Francysk Skaryna under a ban :: Charter'97 :: News

This year for the first time in recent years, the traditional Book festival in the birth place of the Belarusian first printer Francysk Skaryna would not be held. All artists and music and dance groups who had been invited to the historical Belarusian city of Polatsk on September 3-4, are warned about a negative answer of local authorities.

Polatsk history’s chronicler Uladzimer Arlou tells that he had not missed any festival of book in the city of his creative growth.

“The festival was held since 1970-ies. There had not been any problems. The budget of this festival cannot be compared with “Slavyanski Bazar”, for instance, it is several times smaller. Writers were invited, and everything else was done on the account of Polatsk musical groups: costume parade of historical personages, we could say Skaryna opened its parade. Children liked that very much. There had been selling exhibitions of Belarusian books, meetings with Belarusian writers”, the writer told to Radio Svaboda.

“Whether you want or not, but one links renaming of Skaryna Avenue with the fact that his memory is eclipsed. Skaryna had always been a hero of national idea. In the 1960ies you could have read in the press that he was a bourgeois nationalist. I am afraid that something of the kind could be attributed to Skaryna again, as the signs are rather menacing,” Volha Ipatava, a Belarusian writer, believes.