Alexievich speaks Belarusian at Nobel Prize ceremony


The writer thanked the Swedish Academy for the award, delivering a speech at the banquet in honor of Nobel Prize laureates.

“I see it as gratitude to many generations of Soviet people” for their suffering “in the Marxist lab aiming to create a bright future.” “The big idea ruthlessly devoured its children.” Ideas do not hurt, I’m sorry for the people, added Alexievich.

During perestroika we dreamed of freedom, but ended up in a completely different state, said the writer. There appeared Russian, Belarusian, Kazakh authoritarianism. “Slowly, we are getting out of the rubble of the red empire,” believes the Nobel laureate.

She cited one of the heroines of her book “Time of second-hand”, whose entire family died in exile in Siberia, and who was singing in the kitchen a soviet patriotic song.

Then she spoke about Belarus 

Alexievich thanked everyone for the fact that after the Nobel Prize the world will know our country better.

She said that several generations have grown in Belarus after it gained independence. All of them had their own revolution: people came out on the square.

“Our revolution did not win, but we have the heroes of this,” ​​she said of the Belarusina struggling for freedom.

“Freedom is not a quick holiday as we once dreamed of it. It is a path, a long path, and now we know it,” said Alexievich.

“Again came the era of barbarism, the era of force,” said the writer in her speech.

“We are witnessing a new battle between good and evil – we are the witnesses and participants, said Alexievich.  A person loses culture very fast. But I continue to write the way I was taught by my teachers – Belarusian writers Ales Adamovich and Vasil Bykau, whom I now remember with gratitude, I remember my Ukrainian grandmother who read to me “Kobzar” by Taras Shevchenko.

“I’m searching for the words of love. Hatred will not save us, but love will, I hope,”said the Nobel laureate.

At the end of her speech, Alexievich read a litle recollection and a parable “in the language of her people.”

“In one of the Belarusian villages, said to me, as I was leaving: we will soon go in different directions. Thank you for listening to me and bringing my pain to people. Please, when you leave, look back at my hut, do it not once but twice. The second time a person looks back not like a stranger, but with his heart. I want to thank you for your heart, for hearing our pain.”

belsat.eu,  nn.by

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