“Belarusian culture is stateless” – Interview with Taciana Niadbaj

You are a poet and a human rights defender, how do you combine the two?

These are very different states, but this is what actually allows strengthening each other. A synergy occurs that makes it possible to do something, maybe a little more effectively. Well, at least I want to believe in it.

How has your poetic voice changed in recent years?

It has changed significantly. I started as a poet writing lyrical poetry, quite personal, intimate poetry. And that voice of mine fell silent from the moment I entered the human rights sphere. It was a sort of self-censorship, self-silencing. Because that kind of very personal lyric poetry requires opening up, exposure, and showing your inner world.

And when you enter the human rights field in Belarus, there is a natural desire to close yourself off completely, to grow a kind of armour, and to become someone who does not show your weaknesses, your vulnerable points.

So even before I was elected to lead PEN Belarus [in 2017], I went through my blogs and closed everything that had been public.

It was very difficult. On one hand, I had become a public person, and it became harder to write about inner experiences. On the other hand, events were happening that took away your voice, took away language itself.

What happened in Belarus in 2020, what happened in Ukraine in 2022 — and even before that, in 2014, we watched with horror the Heavenly Hundred [107 protesters killed during the Revolution of Dignity in Kyiv, Ukraine] and the start of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine — all of this changes the world around you. And you begin to doubt that words still mean anything.

And in Belarus in 2020, it was not even an external enemy. It was people from your own city, your own neighbourhood — sometimes acquaintances, sometimes friends of friends, sometimes even members of the same family — who stood on the other side. The side that tried to preserve the regime and the status quo. They beat and tortured people brutally. And all of this was done by your own people. Your own society. How do you accept this? How do you explain it to yourself? What words can possibly hold this reality?

A word said on February 23, 2022, and the same word said on February 24 [beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine] are no longer the same. The world has changed so dramatically, things are happening that you couldn’t even imagine possible. The [events in] Bucha, Irpin, and so on, those horrors that seemed impossible in the 21st century, in a world that has already gone through the Second World War… Your voice disappears in all of this.

You feel helpless, because so many books have been written, so many powerful words have been said by influential people about atrocities — for example, during the Second World War — and yet in 2022 it is happening again. Which makes it feel as if it didn’t influence anything.

And then the question arises: do your words mean anything at all in this world?

And this inner dialogue with yourself, this search for a voice, this search for words that can still be used to speak — whether there is even any sense in poetic speech — all of this led to significant changes.

And now that I live in human rights work, I wake up with these thoughts, I fall asleep with these thoughts, and my emotions today are largely connected with it. My professional activity has become the material for reflection and for poetic expression. It is connected to emotions, it is my reality, my everyday life — my friends who are in [Belarusian] prisons.

The poem “Mama, all my friends are criminals”, for instance, grew from a conversation with a colleague from HRHF, who noted that advocating for Belarusian political prisoners is very personal to them, which resonated with “personal cases” – the files Belarusian authorities have on all the activists.

Your poems were part of the social media campaigns by several human rights organisations on the Freedom Day and Political Prisoners Day in Belarus. Do you feel that it’s possible to reach people’s hearts through poetry while advocating for human rights? 

I can say that it was actually quite unexpected for me. Of course, I cannot read poetry at international meetings when I’m at conferences, it’s not the format. But sometimes, when it is possible, I do. 

Here, by the way, I should thank the Human Rights House Foundation, because it was thanks to your request with recording and sharing that poem that it spread. And it felt like there was an effect. And I think it worked precisely because of the element of surprise. Because [international human rights advocacy] is a space where poetry is not expected. Usually there are reports, we talk about repression, we say that everything is bad, people respond, yes, we understand — and that’s the standard format. And a poem breaks out of that format. And because it breaks the format, it seems to create the possibility to reach people on a different level, to touch deeper emotions.

What is it like to be in exile for you, for others?

It’s not about me on the one hand — but at the same time, it is about me. An older man — [in detention] he was beaten, his wife was beaten — they kicked his head, his legs, stamped on his hands… And then he comes into your space, he becomes part of your life in one way or another. And he tells all of this, and it becomes part of your life too. 

We are also following the recent wave of detentions of publishers, printers, translators, booksellers, distributors. Some of them remain in prison under criminal charges, and many face threats against their families if their cases become public. These stories — in different forms, from different people — keep entering your life.

At the same time, many stories of violence remain in silence today, because people cannot share them publicly for many different reasons — fear, safety, the risk for their loved ones. And this, again, brings you back to the question of the role of words. The stories that can be told must become a cry. Because they are more than just individual stories — they carry within them many others that remain unheard, unspoken.

There is also a sense of guilt — that you are safe, while others are not. And there is a constant fear of putting them at risk. 

Even something like writing a message to someone in Belarus — if you write first, you don’t know whether the phone is in their hands or not.

You notice how on Facebook you have fewer and fewer contacts from Belarus — people unsubscribe for security reasons, so they won’t be asked why they follow you. On the one hand there is this feeling of guilt, on the other hand people gradually disappear, and you disappear from their space.

It is worth highlighting a difficult situation for Belarusian activists aged 65+, and support for them in forced exile — human rights defenders, journalists, and cultural figures. These are people who, for decades, often at risk to their freedom and health, contributed to human rights, to democracy, to independent media, to culture in Belarus — and now they have ended up in a kind of blind spot, including for international organisations, while their experience is being erased — wiped out by censorship, absent from the collective memory. There is still no systematic support for these people, and they are in a very vulnerable position.

Many of them, because of their age or health, cannot quickly learn new languages, cannot quickly master technologies, cannot fully work in even low-skilled jobs. In Belarus they had pensions, they had apartments where they could live. Here [in exile] they have to rent expensive housing, they have no income, no medical insurance, essentially they have nothing.

For me it is closely connected to resisting censorship — because these are exactly the people whose experience must be preserved. I suggest that they could act as experts, or write books about their experience — for example, about the formation of independent Belarusian journalism in the 1990s, or the human rights movement, or organisations like Viasna, or PEN Belarus.

Last year PEN Belarus together with Viasna Human Rights Center, Belarusian Association of Journalists, Press Club Belarus, and Free Press for Eastern Europe made a small but important step toward visibility of these people, their experience, their contribution, by awarding 18 persons with the “Voice of the Freedom Generation” prize. We also published a book “Freedom as a biography. The voice of the freedom generation,” with their interviews.

What is the situation for Belarusian culture?

Belarusian culture [is now] stateless. And it is very difficult to convince Polish, Norwegian taxpayers, why they should support Belarusian culture. Because it is obvious that Belarusian culture should first of all be supported by Belarus itself.

And unfortunately, the fact is Belarus does not support Belarusian culture [instead the state is actually trying to destroy it].

There is an older diaspora that has existed for generations abroad. But very often, the children born there already feel less connected to Belarus than their parents. And then there is the new wave of emigration, the diaspora formed after 2020. But many of these people are still financially unstable and cannot take on the responsibility of supporting Belarusian culture themselves — even though we understand that no one else will do it for us.

We lack funding for cultural projects — so that this culture could be produced, so that authors could publish books, so that they could earn a living, so that books would not cost as much as an “airplane wing”.

And on the other hand, there is also a lack of understanding from European structures that supporting Belarusian culture — including inside Belarus — is not only a humanitarian mission. It is also an investment in European and regional security.

Because when Belarusian culture is destroyed inside Belarus, it is replaced by the culture of the “Russian world,” which brings justification of war, falsification of history, propaganda, and fake news.

And these changes are not immediately visible the next day, but in the long run — Belarus, which is historically a European country, part of European history, with values closer to European ones — risks being replaced by something entirely different.

The Belarusian mentality — its value of life, of the individual — all of this is being replaced by a different system of values.

Instead of Belarus as it appeared in 2020 — as a country aligned with European values — Europe may end up having another Russia next door.

This sounds to me as a convincing enough argument for the European Union to invest in Belarusian culture, but it’s not. And in fact, we see that even within Europe there are difficulties — right-wing populist parties are gaining ground, and this shows that Europe itself does not fully understand the importance of investing in critical thinking.

When we speak about Belarusian culture, we are not talking only about ethnography or folklore. We are talking about culture in a broad sense — about critical thinking, about reducing xenophobia, about shaping a broader worldview.

And this culture must be supported — including the democratic values that are its foundation.

We see substitution happening in Belarus. First of all, we see a large presence of Russian structures — a growing number of offices, increasing influence.

At the Minsk Book Fair, which took place just recently, the “Black Hundred” [ultra-nationalist Russian groups] were present instead of Belarusian publishers. Four Belarusian publishing houses were declared extremist formations — first one, and then three more — and they now operate from abroad, because independent publishing inside Belarus has been destroyed.

As a result, at the book fair Belarusian books can only be presented by state publishers, with a very limited selection. And instead of Belarusian books, Russian books are filling the space — including ultra-nationalist ones. They bring with them their own worldview, their own vision of how the world should function.

These are the changes that are already happening.

On the recent wave of persecution of cultural workers

Today it is perhaps the greatest danger to be a culture worker in Belarus. 

We have always said that the Belarusian authorities underestimate culture. On the one hand, they perceive culture as something secondary, even tertiary. On the other hand, the state tries to use culture only to serve its ideological interests — and it does this with those who agree to it. And this is often something that does not attract people, something that does not appeal to consumers of culture.

At the same time, we understood that because culture was underestimated, repression in the cultural sphere did not come first. First came politicians, human rights defenders, journalists. Culture, precisely because it was undervalued, remained somewhat aside.

But now we have reached a situation where repression is coming directly for cultural figures — specifically as cultural figures: for publishing activities, for writing books, even when it is not directly connected to politics.

And this is what today puts cultural workers who continue to do something inside Belarus in danger.

The Belarusian language itself has become a marker of ‘disloyalty’. Speaking Belarusian in public increases risk.

On the one hand,  it is one of the two state languages — this is mentioned in the constitution, and the state is supposed to protect it, support it, and create conditions for its existence.

It is widely known that in 2020, protesters who spoke Belarusian were deliberately marked — with paint on their hair, clothes, faces — so that they could be beaten more severely. They received more attention because they were considered the most committed protesters.

Even now, if a person walks in Minsk and speaks Belarusian on the phone, for example, this increases the risk of being stopped and having their phone checked. Refusal to comply can result in being beaten until access is given.

So in this sense, the choice of language is often a choice of civic position. Though people often choose Russian simply to stay low-profile, not to attract attention, to get through this period until it becomes possible again to speak Belarusian freely.

You are also a founder of the “Polackija Łabirynty” publishing house. What drives this work?

At the beginning I thought of it as a supportive activity to my main work at PEN. For example, when an author from Belarus simply needed an ISBN to publish a book, I could provide it for free. Books were published, and that was my joy — that I could contribute in this way and help.

But over time, there were more and more requests — not only external ones, but also an internal demand — that certain books must be published.

With some books, I felt I had to take this on — because if I don’t, it’s unclear when it would happen. This is why we’ve published several important works, including The Iliad, The Aeneid, and now The Odyssey is being prepared. I did not initiate these translations, but it was important for me to ensure they were published with the quality and care they truly deserve. These are very beautiful editions, very worthy.

It is also important for me that the books are of good quality — good paper, good design, well edited. I get feedback that people appreciate that.

At some point, this clear need began to guide my publishing work.

For example, the book by Ales Bialiatski — it had to be published, because Ales was imprisoned. We need to publish books for those who are imprisoned, or even for those who have died. The same applies to the book by Maksim Znak, written in prison, under conditions where even writing itself becomes an act of resistance — it is not only a literary work, but also a testimony that had to be preserved and made available.

When political prisoners are released — I understand that if I don’t set them the task now to write a book, to document their testimony, then that book may never appear. But it must.

There is a series of other books written at my request by political prisoners — for example, I’ve commissioned a book by journalist Ihar Karnej. He spent a large part of his prison term in solitary confinement, and he describes precisely that experience.

Or a book by Sabina Brylo about the case of Viktar Babaryka, who spent three years incommunicado. His case received very little attention, and through this book we want to show the injustice and falsification of the case, and also the role of the lawyers who defended him and lost their licenses.

How does this connect to resisting censorship?

When I became head of PEN Belarus in 2017, I realised I had no information about what the organisation had done in the 1990s and 2000s. I had to reconstruct everything from fragments, talk to people, investigate.

Then in 2020, many new people [joined the civil society] who didn’t know what had been done before. And they repeated the same mistakes. This comes from censorship — it erases the experience of previous generations.

That’s why one of my goals is to document this experience — especially of those who were active in the 1980s and 90s, who built independent Belarus, who fought against dictatorship. Their experience is not properly written down.

And even when things were documented — like on the major Belarusian portal Tut.by — it can all disappear. The authorities shut it down, seized the servers, and all that history simply vanished.

So my task is to resist censorship in a broader sense — to resist this erasure of collective memory. I also commission books from people who were active in the 1980s and 90s — because they may not have much time left to tell their stories. This is perhaps the last chance to capture that experience.

And at the same time, it is also about giving them recognition — and making their experience available and useful for today’s generation.

Belarus. Banned. Books

We have a large part of our work that is not public, and we cannot talk about it. 

Belarus. Banned. Books is one of the most visible and important recent projects of PEN Belarus [monitoring and visibility of violation of the right to freedom of expression and access to information through banning of the books in Belarus]. We launched it as part of HRHF’s House-to-House in 2025, and now it lives its own life. We presented it during advocacy in Krakow, Warsaw, and we are planning to show it in other cities as well — in Vilnius during the Congress of Political Prisoners, and possibly in Brussels and other European cities, as the project continues to grow.

From the feedback we receive during international advocacy I can see that it reaches its target audience and fulfills its function — it communicates the tragic situation with Belarusian books.

Right now, there are at least 336 banned books in Belarus [as of 8 April, 2026], and we monitor this as part of our broader work on documenting violations of cultural rights. In fact, there are two official lists of banned materials, and also an informal one — formed through phone calls from ideological departments or through self-censorship by libraries, bookstores, and distributors who try to avoid risks.

We maintain and update these lists on the dedicated website. They include not only Belarusian authors — and among them, most often those who write about Belarusian history or identity — but also foreign authors. These are banned for a variety of reasons: for example, books addressing LGBTQ+ topics, or those dealing with Soviet repression, such as works by Anne Applebaum.

The Belarusian regime has banned my book, Gulag: A History, presumably because they don’t want anyone to realise that the past is repeating itself https://t.co/PkWEbqLRk3

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum) January 25, 2025

The banning of books is not only an act of censorship — it is also a direct violation of the right to freedom of expression and access to information, as enshrined in international human rights standards. We document each case carefully, because this is not only about the books themselves. It is about preserving the truth about what is happening to culture in Belarus today.

There is also another, less visible but equally alarming dimension — confiscated manuscripts. For example, Maksim Znak had 22 book projects confiscated. Ales Bialiatski — two manuscripts. Aliaksandr Feduta — also two. And there are many others. These are books that never even had the chance to be published. They were seized and, most likely, destroyed. This means that important testimonies — voices, experiences, reflections — may already be lost and may never be recovered.

At the same time, many stories of repression remain untold. And so the stories that can still be documented and shared must become a form of resistance — not only speaking for themselves, but also for those that have already been silenced.

On the situation for PEN Belarus

We’ve recently released our annual report on the situation in the cultural sphere in Belarus. The report and the Belarus. Banned. Books. projects are one of the few visible examples of our projects.

We constantly face situations where PEN Belarus does very important work, but it is not visible – either because of security issues or because very often we lack capacity, we lack resources, to make this work visible.

I don’t really like saying this, because I know it can sound a bit controversial, but still, when we discussed with colleagues what our successes were in the past year, one of those successes is that we survived and continue to work. It sounds a bit strange and maybe not very professional, but considering the situation we exist in — the situation of underfunding, the constant pressure from outside and from within, and often a very toxic environment — the fact that we continue, that the PEN team exists and continues to do its work, is simply a huge achievement of every single person.

We may not even notice it, we take it for granted — we all wake up in the morning, go to work, and finish in the evening. But the fact that these people have stayed for years in this field and endure this pressure — and I don’t want to say that they “don’t give in,” because showing weakness is also normal. It’s normal to get tired, and burnout is real, and of course we try to prevent it, but there is nothing shameful in being exhausted. I just want to emphasise that the fact that we continue doing this daily work — often invisible work, work that is not properly recognised — is also a major success.

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Between July and December 2025, PEN Belarus together with Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) implemented a joint project “Censored but Not Silent” aimed at defending freedom of expression in Belarus. By raising awareness of ongoing violations in the fields of journalism and literature by exposing cases of censorship and the absurdity of labeling creative works as “extremist.” 

As part of the project, PEN Belarus launched a media platform dedicated to banned books in Belarus, which serves as a living archive of books, authors, and works banned for political or ideological reasons, placing them in their historical, legal, and cultural contexts. The platform is available in English and Belarusian (Polish – soon) and features lists of banned materials — official registers of “ extremist ” and “ harmful ” books, 336 at the moment of publication, as well as an informal banlist known to libraries and booksellers — with detailed entries for each work.

The “Censored but Not Silent” project was implemented within HRHF’s House-to-House (H2H), with financial support from Norway.

H2H supports human rights projects organised collaboratively between two or more Human Rights Houses and their member organisations. In 2025, 22 CSOs from seven countries received support from the H2H Project Fund to implement 11 projects.

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Top photo: Taciana Niadbaj, pictured by Iryna Arakhouskaya.