Tag: history

Song: Polonaise by Ogiński / “Farewell to the Homeland”

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It’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).

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Book: Jan T. Gross “Neighbors”

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It might seem strange to begin a discussion about the book Neighbors by Jan Tomasz Gross with reflections on management, but for some reason, that’s the thought that came to me as I considered the book after finishing it.

Having managed people for many years, I’ve developed a few principles that I’ve always tried to adhere to in both work and life. One of them is to speak openly about what has happened and to draw lessons from both one’s own missteps and the events of history, even when they are extremely unpleasant. For me, Neighbors is precisely such an example. It is an honest account of events that took place in several small towns in Poland in 1941, when the areas around Białystok, previously occupied by the Red Army, were taken over by German forces following the launch of their war against the USSR.

The main focus of the book is on the pogrom in the village of Jedwabne, where, on July 10, the majority of the Jewish population was massacred. For many years, it was believed that the Jews were killed by German soldiers, specifically the so-called Einsatzgruppen. However, facts emerged that shocked many in Poland. It turned out that there were no Germans in the village at the time, and that all the atrocities were committed by Poles—the Jewish neighbors with whom they had lived side by side for decades—once the new authorities made it clear they would turn a blind eye to everything. And from there, it was just a short step to taking Jewish property and dividing up the spoils.

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Book: Sasha Filipenko “Ex-Son”

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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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Book: Dmytry Lukashuk, Maxim Goryunov “The Belarusian National Idea”

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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.

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Book: Boris Akunin “The History of the Russian State. A Cure for the Empire”

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The previous volume of The History of the Russian State deeply disappointed me with its superficiality and inconsistency in presenting the material. I even ended my review with the words, “Interest and trust in the series are rapidly declining.” However, I had no intention of stopping my reading of the series. And now, a new volume has been released, focusing on the last rulers of the Russian Empire in the 19th century—Alexander II and Alexander III.

Let me say right away: the narrative has become more coherent. There is no longer any jumping back and forth across the years of their reigns. In fact, the entire volume is presented as one continuous story. It feels almost like a computer game: you have a mission, which starts under specific initial conditions (the end of Nicholas I’s reign), and the story unfolds as two “players” take their turns, with the second stepping in after the first.

Indeed, Boris Akunin illustrates what Alexander II inherited from the exceedingly strict Nicholas I, the conqueror of the Decembrists and any form of free-thinking. And how, despite this, his successor managed to implement a significant number of progressive reforms, many of which had been envisioned by his grandfather, Alexander I.

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Book: Victor Hugo “Les Misérables”

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Almost everyone from my generation is familiar with Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables in one way or another, even if they don’t realize it. How is that possible, you ask? Easily! During my childhood, there were a few heroes every Soviet schoolchild was expected to look up to. Off the top of my head: Malchish-Kibalchish, Arkady Gaidar himself (legend has it that he commanded a regiment as a teenager), Pavlik Morozov (whose heroism is now questioned, but back then he was unequivocally a hero who suffered for the revolution), and—Gavroche. The boy who was shot by cruel soldiers at the French barricades while trying to gather bullets for the rebels.

We all knew about Gavroche because the episode of his death was included in the school curriculum for foreign literature. It was even explicitly noted that this was an excerpt from Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables. However, I doubt many paid much attention to that detail back then. Moreover, the way literature was taught in schools was such that few students were inspired to revisit or explore the works of these authors in depth later on.

So, I knew about the novel, I fully understood that it was a classic of world literature, and I could even point out exactly where it sat on the bookshelf at home 😉 But I never really felt inclined to read it. Then, in 2012, Hollywood released a film adaptation of the musical based on the book. Since I enjoy musicals, I watched it with great pleasure—without having the faintest idea what it was about. I loved Hugh Jackman’s performance (I like him in everything, really) and Russell Crowe’s as well. And a couple of scenes with Sacha Baron Cohen as Thénardier were pure burlesque! Several songs made their way into my playlist, and the story itself seemed intriguing, even though the musical presented it in a very superficial way, often leaving questions about what was left out. That’s when I decided—it was finally time to read the book.

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Book: Boris Akunin “Peace and War”

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Boris Akunin’s fictional supplement to his series on the history of the Russian Empire runs in parallel, telling the story of one family. Like the History series itself, the narrative is quite uneven. As a standalone series, I find it relatively weak, if it weren’t meant as a supplement. However, I love both history and Akunin as a storyteller.

The series began with short novellas about specific historical periods, but with the latest volumes, each period is accompanied by a full novel. The previous book, The Fortunate Adventures and Reflections of Lucius Catin, portrayed not so much Russia itself but rather the European trends that influenced Russia in various ways. Though I didn’t rate it highly, it still had some interesting moments.

The new novel, Mir i Voyna (Peace and War), shows us Lucius’s family many years later. Even with its title, the author seems to be saying, “Now I’ll show you Tolstoy, but from a different angle.” I wouldn’t call myself a big fan of Count Tolstoy’s War and Peace, but at least Tolstoy’s novel has grandeur, epic scope. In contrast, Akunin’s story is limited to a few months and a single village with serfs near Moscow.

But here, Akunin at least tried to play with the detective genre, one of his favorites. However, it falls far short of his best Fandorin novels. It even seems that the detective storyline doesn’t really interest the author and was added to the book simply as a framework.

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Book: Viktor E. Frankl “Man’s Search For Meaning”

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I continue reading books about the experience (though calling it “life” is impossible) in Nazi death camps. This time, I’ve taken up a short but well-known book by world-renowned psychologist Viktor Frankl. When he was sent to a concentration camp, he tried to hide the manuscript of his book, but he couldn’t save it. So, he began gathering insights and “writing” the book in his mind and secretly on scraps of paper, as a way to hold onto sanity amidst the horrors of the camp and to find something to cling to—something to survive for.

When he was finally liberated, he quickly recorded all he had reflected on during those horrific years in the form of a book, which he initially didn’t even want to publish under his real name, though he was eventually persuaded otherwise. In 1946, the book was published as Man’s Search for Meaning.

Although Viktor Frankl lived many more years, passing away in 1997 at the age of 92, this book is considered one of his greatest works.

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Book: Boris Akunin “Just Masa”

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The Winter Queen, the first novel by Boris Akunin about Erast Fandorin, was released in 1998 and almost immediately caused a sensation in literary circles. I usually approached widely popular books with caution, so I didn’t start reading the series about the remarkable detective until Boris Akunin had already written seven or eight books. But once I devoured the first one, I eagerly moved on to the next. And so it went until I had read them all in succession.

After that, I consistently bought each new book in the series as soon as it was released, read it right away, and waited for the next one. However, after the tenth book, The Diamond Chariot, I felt that the best days were behind. The books were still good, but they no longer sparked the same excitement as the earlier ones. The final novel, Not Saying Goodbye, where Erast Petrovich finally leaves, brought more sadness and melancholy than anything else. After fifteen novels, his story came to an end, but I still longed to revisit it, hopefully at the level of the best books.

Then, in 2020, Boris Akunin unexpectedly released the novel Just Masa. No, it’s not about Erast Petrovich, but rather about his loyal servant and companion—the Japanese Masahiro Shibata. Masa first appears in the fourth novel in the series, The Death of Achilles. As I recall, Akunin describes the first meeting between Erast Fandorin and the young yakuza from Yokohama in the tenth novel, The Diamond Chariot, where much of the story focuses on the young detective’s life in Japan.

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Book: Alexander Feduta “Lukashenko: A Political Biography”

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On August 9, 2020, my home country, the Republic of Belarus, held another presidential election, in which, according to the official results, the incumbent president, Alexander Lukashenko, once again won by a large margin. On that very day, I began reading Lukashenko: A Political Biography, written by Alexander Feduta, a former ally of the president who worked in his first campaign headquarters and in his first government. When he wrote the book, Lukashenko had already been in power for 10 years, and even then, the author noted many changes in the initial promises and direction chosen by the country’s first and, so far, only president.

Today, Lukashenko has been in power for 26 years. Many of today’s voters were born during his rule, attended kindergarten, went to school, grew up, and became parents themselves. And for the second month after the election, protests in Belarus have not subsided, as the authorities attempt to brutally suppress them.

Why did I start reading this book? In 1994, I was 17 years old, not yet eligible to vote, and probably not very interested in politics at the time. But my coming of age took place “in the Lukashenko era.” I wanted to understand how Alexander Grigoryevich came to power and what kind of person he was. I remember all the events described in the book, but I could hardly assess them back then in the way a person “over forty” can now.

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