The Notes of Glitch the Hamster
Alexey Gerasimovich's blog about books, music, Cyprus, and everything else
Well, here’s another song from a Belarusian band that caught my attention this week. Honestly, I hadn’t heard of them before, but the song is catchy, the video is fun, and it’s quite original.
I should point out that the instrument shown and played in the video is not a Scottish bagpipe, as many might assume, but a similar instrument—the Belarusian duda.
The Belarusian language is very beautiful and melodic, though in recent years, it has become less well-known compared to Ukrainian. During Soviet times, it was at least heard in the performances of the most famous Belarusian groups, Pesnyary and Syabry. Sometimes, people even recognized the melody more than the song itself, as with “Kasiu Jas’ Kaniushynu” (Jas Mowed Clover), which all children heard countless times in “Nu, Pogodi!” when the wolf was racing through a field on a combine harvester. Later, some songs in Belarusian could be heard in the works of the band Lyapis Trubetskoy, though I’m not sure how well their Belarusian-language songs are known outside Belarus.
I’ve already shared Belarusian-language songs on my blog several times, and now I’ve decided to do so more often. Not everything, but the ones I truly like.
This time, I want to draw attention to a song I love in its original Italian version performed by the charismatic Adriano Celentano—“Confessa.” A few years ago, it was translated into Belarusian and performed just as beautifully. No, it’s not Celentano, but it touches the soul just as deeply:
The book “404 Language Not Found” is about how difficult it is to use the Belarusian language in modern Belarus.
Let me start with a bit of background, with the history of my relationship with the Belarusian language. To be honest, Russian was always the native language in my family, although older generations occasionally mixed in either Belarusian words or dialects (the so-called “trasianka”) or some words from Yiddish. However, the Belarusian language surrounded me from childhood, and I understood it almost as if it were my native tongue. In the 1980s, I once visited Kyiv for a programming competition and was struck by how extensively Ukrainians used the Ukrainian language in daily life. In the Byelorussian SSR, in Minsk, Belarusian was not used as actively. On the second day of this “trip,” I decided to speak only Belarusian in Kyiv. The locals gave me slightly curious looks but generally understood me perfectly.
Read moreIt’s strange, but there aren’t that many songs widely associated with Belarus and the Belarusian people. Most likely, the first songs that come to mind are from the Soviet era, performed by “Pesnyary” with Mulyavin or “Syabry.” I imagine “Belovezhskaya Pushcha” and “Alesya” would be among the first to be mentioned.
What’s rather disheartening is that even Belarusians themselves would likely struggle to recall much. And the piece I want to highlight now isn’t even recognized by many as a song—let alone a Belarusian one. It’s not so simple.
This piece is most commonly known simply as “Ogiński’s Polonaise.” Far fewer people know its second title, “Farewell to the Homeland.”
Even its connection to Belarus is not entirely straightforward. Composer Michał Ogiński is now often considered Polish. This particular polonaise (originally titled simply “Polonaise No. 13,” complete with that “lucky” number) was composed in 1794. According to legend, he wrote it as he was leaving the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth after the Russian Empire crushed the Kościuszko Uprising (and there’s debate about whether Kościuszko himself was Polish or Belarusian).
Read moreIt’s strange—I was sure I’d written about this song, but it turns out that amidst a series of events, I simply forgot.
I was familiar with the Belarusian band NIZKIZ by name, but I hadn’t really listened to them. A year ago, after the events in Belarus, some of their songs started to resonate with me and found their way into my playlist. The song “Правілы” (“Rules”) is clearly dedicated to what happened in the summer of 2020. The official music video makes this absolutely clear (The music video for this song disappeared from YouTube after almost all the band members were imprisoned by “the most fair court in the world.”) And in this combination of sound and visuals, the song tears at your soul even more deeply.
I’m proud of Belarusians!
I heard about the book Ex-Son by Sasha Filipenko, so to speak, in passing. Then, unexpectedly, it started gaining more attention when a theater production based on it was banned in Minsk. Later, it came up in the news again when the production was eventually staged, but in Kyiv. It was heavily promoted, as if it were some sort of “protest book.” However, I don’t like such loud narratives, so I would have let it pass me by if not for several acquaintances who read the novel and gave it decent ratings. So, I decided to give it a chance.
Sasha Filipenko, a native of Minsk, moved to Russia during his university years, where he worked as a journalist, screenwriter, and even a host of several well-known TV projects. As a writer, he has been favored by prestigious literary awards. In 2020, when protests began in Belarus, he actively supported political prisoners, and it seems to me that this is when Ex-Son got a second wind, moving from a rather marginal niche to the wider audience of mainstream readers.
The novel itself was written in 2014, but I personally don’t understand why it is so often associated with the events of 2020. There is no direct connection whatsoever.
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The book “Беларуская нацыянальная ідэя” (“The Belarusian National Idea” in English) probably would have passed me by entirely if its title hadn’t caught my attention in the news, where it was almost labeled as terrorist. Despite this, it was published in Belarus and even sold in a state-owned bookstore.
Essentially, it is a 600-page compilation of excerpts from 85 interviews with various well-known (whether widely or in smaller circles) Belarusian figures. All the interviews were conducted as part of the “Ідэя X” show on “Euroradio,” hosted by Dmitry Lukashuk and Maxim Goryunov. The central theme of the show was the Belarusian national idea. The hosts posed various questions: what exactly is this idea? Does it even exist? What does it mean to the guest, or how do they envision it? And is it even necessary?
Formally, the book is considered to be in Belarusian, but in reality, it is bilingual. Dmitry asks questions and converses in Belarusian, Maxim in Russian, and the guests respond in whichever language they prefer. Some answer exclusively in Belarusian, others only in Russian, while some guests switch languages, answering each question in the language it was asked. This means that the book can only be fully understood by readers who are fluent in both languages.
Read moreOnce, the song Warriors of Light by the Belarusian band Lyapis Trubetskoy unexpectedly became something of an anthem for Ukraine’s Maidan. During the current protests in Belarus, it’s hard to say that any particular song has become the anthem. However, the events themselves have inspired the creation of many beautiful songs, some of which I’ve already shared on my blog. But there’s one song that has unexpectedly been heard in many places and from many voices. It’s called Razbury Turmy Mury (often shortened to Mury), which translates from Belarusian as Tear Down the Prison Walls (or simply The Walls).
The history of the song is also remarkable. It’s recounted on Wikipedia, but I’ll summarize it briefly. The song was originally written by the Catalan author Lluís Llach as a protest against Franco’s dictatorship in Spain.
In 1978, the Polish bard Jacek Kaczmarski took the original melody but wrote his own lyrics, which were different from the Spanish version. However, this song became the anthem of Solidarity, the leading opposition trade union in Poland at the time.
It was this version, with Kaczmarski’s lyrics, that became known in the post-Soviet space, and it was translated into both Russian and Belarusian. Notably, it was the Polish text, not the original Catalan one, that was translated.
When the protests began in Belarus in 2020, the Belarusian version of the song was performed by various artists. However, the version I find most powerful and moving was recorded by Sergey Kosmos and Sergey Tikhanovsky, the latter being the individual who initially planned to run for president but was imprisoned, after which his wife, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, stepped in as the candidate. For their rendition, both Sergeys added two verses to the original translation.
Below the music video for the song, you can find the lyrics in both Belarusian and English (the latter has been translated literally from Belarusian).
Lately, things have been quite difficult for various reasons, so I haven’t been able to write much in my blog, though there’s plenty to say. For now, I’ll share another song by the Belarusian bard Alexander Bal. Staying silent is truly impossible, so at least I can share facts and tell the world what’s happening in my homeland. And Alexander has done this very well with his new song.
To lift the mood and make the new week feel a little lighter, here’s a great song from the band Place to Be. Just an hour ago, I knew nothing about them, and now I can say they made my Sunday evening.
When people are ready to laugh at things that aren’t funny at all, it means there’s still hope.
