|
 The Belarusian will emerge in time
Kurier Poranny: Does a nation have its own character?
 Sokrat
Janowicz: Each and every one! Because each nation means a different fate. The nation is formed not by God, and by poets, but by the fate. A separate fate constitutes a separate nation. There is a Swiss nation – they speak four languages, but the nation is one, because they were united by one fate, by the same piece of bread. People are divided not by chauvinists, but by bread. Here in Białystok I look at Polish chauvinists, who look at me with hatred, with calm (they’re stupid, but this cannot be helped), because I know that these are not them who divide us, but our common bread, common poverty or passion (rozkosz). America does not speak its own language, and there are separate nations there, because they have separate fates. And this is the fate which created them, not the language. Language and culture emerge under the influence of fate.
[KP] And all the stereotypes, like that all Belarusians are passive, yielding, are they at all true?
[SJ] This readiness to yield stems from the fact that their fate was different from the fate of other European nations. Which means that in comparison to Poles, Ukrainians, Russians or Baltic nations we, Belarusians, were the poorest, the weakest in material terms. Jacek Kuroń once stressed that we never conquered anybody in our history, never annexed and assimilated anybody, never linked any territories to outs, on the contrary, we were constantly annexed. My grandfather from Krynki, who was an undisputable illiterate, spoke fluently five languages: he courted his wife in Belarusian, if there was a need to deal with the authorities he spoke in Russian, if he needed to go to the master – landowner, or the priest, he could use his Polish (my grandfather understood that God spoke only Polish), if he needed more work and an opportunity turned out at the local factory, he went to talk with a German or a Jew, in their languages.
[KP] You said recently that those yielding Belarusians are a nation of conspirators which started the tradition of terrorism. What does it mean?
[SJ] This terrorism and conspiracy were meant to be ironic. But for the sake of remembering: January Uprising, Kastus Kalinowski, the dictator, fights with the Russian occupier, and organizes brigades of dagger-killers. Hryniewicki, who set up a Belarusian party, was publishing an underground newspaper. The Poles don’t mention several other important details about this man – the same Hryniewicki murdered the tsar Alexander II. Belarusians are poor people of a peasant mentality, and each peasant conspires, waits in hiding, and pretends to be nobility. A paradox: each peasant hates the nobleman and at the same time wants to be the nobleman.
[KP] The Belarusian oppositionists in Bialystok have good relations with the Chechens who arrived here. Is because it is more on their way with some nations, and with others less so?
[SJ] When I am in Gdansk and a man introduces himself as a Kashubian, I will leave all the Poles around and talk to him, because this Kaszubian is in the same situation as I am. I will talk with a Black person more cordially than with an Englishman. I repeat this always: it is the community that counts, the shared or similar fate. The Chechens are a small community in Białystok and my chivalric code of behavior forces me to contact the weaker first and foremost. A gentleman keeps side with the conquered and the unhappy, he will shake hands with the beggar, but not always with a factory owner. I know all of this, because I am also treated in a bit worse way, not with premeditation, on purpose, but inadvertently. My son said that with minority is like with a cow and a frog. A cow will stamp on a frog not even knowing about it and it means nothing for a cow while for a frog it is, well, a tragedy.
[KP] Do you observe any change in the way the Belarusians are perceived in the West?
[SJ] An average person in the south does not realize even now that Poland is an independent country. A couple of years ago I was talking to a dock worker in London. I attracted his attention because here is a man, who is white, but somewhat sad (because we’re recognized by sad eyes, there everybody smiles). I was trying to explain to him that Poland is independent, that it has its own capital city. And he went on ‘yeah, yeah’, just like the Scots have their Edinburgh, but everything is decided up there in Moscow for you. They do not understand what independence means in a political sense, because they never had to fight for it. He never heard anything about Belarusians, literally nothing. Later he started associating things and asked if it is not Lukashenka by any chance, because he had read something in the papers. People always pay attention to criminals, never to normal modest people. It’s just a different world there. Once Prof. Daniel Beauvois wrote to me: ‘I am fed up being a Pole in France, because as a French I am constantly fighting to have the Polish language taught in Lotaryngia, and the Poles don’t want it’. It’s the same with the Belarusians here. Poles in France or Germany behave in an exactly the same way as Belarusians here. Their thinking is based on the bread category, why should they bother about nationhood. A Belarusian here will be an earnest Pole; he’ll go to Germany and become an earnest German.
[KP] So, how is it now with the Belarusian sense of nationality abroad, I mean in the Republic of Belarus?
[SJ] They are Soviets, a part of the USSR. They never get in touch with the West. They come to Poland to buy things. Their fate and ours are two completely different matters.
[KP] Do you mean these are two completely different nations?
[SJ] So it seems. A Polish Belarusian nation will emerge in time. It already has a separate literature, in contrast to the Soviet Belarusian literature. And there the nation is practically Russian-language. Here we’ll have a Polish-Belarusian nation, very dynamic and mostly based on intelligentsia. During PRL [People’s Republic of Poland] the Belarusians were moving to the city, a major exodus occurred, as the life in the countryside was very harsh. Now in the countryside the Belarusian farmer won’t speak Belarusian, because he is ashamed of being a peasant, his children live now in the city. If you hear the Belarusian language somewhere, it means it is a doctor, lawyer, or another intellectual who does not have an inferiority complex. In Belarus an intellectual is nobody, a university professor means absolutely nothing. A locksmith enjoys a much bigger respect. It’s pure sovietism, power of the people. Belarusians there hate the Belarusian language because they associate it with poverty, stink and dirt. They want to forget this language as soon as possible. Here the status of intelligentsia is different, and it saves the day.
[KP] And how will the story with Aleksander Lukashenka, the president of Belarus, end? Let’s try to imagine the future a bit.
[SJ] Lukashenka’s position within next decade is unbeatable. He will be finished when people notice finally that everybody around the Republic is having a better life than they. And then they will be really angry. And now they believe in whatever Lukashenka is telling them: ‘In Poland unemployment runs rampant and people are dying of hunger’. Those who regularly travel to Poland to smuggle merchandise, and this is some 400 000 people, know that things are different, but the Belarusian people do not believe them: ‘You’re siding with the Poles and telling fairy tales’.
[KP] Podlasie will become an enclave where the Belarusian language and culture may survive?
[SJ] Not only may, but it surely will. In the Republic of Belarus the Belarusian language exists somewhere on the radio and television. But this is the language of profession, spoken for money. Even if a journalist speaks on air in Belarusian, he will switch to Russian when having beer with his buddies. An official starts his speech in Belarusian and finishes in Russian. The Belarusian language remains only as the language of liturgy, of a ritual, there. Here a Polish chauvinist does not like when they speak Belarusian, but he is well-behaved just enough not to start a fight. While at the Soviets’ one can really get beaten for speaking in Belarusian. Once, in a bookshop with a Belarusian literature, I asked the shop-assistant in Belarusian about a book. And she answered: ‘Can’t you speak in a human tongue?’
[KP] Is there anything changing for the better between Belarusians and Poles here in
Podlasie?
[SJ] Yes, it is. Cemeteries help us a lot. The old are passing away to a better world, a new generation comes which does not have all these painful memories and stigmata. Young people even ask me to speak to them in Belarusian because it sounds so interesting. I am not afraid to speak to them in Belarusian, as I am sometimes to my peers, because somebody might shout: ‘This is Poland here!’. Cemeteries will do all the good work for us, there is no need to rush.
[KP] Thank you for the interview.
Ïóáë³êóåööà íà ñàéöå ç ëàñêàâàé
çãîäû Àá'ÿäíàíüíÿ Villa
Sokrates
|
Ïîëüñê³ à¢êöû¸í
