Our dialect mostly resembles the one spoken by Poleszucy. If you invite a band from Polesie and use our dialect to talk with them, you’ll notice they speak like we do. If you travel to southern Podlasie, you’ll hear more of an influence from the formal Ukrainian language. Meanwhile, more toward the East – in Sokółka, Gródek, or even closer, in Lewkowo, Leszuki, or Siemianówka – literary Belarusian is more prevalent.
Based on census data, 70% of the inhabitants of Hajnówka and its surroundings are Eastern Orthodox, but only 25% of them identify themselves as Belarusians. It’s easier to define people’s faith, if only by the way they’ve been baptised. It’s different according to nationality, but the two are certainly related.
MD: Would you say Belarusian roots mean Eastern Orthodox faith?
TT: Most of the time, yes, but I have Belarusian friends from Poland who are Catholic, yet speak almost literary Belarusian. They’re from the town of Sokółka and its surroundings.
MD: Let’s talk about the museum a bit more. What can we see there?
TT: We have three exhibition halls dedicated to the ethnography of the Belarusian villages of Podlasie. There’s also a gallery for temporary displays, where we present sculpture, painting, archaeological exhibits, weaving, and documentary exhibitions. Each year, we organise several to a dozen or so temporary exhibitions.
Our library is comprised of more than 12,000 works – mainly literature, in Belarusian but in Polish too, related to Belarus and Eastern Orthodoxy. We have readers who want to learn about Belarus, but who can’t read Belarusian. Some come from distant places, including the United States. We have Slavicists who visit us to search for rare books about, for example, the Belarusian grammar of the Interwar period. Some people seek inspiration because they wish to traditionally restore a house they inherited from their grandparents.
MD: What features were particular to homes of local dwellers?
TT: A typical Belarusian cottage in Podlasie had connecting rooms oriented around a tiled stove. Some constructions kept people and animals in separate chambers but under one roof. Decorations included paper cut-outs hung on icons and windows, straw ornaments called pająki (spiders), and ceremonial cloths, which were kept from one’s birth until the day they died. The cloths adorned icons.
Ornaments on the outside began to appear during the Interwar period; before that time, the cottages were humble.