed in establishing a separate foreing-language publishing house whose aim would be to promote the entrance of the Belarusian literature into the bookshops on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. That the effort on the side of Belarusians themselves is indispensable can be confirmed by the activity of the Belarusian diaspora in London, where they have for many years published the periodical titled The Journal of Belarusian Studies, with the co-operation of the Cambridge and Oxford scholars. They also edited anthologies, as well as selected works by individual authors. The young generation produced translators from the Belarusian into English. There emerged on the Thames a remarkable tradition of the Belarusian language and culture specialists.
Similar beginnings of the case can be now observed in Stockholm and Paris.
The Annus Albaruthenicus aims to provide a platform for those interested in the Belarusian nationhood. The periodical differs from book editions precisely in its ability to react instantly to the current events and to find its way to readers not necessarily interested only in a given type of writing. Apart from that it is high time that the western enthusiasts of the Belarusian literature and, more broadly, culture, had their own periodical (which should also be issued more frequently).
We should now underline the uniqueness of the idea of the Annus Albaruthenicus. In the history of Belarusian culture nothing of the kind so far has appeared. And not only for historical or political reasons. The thing is that Belorussia gained its European context fairly late, on the turn of the 50s and 60s of the 20th century. Belorussia, plunged deep in colonial dependence, was unable to generate its own remarkable potential in the area of artistic creativity any earlier, as it was indeed constantly in the process of assimilation.
The Reader will certainly wonder about thematic concerns pursued by the editorial board of the Annus Albaruthenicus and the leaders of the Villa Sokrates Society. So – we do appreciate the focus on detail in our activity. In order to obtain the desired results, we need to concentrate on a chosen aspect of culture, so that the whole initiative is not rarefied in the vastness of national issues. That is why, obviously, we tend to concentrate on Belarusian literature, as it is the most precious heritage which can be contributed to the treasury of the European culture. Apart from texts wthin literary criticism, or, for that matter, practically encyclopaedic ones from various linguistic territories, as well as historiographic essays, we publish translations from Belarusian writers’ works: poetry, prose, drama. We give a lot of attention to those reprints in the Annus Albaruthenicus of older texts within subjects rarely discussed by Western intellectuals and scholars. Especially if these are works which have not lost their valency for the present. We treat them as building the tradition of the Belarusian presence in the world, and as an initiative for European integration in the present state. Belarusianness and Belorussia itself should not and cannot remain a black patch on the continent’s map, its terra incognita.
We are continuously looking forward to new contributions to our our common cause.
A warm welcome to all,
Sakrat Janowič, the Editor.
(trans. Dorota Kołodziejczyk)
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