Smuggling Freedom: Belarusian Protest Songs
In Belarus, everyone from girls to elderly ladies to bespectacled students are singing ‘Kupalinka’ as they stand face to face with armed OMON officers. As strange as it may seem, this peaceful weapon is working. The ‘siloviki’ would prefer to deal with aggression instead – because how can you order that a song be silenced?
The Belarusian singalong movement is unprecedentedly huge and diverse, multilingual and multicultural. The people who have taken to the streets these days have changed a lot. The traditional patriotic repertoire has grown a bit tight-fitting for them, although Lavon Volsky’s and Sergey Mikhalka’s songs are still favourites. But these aren’t the songs that have become a symbol of the 2020 protests.
The two main hits and a few other tunes popular this spring and summer are songs of foreign origin. Here lies the real challenge for the poet-translator, who, following his professional duty, organically merges into the protest wave to further ‘Belarusify’ it. We have a lot of popular foreign songs and covers of them, but I’m going to focus on my own translations, which have either turned – or are turning right before my eyes – into Belarusian protest songs.
Viktor Tsoi has never been a stranger to Belarusians: young people admired him back in the late 1980s, and after his tragic, premature death on 15th August 1990, Tsoi became a cult figure. Suffice it to recall the memorial wall dedicated to Tsoi which appeared in Minsk. Of all the mega-hits, the most popular has been the song We Want Changes! (originally: Peremen!), which first appeared in Sergey Solovyev’s iconic film Assa.
'DJs for Change' Vladislav Sokolovsky & Kirill Galanov, poster: Dmitry Dmitriev More than 30 years later, the song is even more up-to-date. For example, on 30th August, three days before the elections – when the authorities banned Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s rally and organised an ideologically ‘proper’ concert instead – two DJs, Vladislav Sokolovsky and Kirill Galanov, suddenly turned off the official music and cranked We Want Changes! up to 11. The DJs went to prison, and people immediately organised a mass fundraising campaign for them. They are now being called ‘DJs of change’, and a ‘Square of Change’ has appeared in Minsk with a mural dedicated to Vlad and Kirill. The authorities paint it over daily – but every day, the mural reappears.
In July, an online project called Sing with Dignity (originally: Poyom Dostoyno) was launched, where professional musicians and simply decent people performed this song in Belarusian:
And on 15th August – the 30th anniversary of Tsoi’s tragic death – one of our rock leaders, Vladimir Pugach, created his own cover:
‘Do You Hear the People Sing?‘
The song from Les Misérables, the musical based on Victor Hugo’s novel, became popular the day students from the Linguistic University (understandably) joined the protests. On 4th September, they performed Do You Hear the People Sing? right in the university lobby.
OMON troops burst into the university building and began rounding up the students. As a sign of solidarity, I published a translation of Do You Hear the People Sing? that same evening. The very next day, Belarusians were singing it in Paris, London and other cities around the world. And on 8th September, the punk band Vsyo_CRAZY made a professional recording:
‘The Partisan’ (originally: ‘La Complainte du Partisan’) by Anna Marly & Leonard Cohen
Perhaps there is no need to remind you of glorious chapters in the history of the Belarusian partisan movement, as they are rather well-known. The current protests, in a sense, can also be called a partisan or underground movement. First of all, the people’s instant self-organisation is striking – the siloviki are getting angry, as they are unable to identify the leaders. A parallel is often drawn with the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation.
‘The Wall’ (originally: ‘L’Estaca’, Pol.: Mury, Bel.: Razbury Turmy Mury) by Lluís Llach and Jacek Kaczmarski
Who could have imagined that a Polish song sung with a Catalan accent would become one of the two main Belarusian protest songs of 2020? In the case of Tsoi’s hit, it is much more popular here than at home. Back in December 2010, after I read my translation of the lyrics on Nezalezhnasti Square, the song was recorded by the famous Belarusian bard Zmiter Vaityushkevich. It turned into a national anthem only after it was used by an opposition blogger, Sergey Tsikhanousky, and then his wife, the legally elected president, Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya.
The song was sung in parks and stadiums, and covers of the song appeared in all sorts of styles, from heavy metal to classic polyphony. New verses relevant for today’s Belarus are constantly being added to it (‘Brother officers, we are one nation...’ Neither Kaczmarski nor this author bears responsibility for this.) I particularly like the two most creative covers. The first one, a bold adaptation of the popular version of the song and Llach’s original tune, was recorded by one of the most popular Belarusian bands, Akute:
The second cover, more congenial to Kaczmarski’s performance, was created by the Belarusian folk singer Nasta Nekrasova and the famous Polish bard Jacek Kleyff. Nasta and Jacek performed this song at the historic gate of the Gdańsk shipyard. And this is yet more proof that history often repeats itself. I hope that the Belarusians who have rebelled will continue to draw on the experience of Poland’s Solidarity movement.
Originally written in Belarusian, 10 Sep 2020, translated from Russian by Natalia Mamul, Nov 2020
