Dash On Monument To Viktar

The phantom pain of Belarus.

My column today is a hyphen on a tombstone, the one between birth and death. On September 21, Viktar Ivashkevich would have turned 65. On October 3, it will be 11 years since his death. So, today is the middle, that very hyphen. It is impossible not to talk about Viktar. And not to recall him, too.

Everything that happened during the protests of 2020, all the things that people were sincerely happy about — seriously, are we capable of this? — happened much earlier in Viktar's life. A strike? It was he who created the strike committee in the nineties and brought thousands of workers to the square.

Mass protests? But the very first protests in Belarus — without social networks and mobile phones, without Telegram channels and chats — were organized (or co-organized) by Viktar Ivashkevich. And the most massive ones too. The famous Freedom March, when Minsk residents took apart paving stones for cobblestones. The Chernobyl Way, during which marchers turned over police cars, refuting the myth of Belarusians being fluffy bunnies.

However, even before the Chernobyl Way, he held environmental actions. Influential independent media? Actually, it was Viktar who, back in the late nineties, created the newspaper “Rabochiy” out of nothing, and it was published in hundred thousand copies. Incidentally, it was for the newspaper that he received his first time in prison. In 2001, an article “A Thief Must Be in Prison” appeared in “Rabochiy”. A criminal case was brought against Viktar under the article “slander against the president”, and so he was sentenced to two years of liberty restriction. I remember that before Ivashkevich left for the specialized liberty restriction facility, I interviewed him. And Viktar laughed when I asked if he was ready for the terrible inconveniences and trials associated with being in that facility. He said: go to any student dormitory and see the conditions in which the students live. And they have such “liberty restriction” for five years, and I only have two.

Party building, creating public organizations? Here Viktar managed to do a lot as well. He was one of the founders of the Belarusian Popular Front, and then for many years — the deputy chairman of the party and secretary of the BPF Board. And he also created “Charter '97” with like-minded people. And the strike committee, of course. However, he created the party while still a schoolboy: when he was in the sixth grade, he came up with the “national communist party” of five people. He was the leader, four more are ordinary party members. And these four demanded money for leaflets to paste them around the city. Viktar said: first you need to pay party dues, then there will be money for leaflets. And that's where the party died. But after his military service, Ivashkevich, as soon as he entered his own yard on Shevchenko Boulevard, began asking everyone he met where he could find an anti-Soviet underground.

Personal courage? Belarusians of Ivashkevich's generation, who served administrative arrests in numbers close to infinity, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. People who, upon leaving the Akrestsin Street detention center, immediately began planning new protests, even more so. At that time, it was a small pool of desperate, courageous, the best people in the world, each of whom is a separate page in the history of Belarus. And the most piercing action of Viktar Ivashkevich was his personal appearance on Kastrychnitskaya Square in November 2007. He did not organize anything that time, he simply went out to the square with two flags — the white-red-white and the blue European ones. Later he said that he wanted to show the authorities that dialogue is better than confrontation. However, he also said something else: “Enough sitting in the trenches. It’s time to storm.”

They say that nature abhors a vacuum, and if an outstanding personality disappears in a city, an equal one will soon appear in their place. Viktar died on October 3, 2013. And for 11 years now, we — those who were lucky enough to know Viktar — have been waiting for the same. We peer into faces, read texts, listen to remarks and monologues. But nothing happens. Someone like Ivashkevich never appeared. A huge hole remains unfilled. And it seems that it will remain so. Because there were and are no equals to Viktar. There are others. Also talented, glorious, brave. But Viktar Ivashkevich was one of a kind. There will be no others. But we will still search, look closely, and wait. Because without Viktar it is unbearably difficult. Viktar Ivashkevich is the phantom pain of Belarus.

Iryna Khalip, exclusively for Charter97.org

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