Ales Marachkin: You cannot imprison everyone

Time will come, when Freedom Day is to become a state holiday.

On March 25 Freedom Day was marked by Belarusians of Warsaw together with a legendary artist, the leader of Pahonya creative association Ales Marachkin. A meeting with the artist, who stood at the origins of Belarusian independence, was organized by the Belarusian House in Warsaw.

Ales Marachkin took part in the ceremony of awarding the National prize for Human Rights Defence named after Viktar Ivashkevich, which had been founded by charter97.org website, and then he told what Freedom Day means to him, and how Belarusians had been fighting for independence of their country over the period of many years, and demonstrated his pictures, many of which are prohibited in Belarus today.

“We had predecessors who are making us strong, and set an example in the fight for freedom and human rights. I recall those whom I knew personally. A great woman, Larysa Heniyush, a poetess, who had gone through sufferings of GULAG, through prisons. Syarhei Novik-Pyaun, a well-known singer, who had also gone through prisons of Stalin’s regime, and continued this line of struggle for rights and freedom. My contemporaries, who are no longer with us, they have departed to a better world: Uladzimir Karatkevich, Vasil Bykau, Henadz Buraukin, Ryhor Baradulin. They are patriots, those who had not betrayed ideas of Belarus and ideas of March 25. Viktar Ivashkevich was the heart and soul of all mass protest rallies in Belarus. I understand how deeply he was missed at the rally on Freedom Day this year,” the leader of Pahonya association said.

Marochkin noted that his wish was to hold his exhibition in the Belarusian House in Warsaw, but it is a rather risky undertaking to export paintings from Belarus, there is a threat of confiscation. That is why the artist demonstrated some of his paintings on the screen, adding his comments on the hot topics of the day:

“This is a work in which I showed the atrocious aggression of Russia in Ukraine – “Christ and Antichrists”. The commandment of Christ to us was: Love each other in the way I love you. But we are witnessing this aggression on the part of Russia and Putin. In fact, fascisation of entire Russia is going on. This painting was demonstrated at one of the exhibitions.

I am a naïve person, and I have created a painting based upon statements of Lukashenka, but it seems as if he is not recognizing this aggression, not recognizing the DNR, allegedly he is in favour of Ukraine’s integrity. But in reality it is a lie – my work was removed from an exhibition in Minsk.

Pay attention to the emblem of the Russian Empire on the picture. Nothing has changed, and the image of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose representatives are blessing the aggression of this “Russian world” is the same…

I have painted a picture dedicated to the Ice Hockey World Championship, named A Hockey Player. Putin’s image is slightly recognizable there, and you can also see a well-known person and a silhouette of a nuclear power plant on the horizon. And little dots there are our people who are fishing on a lake. The picture was in fact arrested and not allowed to be demonstrated at the exhibition. Pay attention to a detail – a Georgian ribbon and a broken comb with the writing “Rashachyoska” (rashchyouska – a comb in Russian).

There is the Wailing Wall in Israel, and it’s a Belarusian Wall of Silence.

But we are not going to keep silent, we are going to fight. It is very pleasant for me that there is a filmmaker Anton Tsyalezhnikau among award-winners of charter97.org award. Our artists are painting not only flowres, but in their works their show what is going on in Belarus.”

Ales Marachkin also presented his book of poems “A Well in Life” and read a poem “At Liberty.”

“The poem was written in 2001, but it is still relevant today, as the election of you know whom lies ahead,” the artist said.

Ales Marachkin recalled how Freedom Day was celebrated in 1970-1980 in the Soviet Union in the underground:

“We, artists, tried to destroy the walls of that Soviet “paradise”. And in the beginning of the 1980ies we left the underground. On the 100th anniversary of Maxim Bahdanovich, a poet (just imagine, today such things are impossible) my picture “Bahdanovich’s Pahonya” with the words “The ancient Litva’s Pahonya could not be defeated, stopped or detained!” was exhibited on a stage during a ceremonial event. Such things happened, and they united people.

Today in Belarus there are many such young people, and then there were the very few of such people – artists, poets… And now such people are more, it’s impossible to imprison every one of them. The time will come, and March 25 will be a state holiday, and we are going to assemble without any fear, not asking for permission. That’s the idea we are living for, and that’s the way it is going to happen. Long live Belarus!”