Missing pieces of my heart
Memories from Belarus, Belarusian culture and language, and Russian colonialism.
Recently, I decided to cook one traditional Belarusian dish as I wanted to include it in my Eastern European recipes series in the coming months. I had a photo of the recipe from a family cooking book, but it wasn’t enough, so I started to search for more information online. I didn’t notice how I ended up down a rabbit hole and spent hours reading about Belarusian culture and history. I even found a poem by a famous Belarusian poet, Ryhor Baradulin, about the dish that I wanted to cook. I thought it would be nice to include this poem in the post with the recipe, but I couldn’t find the English translation, so I decided to translate it myself. After that, I spent the whole evening cooking the recipe, in addition to the regular dinner I cooked that night. I was fully immersed in Belarusian culture: from reading articles and watching videos in Belarusian language, to translating the poem, to cooking and trying an authentic Belarusian meal. At the end of the day, I was completely exhausted, but at the same time, I felt at peace, as if something had healed inside my heart. That day showed me how deep the connection to my culture was and how much longing my heart had for it. If I could try to describe the feelings when I learn about Belarusian culture or history, I would say that it's a mix of sadness and warmth, nostalgia and grief, love and pain. As if I suffered from a traumatic memory loss and forgot everything that happened before and what made me – me. Ever since, I've been on a journey of searching for missing pieces of my heart.
I find it very sad that I didn’t have much interest in my own culture when I lived in Belarus. I had so many opportunities to learn, explore the country, ask my grandma and relatives about our family, visit the places where my ancestors were from, and research our family tree. I didn’t do any of that. The majority of the time I spent living in Belarus, I was ashamed of being Belarusian and of Belarusian culture and language. I spoke Russian, read Russian literature, watched Russian movies, and thought that my culture was something outdated, something from the past that had no real value, something that only old people in the villages practiced. It looks crazy to me right now. How could anyone decide which culture, language, and traditions are better than the other? Who makes the judgment? What are the criteria? The fact that it was so deeply planted into my head shows how strong and successful Russian colonialism is.
Living in Belarus, I didn’t understand that I was a victim of Russian colonialism. I thought it was my choice to speak Russian and consume Russian culture. If only I dug deeper and asked the right questions, I would have seen that it wasn’t my choice – I was conditioned to it. By the time I was born, if one wanted to succeed in life in Belarus – receive a good education, build a career, and become a part of society – they had to speak Russian.
Language is the heart of culture, as all the songs, tales, traditions, books, and memories are written in it. Language is the core of one’s identity – and people who clearly know who they are and what they stand for are very hard to exploit and control. That’s why Russian colonizers were afraid of Belarusian language and wanted to destroy it. For centuries, they suppressed and exterminated Belarusian culture and those who carried it.
When Belarusian lands became part of the Russian empire in the 1790s, Belarusians used the Latin alphabet. Russians forbade it and forced Belarusians to use Russian Cyrillic instead. Despite this, people continued to speak and write in Belarusian. When Russians realized that Belarusian language and culture persevered, they took further steps to exterminate it. On August 26, 1933, Soviet (Russian) authorities passed a law that changed Belarusian words, grammar, and pronunciation and made them sound more Russian. If one wanted to teach, work, or publish in Belarusian, they had to use the “new” language. It sounded more like some strange dialect compared to the actual Belarusian language, and Russians began to mock it, saying it sounded backward and only uneducated people would use it. The language was distorted so bad, that the majority of Belarusians rejected it. However, because they were forbidden to use the old, authentic one, slowly, more and more people switched to Russian.
On October 30, 1937, Soviet (Russian) authorities executed more than 100 Belarusian writers, artists, and cultural figures. A year later, mandatory Russian classes were introduced in schools in order to make children forget their Belarusian identity and make them believe that they were Russians. Soon after, the word “Belarusian” [be-la-roo-sian] was changed into “Belorussian” [be-la-rushan] to erase Belarusian identity even further and make it look as if Belarusians and Russians were one people. Up to this day, people in the West write “Belorussian” and think that Belarus is a historical Russian land and has no separate culture or history.
From the 1930s to the present times, Belarusian language almost ceased to exist and was replaced by Russian in every aspect of life. So, knowing all that, it’s obvious that I was speaking Russian not because it was my choice but because I didn’t have a choice at all.
As I was becoming older, I started to feel that although life in Belarus seemed to be fine, something was very wrong, but I couldn’t understand exactly what. Every time I approached friends or family with that, they just shrugged and said that I was making things up. A year before leaving Belarus, I drew a series of pictures. One was a drawing of a girl with huge wings bent off the walls in a cluttered room. It was titled: “It’s hard to fly here.” The other drawing was of a family gathering with people sitting around a celebration table. The picture showed them looking disapprovingly at the girl in the middle, who, again, had huge wings, while all the family members had their wings cut off. It took me many years of living abroad and, unfortunately, a full-scale invasion of Ukraine to finally realize what was wrong in Belarus. It was Russian colonialism that poisoned everything and everyone there. It was rewritten history, a mutilated language, unmarked mass graves of Belarusian writers and academia, and extensive amnesia of the entire population. Russian colonialism made everything colorless, tasteless, and soulless. It was only solidified by the Lukashenko regime and his dictatorship, which flourished in those conditions until it reached its peak of repression and violence after the protests in 2020.
A few days ago, Mom shared that my sister’s teacher of Belarusian language and culture has been recently released from jail. She was detained in 2021 for “extremist views,” but in reality, for speaking Belarusian and teaching kids the true, not Russified, Belarusian culture and history. The extermination of Belarusian culture continues, and the fact that it still exists is not a miracle, but hard work and countless sacrifices of Belarusian people.
It often feels very strange to learn about my own culture and history as something unfamiliar to me, something I’ve never known before. However, all the doubts and negative thoughts are instantly carried away by the warmth radiating from my heart whenever I immerse myself in Belarusian culture and language. My heart knows the way home.
I will share the traditional Belarusian recipe I talked about above in the coming months, as well as the poem by Ryhor Baradulin, which I translated from Belarusian to English. I hope that by sharing the journey of reconnecting with my roots, I will bring more awareness about Russian colonialism and introduce more people to Belarusian culture.
Warmly,
Darya
Email: daryazorka@substack.com
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Belarusian was also written using the Arabic script at one point! I was so surprised when I learned that but it's such a beautiful thing to know.
An interesting article. I don't know if you like this kind of music, but many metal bands from Belarus are fighting for the Belarusian language and use it exclusively in their song lyrics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x1tgLEubo4