Tree Years Since Henadz Karpenka’s Death :: Charter'97 :: News

Speaking of the disappeared, we usually say about Zakharanka, Hanchar, Krasousky, Zavadsky. Four names. But there are much more of them. They are different from the four mentioned in the way they disappeared. Somebody has disappeared forever, under the lid of a coffin; somebody disappeared temporarily waiting for better time. The first disappered was Karpenka – three years ago, on April 6, 1999 he disappeared in the soil of the Moscow cemetery…

There were people who had disappeared before – Anatol Majsenia, for instance. But we paid no attention to that at that time, as the fatal countdown started from the death of Karpenka. The hands of that clock were moving before, counting not minutes and hours, but lives of people. Starting from Karpenka’s death the hands started hasty motion.

Then other disappearances started. They were not so tragic, but still heartbreaking. Vasil Bykau cannot be named disappeared without trace, as he sends messages regularly. But it is insufficient. Liudmila Karpenka and Olga Zakharanka disappeared for us in another country among confident faces of people with secure future, and German language is heard around them. The former officials, who could have helped to find the disappeared, prefer to collect mushrooms in the woods and relax with vodka in the evenings. The current officials cannot be seen, as they fell to their knees and wag red and green flags. They cannot be seen behind them. Activists of demonstrations cannot be seen at their sheets of European refugees’ camps. The scientists disappeared as they included themselves to algorithms of other countries and have become elements of other periodic systems. The musicians put out candles, as in famous Haydn symphony, and play in other orchestras. Very little of us are left, and the distance between us is growing. And the space left after every disappeared cannot be filled by anybody else.