FN: Many Belarusians, such as yourself, live abroad for political or economic reasons. Sign up to receive the best of Global Voices! According to Taoist philosophy, an action should be in harmony with the spirit of the time. Several works were contributed by local-born authors who also wrote in Polish (Jan Barszczewski, Jan Czeczot, Vintsent Dunin-Martsinkyevich, Andrej Rypinski). But it is actually the other way round: in the last weeks and months, all of us, emigrants, have entirely changed our lives in response to what is going on in Belarus. Participants to the August 15 anti-Lukashenka demonstration in Prague. Anonymous burlesque poems Inside-out Aeneid (1820s) and Taras on Parnassus (ca. 24 June 1968. During World War I and the proclamation of the Belarusian People's Republic (1918), the key themes within the Belarusian literature were patriotism and common life. The interview has been edited for style and brevity. Writing systems; Constructed scripts; Languages; Phrases; Articles; Search; News; About; Contact; Useful Belarusian phrases. Writers and other representatives of the intelligentsia were the groups targeted most severely. Belarus has a total population of nearly 10 million people, yet another two to three million people claiming Belarusian ancestry live outside of their home country. In 1934, the Union of Writers of BSSR was established in Minsk. There’s no time to pay attention to the voices of “useful idiots” such as xenophobes, supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin, conspiracy theorists and so on. Most texts in Belarusian are written in Cyrillic. All rights reserved. This was my case some 20 years ago, when I was young and wanted things to be different for everybody, while in fact caring but mostly about myself. Some of us, myself included, feel quite ashamed that we can't be there in person. Throughout the maelstrom of history, Belarusians have left their country primarily for religious and economic reasons. Below is an alphabetical list of famous novelists, poets, and playwrights, who are Belarusian or of Belarusian origin. Have Belarusians Always Used the Cyrillic Alphabet? See these phrases in any combination of two languages in the Phrase Finder. He is also the founding editor of Litrazh, an online Belarusian-language literary magazine. In the end, I had to leave Belarus. See our Privacy Policy for details. The Belarusian nation also has a tradition of writing its language in the Arabic script, perfectly modified to suit Belarusian sounds by the local Muslim community in medieval times. And what do you make of Czech public opinion? Later, the national awakening activists organized a wide-scale public discussion on the scripts dilemma which by rather a small margin resulted in choosing Cyrillic. You have successfully subscribed to the newsletter, https://belarusdigest.com/story/myths/have-belarusians-always-used-the-cyrillic-alphabet/.

Svetlana Alexievich. 31 May 1948. The Statutes of the Great Duchy of 1529, 1566 and 1588, as well as polemic religious literature were all published in Old Belarusian language. Please read our attribution policy to learn about freely redistributing our work  Some Rights Reserved, ‘Lukashenka's time is over': a Belarusian writer urges solidarity from afar, Meet the artist embroidering Belarus’ protests, Find out more about the turmoil in Belarus here, Uzbekistan as creative chaos: A photographer's interpretation of his nation's search for identity. In 2015 Belarusian investigative journalist and prose writer Svetlana Alexievich was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time". In the last quarter of the century multiple publications of Belarusian folklore appeared, notably the multi-volume collection by Evdokim Romanov. Since the 1960s a new theme of morality appeared in the Belarusian prose. In July 2013, the …