THE RUSSIAN STEREOTYPE IN THE EYE OF A BELARUSIAN:
(IN LIFE AND LITERATURE)
Ales Chobat
Russians in Belarus are liked and disliked at the same time, because the term „Russian” has a much wider meaning than ethnic roots. Commonplace people subdivide Russians the same way they subdivide Russians they subdivide themselves. For Komsomol members who are Orthodox believers, „Russian” means „good”, for those who are Catholics „Russian” means „bad”. This division was inspired neither by Moscow nor by Warsaw. It was not introduced by authorities, education or culture from independent Minsk. The division is age–long, as it is a common division into „ours” and „theirs”, into „one of us” and „an alien”. And without it our countryside (which has fled to Minsk or Hrodna) cannot live, because it is boring.
Russians or Muscovites appeared in Belarus only in the mid–nineteenth century, after the worthless Rebellion of l830 (to be exact, after the Polish–Russian war). As Poland lost its autonomy, constitution, army and finances, and its elite rushed to the „great emigration”, there appeared a lack of more or less loyal personnel in the spheres of administration, education, police, etc. That is why the Russian incursion into Belarus was inevitable. But… in such a mass way to russify something in Vitebsk, Hrodna, Minsk and Mahileu provinces Russians had never immigrated. Officials and officers came here to „serve” for some time, and those who had money did not want to buy confiscated „Polish estates”. It was not beneficial. Can one compare sandy soils of Hrodna suburbs to the black earth near Voronezh (one and a half metres deep)?! So Belarus remained the Polish province of the Russian Empire from l795 till 1920…
The war of l9l4 was the global shake–up in the 20th century and has not finished yet. To Belarus those six years brought ruin and death to 2,5 mln people, the encampment of German and Russian troops at the front line Narach–Baranavichy–Pinsk during three years (both the „warriors” destroyed all the huts for firewood within fifty kilometres from the trenches), refugees from Hrodna and Vilnia provinces in the summer of l9l5 (to be precise, it should be called an „ethnic purge”, because our Orthodox villagers were made to flee by Cossack’s whips while Catholics and Jews were not bothered)… In l9l5 the „Russian” area of Belarus was occupied by the Western front with l,5 mln soldiers and 500 thousand employees of the rear (chiefly, railway men, repairers, carters, etc.) – nearly all of them had come from central Russia. And the „refugees” from Vilnia and Hrodna districts, in their turn, settled in the areas from Arkhangelsk to Astrakhan – in villages, small and big towns… That was the first mass contact of Belarusians and Russians. The war of l9l4 was its cause …
Since then the situation has not changed – Belarusians are „strangers” in Russia, and Russians are „strangers” in Belarus.
The propaganda of „Belarusian brotherhood” by Soviet and post–Soviet ideologists is a historically constrained affair, this is a matter of survival on the land where one has settled. And all the slogans about our „common roots”, „Great Rus”, „Orthodox spirit” and the „generally understood language” is nothing but a decor of the double tragedy when Russians were called on to the army in Kostroma and brought here, and Belarusians were put onto carts near Vaukavysk and taken to Russia as refugees.
To tell the truth, Belarusians were in contact with Russian long ago; Skaryna travelled to Moscow, others to Novgorod. But mass trade, diplomatic and cultural contacts were impossible then, because there was a permanent war between Moscow and Litva for dominating in the Orthodox Eastern part of Europe that lasted for centuries. By the way, if Litva had won a victory we could have had something like the Third Rome with despotism, traditionalism, backwardness and barbarism.
Moscow defeated Litva in the war of l654–1667. Thus the Great Duchy of Litva lost only Smolensk, and the Polish Crown only Kiev. But the human losses were not to be renewed. The trouble was not only in the fact that the bigger half of the inhabitants were killed, but in the fact that all the lower middle class and craftsmen were taken prisoners and sent to Moscow. As a nation we were made bankrupt, we were made plebeians. Wastelands of Polatsak, Pinsk, Minsk and other similar towns were settled by Jesuits, Jews, Germans and the like who were not idles, by the way. Meanwhile the third part of our „prisoners” survived only in Moscow. Moreover, they dominated there as good craftsmen and tradesmen for some time. That was not an accent with ‘okannie’ which was borrowed from Volga Tatars (natives of Volga regions speak real Russian). The accent with «akannie» was brought to Moscow by Belarussian new settlers. So now the «whole of Russia» actually speaks Russian with a Belarussian accent that cannot be easily changed.
But this „prison” has not influenced the relations between Belarusians and Russians. The „prisoners” settled in emigration, and as it usually happens, the emigrants assimilated the native speakers to better adapt there.
Russians and Belarusians took little interest in each other because they had lived in different countries before. And when in l772-l795 they had to live together, nothing changed. Because the villagers kept to their huts (nobody can hear about the „colonilization” of Belarus, though Russians colonized Siberia, the Northern Caucasus and Ukrainian steppes), the merchants kept making business trips, and the „occupants”, officials and officers came here to „serve” for a short time only...
Any transformation of a nation has the only tool - money. After 1772 in Vilnia and Minsk regions commissars of Catherine II saw overcrowded villages. And there was a great lack of recruits for the army! But one cannot chase after every boor across the sands, marshes and bogs!
That is why all the estates were levied all-Russian taxes, taken in silver which meant four times more than the taxes for Russians. So the estate owners had to pay out with recruits instead of silver: two dozen per year, and one could have a quiet sleep.
During 1772-1815, one hundred thousand Belarusians were mobilized to the Russian Army. I wonder if it was the Russian or Belarusian army that defeated Napoleon, Paniatowski and other European warriors! Thus, the first Russification in Belarus took place in the army. The second was at school.
Thus wonderful wonders began! After the Vienna Congress of l815, where Russia received Belarus and Ukraine and acknowledged the annexation of Poland as an autonomy (in fact, that was a Russian-Polish Union; The Emperor Alexander I was declared the Polish King just like Yahaila). Polonization in education began in Belarus. Not Russification. The number of Catholics increased and their churches were built everywhere, Vilnia University flourished. Only the death of the monarch and the rebellion of standard-bearers in l830 happened to stop that Polonization for a time. But that did not mean the start of Russification!
Even after the romantic Rebellion of l861 which was suppressed, the attempts of the Governor Court Muravyov - the Hangman to bring here Russifiers from his country fell through; he and his vice-governor were driven away from Vilnia by Poles from Petersburg. And the General Potapov, who was their successor did not permit even two-year Russian church school, not to mention gymnasiums and universities.
The newly-arrived officials were far more indifferent to common Belarusians than local Polish „pans”. But money did its part. Belarusians, liberated from serfdom in l861, but having no means to live on, rushed to Russia to earn for living — to build railroads, work at factories, drag timber. Naturally, they also rushed to Poland, but the rivalry there was much tougher, as the skilled workers, for example, could speak German. Besides, there was no Orthodox church. But in Russia, with its all poverty and hunger, some oases of factory and town civilization were founded; besides, Russia had always lived on emigrants and was full of Germans, Poles, Frenchmen, etc. And Belarusians also found some place there, like other strangers. But they had to do one thing - to turn into Russians (they did not even remember they were Belarusians, only from time to time they remembered the villages they had come from). For in the „heads” from Vologda or Tombov there was no space for the idea that an Orthodox believer could be „non-Russian”. In Russia, even among commonplace people, everything was tolerated - Polish Catholicism, German Lutheranism, Tatar Islam. But how could an Orthodox believer be a non-Russian was not clear to Russians at that time and ... is not clear now whether to an uneducated person or a professor.
Belarusians went to Russians, and the latter received them, having two reasons for that; firstly, the interest was purely economic — a chance to survive; secondly, Orthodox tolerance of the Belarusians who considered themselves Russians. It looks like Islamic tolerance: if you put your hand on the Koran, if you allowed to take you by the ear and said a Mohammedan prayer, you are a Moslem. No problems!
In Poland things went worse — there Poles identified those who were different (Where do you come from, poor cad?). That is why Belarusians were not polonized, they were russified. Russia claimed to be an empire while Poland, driven back to the Vistula, was anxious about its Polishness.
The war of 1914-1920 was expected to change everything. Even General Balakhovich, „the head of the Belarusian State”, not to mention the Belarusian People’s Republic, did not encourage Belarusians to become Belarusians. The last three or four decades made people think that Belarus is a country of villages, Russia is a country of factories and money, and Poland is not eager to see them. Later, the BSSR was founded by Lenin and Stalin, and the Polish „sanation” began to convert Belarusians into pseudo-Poles.
These were many things that affected the human state of mind. But the real end of the Belarusian countryside in l929-1930, the years of collectivization and industrialization, and cultural revolution meant the „death” of traditional Belarusians who had lived from the time of Mindouh to Nikolai II and Comrade Lenin.
Soviets gave the villagers an unheard-of level of education (that made them different from Polish rulers), and the guaranteed well-being after the period of education. The main hero of Belarusian literature from 1930 till 1980 was a graduate from a village seven-year school who travelled to Minsk or Moscow (it made no difference for him) to find his fortune. Paradox, isn’t it? - No, it isn’t. „New” Soviet Russia appeared to offer a bigger chance and privilege than „Old” tsarist Russia... And what about the native village? - Let it perish! people said.
It is evident that it is not easy, even in case the people wish to alter the nation. Russification was followed by Sovietization and, as we know, the mass character of education spoils the elite and turns its quality into a show. By the way, Belarusians did not travel to Minsk to get an education, they travelled there to get a diploma, later to leave their villages and to live a better life in towns. But „new” Russians, Bolsheviks (the number of immigrants from Moscow is not big; the data say that before 1941 in Russian-speaking Minsk Jews made up 43%, Poles - 18%, Belarusians - 14% and Russians - only 10%), did not worry about the quality of Russification, the mass character was more important. Hitlerites wrote instructions for Belarusian schools in German and Belarusian. Belarusians were taught German to understand and obey German masters, but not to use it in conversation. Oh, no ... God forbid! Writing was not compulsory either, with an exception for the words „jawohl” and „bitte”.
What was Sovietization in Belarus? That was a simplified form of Russification. For slaves. To obey the pan (master).
Why was there no opposition? - There was no nation, there was only a countryside. Do you remember how elderly people shed tears over their lot? They said: „Children, it makes no difference to me! If it were only O.K. ...” If it were only O.K. ...”
Belarusians became Russians because they could not raise from their knees. And they could not do it because they had no elite. They had no elite because their magnates and shliakhta transformed into Poles. What is more awful, they left neither towns, nor lower middle classes, nor intelligentsia.
They used to employ Germans as housekeepers and Tatars as standard-bearers. And without your own elite brought up by more than five generations and tempered in four or five wars, you cannot raise from knees. Standing on your knees you will have only one thought in your head — your better fate.
Grievous Belarusians as a nation have likes and dislikes towards Russians. They like them because Russians from the Empire allowed them to settle in that Empire, educated them, awarded them with diplomas and gave them shoulder straps, but ... now and then they remind Belarusians who is the master in the Empire and who is a slave, who is a native Russian and who is „also a Russian”. Alas, but that happens very often after all alcoholic tears about „love and brotherhood”! And Belarusians know this, remember this and will not forget about this. But ... they do not wish to leave the Empire because, they think, they will not survive alone. That is why they tolerate Russians and fool them, just like Polish pans. President Lukashenka does the same things. His life becomes harder with every coming day because Russian imperialism is transforming into classical Russian nationalism, which does not need even such tolerant colonies as Belarus. That is why the relations between Russians and Belarusians are gradually changing, but not in a better direction. The time of well-being has passed by, now it is a time of squabble between beggars for a piece of bread on the ruined imperial rubbish heap.
Belarus and Belarusians are poorly described in Russian literature, just like other minorities of the Empire. Russian writers were less interested in the Empire and multiculture than Russian officials, merchants and military men. They were exclusively anxious about the troubles and needs of one nationality - Russian. The only exception was the Caucasus - Lermontov’s The Hero of Our Time, the novel Khadzhi-Murat by Leo Tolstoy... They were officers, and wrote about war. And the war lasted 120 years. It has not finished yet, and there is no end in sight... As Belarus and Ukraine were more easily fooled than the Caucasus, there is no interest in them (Why should we write about them? The work is done!). Russian literature is lacking in regionalism, with the rare exception of Anton Chekhov and his fundamental work The Isle of Sakhalin.
But the Belarusians (with Dostoyevsky among them), who enriched Russian literature, quickly and sincerely forgot their birthplaces. Where can we read about Dostoyevsky’s Belarusian roots? Except perhaps in the works of the patriarch and the authority in criticism Vissarion Belinsky who made the following remark: „You write somehow not in Russian”. The critic Belinsky had seen the wrong structure of the phrase and the non-Russian way of thinking. That is all we know about Dostoyevsky and his Belarusian roots.
Not much changed in Soviet times. The literary policy of Moscow consisted in translating only some authors from small autonomous regions and in showering them with medals.
That is why only translators took interest in Belarusian writers, just to fulfill the duty and to earn money. The rare thing happened in the last seventies of the last century when Andrei Voznesensky published a collection of poems where he described Belarus. But… he published it after visiting the famous kolkhoz near the Belavezhskaya Pushcha headed by the best chairman Biadulia. That was a gentlemanly agreement, wasn’t it?
In general, Belarus was often mentioned in travellogues. Kuprin visited Belarus, and the result was his novel Alesia, Bunin travelled by train via Belarus – and he later described Vitsebsk and Polatsak in his books.
Russian literature impressed Belarusians not so much because it was about Belarus, but due to two other reasons. Firstly, because we had no Belarusian literature till the early 20th century; secondly, because of its quality. Even in Polish courts Pushkin and Gogol competed with Mitzkevich /Mickievicz and Slavatski, and later the preference was given to Tolstoy, Chekhov and Dostoyevsky.
Under Soviets, Kupala, Kolas and Samuilionak could not rival with Mayakovsky, Alexei Tolstoy, Katayev, Siminov.
Minsk was a provincial town, where everyone was afraid of everything. The themes were limited (you must write only about countryside), not to say anything of the ideas and contents. And Belarusians rushed to towns, like bullets. Russian literature formed Belarusians from the thirties of the 20th century till now, because Belarusian literature was left to continue its life in the countryside, and new Belarusians are doing their damned to move to towns as well.
As for the impact of Belarusian literature on Russians as a nation, there is none. Perhaps, one can find some traces of influence on the Russian elite, on the epicure of literature. Russians remember Bahdanovich, they read Bykau Russian-speaking Aleksievich (she comes from Zhitomir, Ukraine) although she used to write in Russian she is regarded to be a representative of Belarusian literature, perhaps, because she lived in Minsk. Who else?
Mikhail Herchuk from Babruisk (a good but undervalued prose-writer), Victor Kazakevich, a poet form Mahileu region. He has few publications. Except perhaps Ihar Shkliareuski who reflected unity, relations, synthesis, balance and patience in his poetry (he comes from Bialynichi, Mahileu region). He wrote about Mahileu and about forests and marshes along the Sozh-river.
Through it may sound paradoxical, our classic Uladzimir Karatkevich was one of those who described Russia most often. To tell the truth, the events in his novel Chazeniya (a relic tree that can grow on bare stones) take place in Vladivostok, but the names of the main characters are Belarusian or Lithuanian (Budrys, Arsaila, etc.). If you read Karatkevich you will see that Russians do not live near the Japanese Sea, you can find only migrants there. But how well he described Moscow of 1860 in his novel Weapons! The Russian classic Hilyarevsky (Uncle Hil) cannot rival with him! Karatkevich concentrates his attention on the attitude of Belarusians to Russians. This is how his character perceived Moscow: ”He liked and hated the city. He liked it because it was full of book-fairs, theatres, universities; he hated it because he could see „mordoboi” (bashing someone’s face), flogging in public places, proletarian boors, etc…”
Gradually, „all Moscow” flowed to Belarus – books, theatre, education, „mordoboi” and proletarian boors… It couldn’t be in a different way. The influence must be all-round. The truest words about the essence of Russian expansion in culture were written by Chekhov. They are : „Gobble up what you are given!”
Belarusians were influenced by the literature which came through education and trade.
„Samizdat” rarely reached our land. Even the popular writers of the sixties were impossible for our new intelligentsia to get. In general, the perception of the literature by the Belarusians, whose job do not involve literature, education or journalism, is very specific.
The best reflection of this is presented in the prose of Ivan Piashko – one of his characters regrets buying new furniture: „Oh, these bookcases! Thirty long metres of books, nothing else! Our district bookshop cannot praise of having so many…” Books, Russian or Belarusian, were rare articles in everyday life of Belarusians; they could be bought only as textbooks necessary for studies.
Books were obtained to get a high school diploma and to flee from the village to town, because in town one could idle and enjoy life. Book amateurs, in particular amateurs of good reading, in villages and small towns where few – only a hundredth part of the inhabitants had them.
„Ancient” Belarus lived in cultural traditions, in harvest festivals and evening parties (viachorki) and together with books, science and literature they came to town.
But now new Belarus lives with television, video, pop-music and traditional gatherings for recreation on the benches near five-storied blocks of houses. But „new” Belarus does not live in the tradition of good reading. When you say that somewhere in Scandinavia a farmer or a fisherman has a rich library of different books, even teachers of literature make fun of your words … They do not believe you … They cannot imagine that such things may exist, that not only teachers need books, but the very commonplace people read them.
Russification and Sovietization were made by Belarusian villagers for life advances. The migrants from Russia were chiefly officers, engineers and employees. They did not see any necessity to russify Belarusians, who could do it perfectly by themselves. Easterners married local girls, led a local way of life (relatives, six-acre allotments, etc.) and gradually became locals psychologically. There were two parallel processes – firstly, self-sovietization by mastering the Soviet variant of the Russian language and swallowing Soviet culture; secondly, self-transformation of Russian migrants into locals (tuteishy) with all their life-style, philosophy and dreams of ruling over others, of doing nothing and having good meals and a lot of money …
The generation of children in mixed families (Russian father and Belarusian mother, as a rule) is often calls Creoles, on analogy with Latin America. Their language is Soviet Russian, but they themselves are so independent and patriotic that you can send them to fight under the flag of Simon Bolivar or General Bulakhovich.
Reverse things also occur. For instance, Minsk fascists from „Russian National Unity” and democrats from the party „Yabloko”(Apple), etc. We should note that the search for something Russian or Belarusian instead of Soviet refers to Minsk and some other big towns. Small towns and villages keep on living in the Soviet Union, like in a lethargic sleep. But it cannot be helped. People of the Empire have not changed. Even though the Empire has collapsed.
Thus, our destiny is a disunity (no mater proportion) of modern Belarusian generation into three communities – Soviet, Belarusian and Russian.
The first group will dominate and pretend that everything is O.K. The second will slowly act in its own way: it will try to compensate for everything what has been undone in our culture, it will be beaten and imprisoned but it has the best prospects. The third group will look back at Moscow and blow on Moscow without doing anything for Russian culture in Belarus.
These Russians will be like Soviets, pure users. They will get into a similar trap thinking that culture can be brought from somewhere else, like goods or technology.
I am sorry for them.
It is difficult for me to judge the Belarusian impact on Russian literature. This ought to be done by Russian writers and critics. I can mention Adamovich, Aleksievich, Bykau, Shkliareuski.
And the influence of Russian literature on Belarusian was of two kinds – there was classical literature of the 19th and 20th centuries and Russian Soviet literature. One should not put on the list of „Soviets” all Russian and Belarusian writers – they had to live in the Soviet Union for the sake of survival or for earning money, they had to write something truly Soviet… But literature saves the best works, and the worst ones die out in their natural way.
No doubt, Russian literature made a good impact on Belarusian. It is also doubtless that it made a bad impact. Kupala, Kolas and Bahdanovich are beyond comparison. Only some authors like Karatkevich, Heniush, Melezh, Bryl could reach their level. For before 1917 we had Russian literature but we had no Soviet literature. And one did not have to fight with its influence and technology (censorship, educational boards, plans, etc.). Unfortunately, the impact of Soviet Russian literature spoilt many writers who were beginning their careers after 1945, and it continues to spoil those who are only 20 today.
Our young writers who do not wish to be influenced by Soviet works, do not read Russian classics either. Now Borges, Salinger, Prust and Camus are more popular. It is good to know them, but the trouble is that our young authors read European and American works in Russian translations.
It general, Belarusian literature in Belarus (and we also have literature in Russian and Polish) should have close contacts with Russian and Polish literature to develop properly, because the Belarusian literary language has a lot of borrowings from Russian, but its grammatical structure, tempo, concepts are closer to Polish.
And now some words about self-censorship in the works of young writers. This usually happens when the author is afraid of making a step aside. Having no wish to be under the influence of Russian writers (regarding them to be Soviets and colonizers) our authors (from Minsk and other big towns, as a rule) write like a patient who is learning to walk after a serious disease. „If I only could write, if I only could finish my work and avoid errors!” We have neither villages nor small towns, regional dialects have practically disappeared.
And you cannot hear good Belarusian, even in the centre of Minsk. And here our literature has taken a step in the wrong direction – it is losing the experience of our beginners who, by the way, were not afraid of influence and had no idea of self-censorship, it is longing for Renaissance, independence, Puritanism, avant-gardism, etc.
The decade has passed by, but there are few good results – neither Borges, nor Salinger could help.
If we could compare the last decade to the decades when Kupala, Kolas and others created, it would be like words apart …
If the author is afraid of influence because of his patriotic feelings he is sure to be taken ill with self-censorship. This is the whole truth … The most ridiculous thing in Belarus is television. That is something like dated American pop-culture of the eighties. It is really funny! Minsk did everything possible to imitate Moscow television which in its turn made a copy from American television, and a copy of a copy looks like second-hand clothes owned by somebody else, then sold again. We cannot neglect TV because it is people’s pleasure of pleasures. Literature, theatre and languages cannot compete with TV, especially on the post-Soviet territory.
The relations between Russians and Belarusians are determined by TV channels, not literature which had a certain impact on people in the 19th and even 20th centuries. Moscow shows few programs about Belarus; Russians have their own troubles (crashes, wars and cataclysms), all of which cannot get onto the screen.
Minsk TV shows Russia yet less, though nearly all the programs are in Russian. The exception is when President Lukashenka pays a visit to the Kremlin, makes a scandal there because of the failure in uniting. The Union with Russia, but not Russian culture and Russians, is in the centre of attention among hard-working and hospitable Belarusians. They are anxious to know if they will be given gas and heating in wintertime, if some company like „Mastydreva” will sell old furniture to them.
Nationalism among „new” Belarusians (and I think it will grow stronger if Belarus becomes poorer) forms self-consciousness of the second and third generations after their parents, Soviet liberators, who settled here after World War II and after Soviet engineers who were sent here by the Communist party. This process becomes quicker with every coming day. While in 1990-1995 older emeriti argued and said: „Yes, I’m Russian, but I was born here, through my father came from the Urals. And we shall never leave this place!” At the time of Lukashenka they say: „What kind of Russian am I? I was born here, and here I will live… „My observations are occasional, but the dynamic process is evident.
People begin to realize that Moscow is not the whole of Russia and that the Kremlin is not the whole of Moscow, that Byzantism is real when everything belongs to the Emperor’s Palace, not even to Constantinople. And there, in the very centre, no one pays attention to any Russians, even to those from Chechnya or Latvia, to say nothing of Belarus or Ukraine.
You live on the land you have to live on …
I wish the Russians, who were brought here as fate had willed, had created some culture of their own in Belarus.
They used Moscow culture and made fun of Belarusian culture… Now they begin shedding tears, but we know that „Moscow does not believe tears”. I am really sorry for the Russians who were killed spiritually by the Soviet Empire.
I am also sorry for the Jews who were killed by Hitlerites. I am also sorry for the Poles who were sent to the „white bears” in the North or repatriated to Poland after 1945. I am really sorry for my dear Belarus which was driven by Hitler and Stalin’s asphalt road rollers.
Other cultures were so thoroughly destroyed that now our own is being destroyed the same way.
Lukashencka’s parvenu need only one thing – to operate the roller which stifles everything.
But we shall live through everything, for regimes, power and underlings come and leave. And culture leaves traces. The classic example is Latin which is used only by medical men, zoologists and botanists, but without Latin there would be not any other language in Europe. Latin novus sounds almost the same way in other languages (new, íîâû, neu, novy, íîâûé). But the words old and young have no similar roots. If we had no Greek or Latin culture we would be dressed in clothes made of wild animals now.
In our ancestors’ view, the old is to be followed by the young and they should be quite similar.
But Athens and Rome gave life to progress – the concept old versus new meant something different. Whether bad or good, but it stimulated the development of science, education and culture.
National literature includes the national language first of all and has some specific features in its form.
But real literature is one for the whole humanity, as real literature always means something new which has never been before. Belarusian literature, which revived only in the early 20th century is of most interest to Europe and the world, because it is new and this is its most significant influence.
Trans. Alena Tabolich
Ales Chobat (Àëåñü ×îáàò) – Belarusian writer, poet, editor. Hrodna, Republic Belarus’.
Àëåñü ×îáàò íàðîäæàíû ¢ ìÿñòý÷êó Ñê³äàëü ó 1959 ã. Ñêîí÷û¢ Òýõíàëàã³÷íû ³íñòûòóò ó ̳íñêó. Áû¢ ôàáðû÷íûì êàíñòðóêòàðàì, æóðíàë³ñòàì ðîçíûõ ãàçåòà¢, ýêñêóðñàâîäàì ìóçåÿ Ìàêñ³ìà Áàãäàíîâ³÷à. À¢òàð ÷àòûðîõ êí³ãࢠïàýç³³, ýñý „Çÿìëÿ ñâ. Ëóê³” ³ „Ëåãåíäà ïðà ÷àòûðîõ ìóøêåö¸ð࢔. ßãî òýêñòû ïåðàêëàäàë³ñÿ ç áåëàðóñêàé íà çàìåæíûÿ ìîâû, ì.³í. ïîëüñêóþ, àíãåëüñêóþ. Æûâå ¢ Ãðîäíå.
Ïóáë³êóåööà íà ñàéöå ç ëàñêàâàé
çãîäû Àá'ÿäíàíüíÿ Villa
Sokrates
Ïîëüñê³ à¢êöû¸í
