The socio-political changes of the mid fifties in Poland, the so called thaw spreading from the east, for a while invigorated the official policy of the Polish state towards its citizens of non-Polish origin.

Belarusian Literary Association (Białoruskie Stowarzyszenie Literackie, since 1962 known as „Białowieża”)[2] was created on June 8th, 1958 in Białystok as an organization affiliated to the editorial board of the Belarusian socio-cultural weekly Niwa. This memorable event took place at the first congress of at that time relatively little known Belarusian writers who were citizens of Poland. The participants of the congress and founding members of the association were Jasza Bursz[3] (real name Jan Aniserowicz), Włodzimierz Hajduk, Piotr Łastówka, Marian Pieciukiewicz, Wincenty Skłubowski, Jan Czykwin, Dymitr Szatyłowicz, Wiktor Szwed, Sokrat Janowicz and others. Actually this was a gathering of three generations (those born in the twenties, thirties and forties) of intellectuals and artists with very different life experiences and different ideologies and literary-artistic consciousness, both beginners and seasoned authors who published their first texts before the war. Around one table met students from Polish secondary schools, university students and older persons with a diploma in engineering, fine arts, ethnography, law, philology. Soon others joined them in the sixties, thus broadening the generational span (among others Antoni Wasilewski, Aleksander Batura, Aleksander Barszczewski, Bazyli Barszczewski, Mikołaj Hajduk, Jerzy Geniusz, Władysław Dworakowski, Szymon Romańczuk, Leopold Tankiewicz, Igor Chlabicz, Jan and Eugeniusz the Bliźniuk brothers, Wiktor Rudczyk, Leon Mojsiejuk, Mikołaj Łobacz, Włodzimierz Pawluczuk, Jan Ciełuszecki).

But the principal animator of the Belarusian writers’ association was Jerzy Wołkowycki,[4] the editor in chief of Niwa (since its creation in 1956), a graduate of the Literary Institute in Moscow, who was himself born in Białowieża and therefore deeply rooted in this region, a man of uncommon integrity with a vivid biography, endowed with literary and organizational talents, open to contacts with people of a „different sort”, i.e. sensitive, volatile persons with a muddled past. These traits of character were responsible for his unanimous election as chairperson of the Association, and even though since 1960 he has not served in this capacity he has continued to play the role of the informal head of the association offering his friendly assistance and expertise in technical literary matters. As early as in 1959 he edited the poetic almanac Ruń, in which poems of seventeen authors were published. The publication of this first literary book after the war in the Białystok province was immediately noticed and commented in several press publications in Poland and abroad. Opinions expressed in this context were invariably positive and encouraging. But Jerzy Wołkowycki in the preface stated: „We present this book to the readers not without apprehension. (…) It is as yet an only modestly greening field cultivated by inexperienced Belarusian poets, who face compelling difficulties of individual development. (…) But the dice has been cast”.

The circumstances were indeed rather complex and times difficult for writers.

After less than two years of ideologically relatively free and esthetically unhampered activities, the Association was suddenly curbed in further development, its initiatives being muted: in 1960 „Białowieża” was incorporated into the structure of the General Board of Belarusian Socio-Cultural Association (Białoruskie Towarzystwo Społeczno-Kulturalne — BTSK) (active since 1956). Since that time writers’ association has been an integral part of the educational branch of BTSK and as such had to work within the limitations of its statutory regulations. And all activities of BTSK and its regional branches were at the time closely monitored and censored by an appropriate section at the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Here the dice was also cast: but this time by the adversary.

Belarusian Literary Association could return to its appropriate mission, i.e. independent promotion of exclusively creative, literary ventures, as stipulated in its own statutory regulations, only at the beginning of 1989. „Białowieża” immediately took advantage of the political transformation in Poland and achieved official recognition already on August 14th 1990.

At that time creation of its own literary magazine was still out of question. The only practicable solution was to find limited space on the pages of Niwa, so as not to provoke the outcry of unfriendly political critics. Thanks to the prudence and perseverance of the editor in chief of Niwa a most hospitable literary forum for the Association would open in the form of the Litaraturnaja staronka (Literary Page) which fairly regularly featured in this weekly since June 1958.

This modest „periodical” was strangely enough never dominated by a single world view, single ideology or literary-esthetic, philosophical or religious program. Literary Page provided a tribune on which numerous creative orientations, convictions and ideals could manifest themselves, as well as different poetics, from the experience and normative bent of the so called „socialistic realism”, patriotic rhetoric, commemorative poetry and pseudo-declarations of politically engaged art, to radically individualistic stances and poetic experimentation, spontaneous linguistic expression with little regard for reality. During a period of four decades there appeared on the columns of the Literary Page three and a half thousand short literary texts; these were primarily pieces of poetry but also prose miniatures, short stories, essays, columns, reviews, critical and sociopolitical articles, notes, photographs and drawings. Over one hundred forty authors contributed to the Literary Page.

Today Literary Page is already history (after 460 issues). In 1998, to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the Belarusian Literary Association, the first issue of a long awaited Belarusian literary-artistic magazine was published under the title Termopile (Thermopylae). It undoubtedly opened a new chapter in the rich, though by no means simple, history of Belarusian literature in Poland. Termopile, owing to its formula and large volume, as well as the frequency with which it is published, is not merely a straightforward continuation of Literary Page. It rather harks back to the almanacs, such as: Moj rodny kut, 1963; Bieławieża 1, 1965; Bieławieża 2, 1971; Litaraturnaja Biełastoczczyna, Minsk 1973; Bieławieża 3, 1980; Bieławieża 4, 1989; bilingual Haściniec, KAW 1992; Maje pieśni tabie daru, 1993. In the sixties and especially in the seventies these volumes kindled in the members of „Białowieża” the temptation to publish longer prose forms, dramatic works and cycles of poetry which in some sense nobilitate all forms of literary creativity, also in the eyes of the authors themselves who often had to wait very long for the publication of their books. Another possibility for circulating literary texts was offered by Belarusian Calendars published by BTSK in Białystok from 1956. Only exceptionally rarely during the first two decades writers from the „Białowieża” circle were given the opportunity to publish in the literary magazines of Belarusian Minsk.

Polish literary critics and writers, particularly from Warsaw, kept a watchful eye on the developments among Belarusian writers and conscientiously aided their creative efforts. As early as at the beginning of the sixties the poetry and prose of the members of the „Białowieża” circle was translated into Polish and published in Polish literary magazines, such as Kultura, Literatura, Twórczość, Poezja, Kamena, Odgłosy, Odra, Przegląd Kulturalny, Tygodnik Kulturalny, Warmia i Mazury, Życie Literackie. Soon these were followed by books in Polish translation, primarily by Sokrat Janowicz[5], but also by Jan Czykwin[6], Jerzy Geniusz[7], Nadzieja Artymowicz[8]. In 1962 Aleś Barski[9] (real name Aleksander Barszczewski) was admitted to the Union of Polish Writers, at the beginning of the seventies he was followed suite by Sokrat Janowicz[10] and Jan Czykwin[11], and somewhat later also by Wiktor Szwed[12], Nadzieja Artymowicz[13], Michał Szachowicz[14], Mikołaj Hajduk[15], Zosia Saczko[16], Bazyli Pietruczuk[17].

In the sixties and seventies, when in the primary and secondary schools of the Białystok region over twelve thousand students still used the Belausian language and practically in every, even tiniest, town there were still active cultural centers (e.g. Ruch or Rolnika, i.e. Farmers’, or Gospodyń Wiejskich, i.e. Rural Housewives’, clubs), as well as local libraries or village common rooms, the basic form of activity of the members of the Association was, apart from seminars and workshops organized once or twice a year, visiting those clubs and centers to read one’s own poetry and prose. Members of „Białowieża” had thousands of such readings every year. They would communicate to their listeners not only the most rudimentary information about themselves, their writings, but also elements of the listeners’ own history and culture, so often hidden (unfortunately on both sides of the border) under the dust of disinformation and ideological fabrications. Such readings were organized not only in the Białystok province, for Belarusians could be found in other regions of Poland. The geography of „Belarusian” literary readings was truly impressive: its limits were established not only by the main municipal centers of Poland, for such meetings would be organized in more remote locations which included Minsk, Vilnius, Grodno, Brest, Moscow, London, New York, Cleveland, Venice, Rome, Ljubljana, the Prague.

In the nineties, when the limitations of censorship, so painfully detrimental particularly to the national minorities, were finally lifted and writers belonging to the „Białowieża” circle gained in personal and literary self-assurance, the Association concentrated primarily on publishing ventures to make up for the lost time. For the creative potential was considerable and many ventures could have been completed earlier…

In 1990 the first three books were published in a new series of the Library of Belarusian Literary Association (Biblioteczka Białoruskiego Stowarzyszenia Literackiego). Since then over thirty titles have been published in this series: collection of verse and prose, literary sketches, critical works and bibliographies[18]. This sudden flurry of publishing activity of the Association members, incomprehensible for an outsider observer, could be represented thus: if during the first three decades of its existence (1958-1988) the members of „Białowieża” published only 42 books, during the last decade of the 20th century (1989-1999) they published jointly (both in Poland and abroad) 60 positions. In the present year 4-5 books are planned for publication. This statistics fails to mention translations (e.g. A. Barski, S. Janowicz, W. Szwed)[19], who transferred into Polish numerous works of Belarusian literature and folk prose.

This constantly growing and increasingly more professional Belarusian literary movement in Poland (with its individually diversified and unprecedented artistic solutions, multitude of genres and topical diversity) could not remain unnoticed by literary scholars in Belarus. Since the early eighties one may perceive there an increasing tendency to incorporate the literary accomplishments of Polish Belarusians into the mainstream of the national literature of Belarus. The significance and role of Belarusian diaspora in general, and the development of the creative potential of the „Białowieża” Association in particular, have become an element of academic studies and a topic of university lectures, diploma works and philological dissertations. Articles about the Belarusian writers mentioned above are included in Polish, Belarusian, English-language and German-language histories of literature, encyclopedias, competent literary lexicons and bibliographies[20]. Consequently, many works by „Białowieża” members (both prose and verse) appeared abroad in translations into English, German, Italian, Lithuanian, Serbian, Slovenian, Russian, Ukrainian[21]. Belarusian literary works were translated into Polish by, inter alia, Wiktor Woroszylski, Jerzy Litwiniuk, Florian Nieuważny, Marian Jurkowski, Anna Sobecka, Elżbieta Feliksiak, Jan Huszcza, Maciej J, Kononowicz, Jan Czopik-Leżachowski, Jerzy Plutowicz, Zygmunt Trziszka, Czesław Seniuch. Soon after Belarus declared its independence in 1991 Mikołaj Hajduk, Aleś Barski, Bazyli Pietruczuk and Mira Łuksza were admitted to the Belarusian Writers’ Association while Sokrat Janowicz and Jan Czykwin became members of Belarusian Pen Club.

It is most deplorable that the membership of the Association is inexorably declining, rather than increasing. Some are betrayed by fickle Muse, others embraced by not particularly fastidious Death. Many of our colleagues have sadly departed (as e.g. Wiktor Rudczyk, who specialized in literary reportage). We acutely miss Mikołaj Hajduk (who suddenly and unexpectedly died in 1998), a talented author of prose, folklore expert, collector of Belarusian songs[22], fairy tales, legends, expert in old Belarusian literature. The body of Jerzy Geniusz was found in 1985 in Białystok. He was the son of Larysa Geniusz, who herself was an outstanding Belarusian poet and a person of exceptional courage and integrity (returning from exile to her native village, Zelwa, she refused to accept Soviet citizenship to the end of her life). Larysa’s tragedy began in the Prague where her husband, a doctor of medicine, worked, and where she moved several months after giving birth to her son in 1935. Here Larysa wrote and published her poems. In 1940, clearly aware that Soviet security police was on her trail and she would be inevitably arrested, she secretly sent her small son to distant relatives in Poland. Jurek was brought up in Białystok, here he graduated from the Medical Academy and worked as a pediatrician, at the end of his life in a dismal reformatory. He was a very promising poet and author of prose reminiscent of the style of Rabelais, a rather unique phenomenon in Belarusian literature[23].

Those four decades which Belarusian Literary Association „Białowieża” had put behind itself is a long stretch of time. Social „organisms” are not made to last such a marathon and they usually disintegrate well ahead of such age. But the „Białowieża” phenomenon endures and such endurance provokes a number of questions: why did only Belarusian literature develop in Poland, why didn’t it stop (or why wasn’t it stopped) at the level of folk culture, and what does its uniqueness finds its expression in?

It is not easy to suggest prompt answers to these questions, since they usher in the very urgent and painful issue of national separate identity, of the problems of a minority which finds itself in the situation of a multiply „purged” palimpsest, and therefore of problems which require deep and in-depth studies of historians, sociologists, experts in cultural studies, literary scholars, etc. At this point we may only formulate a rather preliminary observation that the development of Belarusian literature in Poland was simply inevitable. It would be hard to imagine a vibrant, active Belarusian minority in the center of Europe, a minority of 300-400 thousand people, which for ages has lived in close-knit communities and has been characterized by unique architecture, habits, music, prayers, songs, dances and even landscape, not producing its own priests, scientists and writers.

The originality, uniqueness of Belarusian literature in Poland has been preordained primarily in its preverbal space, in pre-literary texts, i.e. in the Belarusian facts, phenomena, processes, human fates and ontology. Men of letters have only creatively seized this uniqueness of our ethnos which is a byproduct of the double and even triple cultural overlap in the borderlands, and subsequently they sublimated it by raising it to the surface of social life in the form of cultural artifacts.

Today, when in Belarus itself the authorities have almost completely destroyed the nation’s own ethnic-cultural milieu, in the face of this desolation the constructive role of „Białowieża” Association in salvaging fundamental national values is even more visible. The literary works of „Białowieża” members are, so to speak, facing the future of Belarus and in their essence they mirror the healthy core of Belarusian nationality, its mentality and vitality. These works also constitute a value in themselves, since they defend the „immeasurable mystery of language” (T. Mann). This and other aspects of Belarusian literature in Poland have been raised in two recent monographs: one, written by myself, entitled Dalokija i blizkija. Biełaruskija piśmienniki zamieżża (1997) and the other by Teresa Zaniewska Strażnicy pamięci. Poezja białoruska w Polsce po roku 1956 (1997). These two works have opened the way for further research on Belarusian Literary Association in Poland.

The bowstring of „Białowieża” is as taut as ever.

Translated by Wojciech Kubiński

РЭЗЮМЭ

Ян Чыквін, старшыня Беларускага Літаратурнага Аб’яднаньня „Белавежа”, перадае ў скарочаным выглядзе гісторыю ўзьнікненьня ды разьвіцьця беларускага літаратурнага жыцьця ў пасьляваеннай Польшчы. Яго росквіт зьвязаны зь існаваньнем тэрытарыяльнай беларускай нацыянальнай мяншыні на Беласточчыне. Утвораны былі паўвеку назад нацыянальныя пачатковыя і сярэднія школы, часопісны друк, радыёвяшчаньне. У палове пяцідзесятых гадоў пусьціў парасткі літаратурны рух, праявіўшыся спачатку ў стыхійнай паэтыцы газетных карэспандэнтаў, таксама некаторых актывістаў Беларускага Грамадзка-Культурнага Таварыства, якое ў той час ўяўляла сабою масавую народную арганізацыю. Творчасьць самародкавых паэтаў зьмяшчаў на сваіх старонках тыднёвік „Ніва”, як і штогоднія „Беларускія календары”.

Дзякуючы пашырэньню вышэйшай гуманітарнай адукацыі, высьпявала творчае асяродзьдзе маладых аўтараў, інтэлектуальна падрыхтаваных дзеля літаратурных высілкаў. У сярэдзіне 1958 году арганізавалася пры рэдакцыі „Нівы” літаратурнае аб’яднаньне, якое ў недалёкай будучыні вырасла ў вядомую „Белавежу”. З’явіліся ў друку альманахі ды індывідуальныя зборнікі як зачаткі прафэсіяналізацыі творчых намаганьняў.

У палове шасьцідзесятых гадоў наглядалася жанравая камплектнасьць здабыткаў „Белавежы”. Побач паэзіі з’явілася проза, драма, эсэ. Таленавіцейшымі „белавежцамі” пачала цікавіцца польская літаратурная крытыка, затым і пэрыёдыка, выдавецтвы. Такім чынам нарадзілася ў нейкім сэньсе другая літаратура Польшчы, менавіта беларуская. Толькі беларусы аказаліся здольнымі займець уласную літаратуру, будучы аднак значнай нацыянальнай мяншыняю на параўнаўча вялікай тэрыторыі, што давала ім асобнае пачуццё Малое Айчыны.

Чыквін дакладна пералічвае набыткі вядомых „белавежцаў”, найперш іх кніжныя выданьні. Уражвае лік тых жа кніжак, як і жанравая разнастайнасьць. У дзевяностыя гады польская беларуская літаратура выйшла на абсягі Эўропы, перш за ўсё ў зоне ангельскай мовы. Затым – нямецкай, італьянскай, францускай, нарвэскай.

Блізу паўвечнае існаваньне „Белавежы” трэба лічыць нечым унікальным наогул у гісторыі літаратурных структураў. Трэба заўважыць у гэтым месцы, што без выдатнай асобы Яна Чыквіна даўгавечча „Белавежы” было б немагчымым.