The team of the Belarusian Council for Culture celebrated the second anniversary. October 1 marks for us the two-year period of work. At first, we functioned as the Belarusian Culture Solidarity Foundation which arose in response to massive repressions following the falsified presidential elections and a huge wave of protests since August 2020. Later, when establishing cultural processes turned out to be an equally pressing matter along with helping artists individually, we restated ourselves as the Belarusian Council for Culture and broadened our scope of work.

Today, we've got about thirty people on the team of the Belarusian Council for Culture and, for the first time, we are revealing some of those persons behind the organization. As much as we can in the given circumstances, taking into consideration the dangerous risks.

Photo: Coaliția Sectorului Cultural Independent din Republica Moldova (facebook)

Last month was very fruitful for us in terms of international collaboration. The Belarusian Council for Culture team members visited the USA, Moldova, and Ukraine. They took part in educational programmes, conferences, and seminars for cultural management professionals. 

In Moldova, we helped to organize the International Laboratory ”Rethinking the Institutional Design of Project-based Public Funding for Culture in the Eastern Neighbourhood Region”. The Laboratory discussed the process of creation and principles of work of the future cultural fund of the Republic of Moldova. The Belarusian Council for Culture representatives were able to share their experience in creating independent cultural institutions, and the work of assistance programmes. Moreover, they had a chance to learn a lot of important things about the functioning of cultural support institutions in Eastern Europe and the Balkans in a lively discussion. This knowledge will be useful for the Belarusian Council for Culture in the formation of our resource centre for Belarusian culture and its programmes.

The Belarusian Council for Culture was invited to participate in the Belarusian-Ukrainian expert forum named after the Princes of Ostroh in Lviv, Ukraine. The event became a place for a conversation about today’s relations between Belarus and Ukraine, and how the two countries can cooperate in various fields. Among the discussions on politics, media, and human rights, there was one dedicated to cultural cooperation. There, the representative of the Belarusian Council for Culture Irena Kaciałovič conveyed our organization’s position on a common front of resistance for Belarusian and Ukrainian cultural representatives. The two cultures already have a lot in common, so collective work does not have to start from scratch. 

Belarusian Magistrates continue to grow and develop.

A week ago we started the first Magistrate Knihauka which is aimed to help in the organization of a Belarusian publishing house in Poland. The publisher, Andrei Yanushkevich, used to have one of the most successful book businesses in Belarus until it was destroyed by the Belarusian authorities. The man himself had been under arrest for a month but after release managed to leave for Poland after he was released. 

Today, in order to organize the effective work of the publishing house, it is necessary to resolve legal issues, adjust the logistics of the distribution of Belarusian books, form a new team, and regather readers who are currently scattered across different countries. Together, with the help of the Magistrate donation system, we can support Andrei Yanushkevich and his team. 

For now the Knihauka Magistrate — an association of donors who are ready to support the development of the publishing house with a specified amount during the specified period — has united more than 170 people. You can join the community as well.

The analytical group of the Belarusian Council for Culture has presented the new quarterly review of the main trends, conflicts, defeats, and victories we can observe in Belarusian music, cinema, theatre, and literature. Without analyzing the current state of public consciousness, it is impossible to understand what is happening to the nation and how to rebuild it further. 

What’s the most remarkable feature of the cultural process in Belarus? As our experts note, the crucial marker is the continuation of forming two opposite motion vectors: westernization (gradual joining of the European cultural space) and Russification (bureaucratic and enforcement agencies' pressure on the creative class). It's not just the traffic in different directions. It is the existence based on different maps of meanings.