Al'herd Baharėvič's Sabaki Eŭropy : a Belarusian 1Q84?

Abstract

Al’herd is considered to be an enfant terrible, or even a “bad boy” of present-day Belarusian literature. The country’s movers and shakers in the world of belles lettres grudgingly take notice of the sheer beauty and innovativeness of his prose and plotlines. But they choose to slight the author, for instance, through denying him the first place in the annual Jerzy Giedroyc Literary Award (Litara-turnaja premija imia Ježy Hedrojca) for Belarusian-language writers. Recently, Baharėvič finally took offence – rightly so – and publically requested that the autobiography on his youth as a punk rock star and poet, Mae dzevjanostyja (My 1990s, Baharėvič 2018) be excluded from the 2019 competition. For Belarusian-language literature is neither about securing a job provided by the state approved Union of Belarusian Writer (Sajuz belaruskich pis’ menni-kaŭ), nor about contributing to the ethnolinguistic Belarusian national movement; currently quite suppressed in Aljaksandr Lukašenka’s authoritarian and overwhelmingly Russophone Belarus, which is increasingly immersed in the unequal Union State with Russia (see Aljaksandr 2005).