He explains why he joined the reformed Coordination Council and why council members have been discussing the regulations for the fourth week.

Kureychyk talked about his new projects related to Belarus and explained what is happening with the Akrestina TV series.

Briefly

• The Yale World Fellow Program of Yale University included Slava Vakarchuk from Ukraine and Aleksey Navalny from Russia.

  I am the first Belarusian.

  After finishing the program, I was offered to work here.

  Now I am a teacher on the topic "Art of Resistance", "Belarusian Literature and Cinema", and also a researcher on the topic "Holocaust in Belarus".

• There is a gradual absorption by Russia of our information and cultural space, the actual destruction of Belarusianness and Belarusianness.

  This requires those who are abroad to triple and tenfold their work in order to preserve and develop it, so that later, when there is an opportunity, to return everything to Belarus.

• If someone wants to convey their views or develop a strategy, there is no better place than the Coordination Council.

  How to make it not a bazaar, but an effective decision-making organization?

  And there are problems here, because people are different.

  Right now we are working on the regulations, and it has been going on for almost four weeks.

"I was the first Belarusian invited here in the entire history of the Yale World Fellow program"

- Andrei, what are you doing in America now, how is it related to the situation in Belarus?

— Now I work at Yale University in the city of New Haven in the state of Connecticut, and it is connected with Belarus.

I have been invited here for the Yale World Fellow 2022 Global Leadership Program.

I was the first Belarusian invited here in the entire history of this program.

Earlier, Slava Vakarchuk from Ukraine, and Alexei Navalny from Russia, and many other interesting people were here.

But I am the first Belarusian.

After finishing the program, I was offered to stay and work here.

And now I am a teacher on the subject "Art of resistance", "Belarusian literature and cinema".

I am also a researcher on the topic "Holocaust in Belarus".

This is interesting work for the coming years.

- Indeed, in 2020, almost all Belarusian theaters spoke for free elections and against violence.

It was a pleasant surprise.

This movement was led by the Yanka Kupala National Theater, which was actually destroyed by Alexander Lukashenko.

Can free elections or violent protests bring down the state?

It seems to me the opposite.

It is clear that he believes that the state is him.

It is clear that theaters can earn 100%.

For this, you need to open casinos, brothels, restaurants, shopping malls there, and they will earn as much interest as you want, but we are still talking about art.

Society gives its taxes to support national art and to date the most talented people, and this is not counted as a percentage.

It is considered a talent, in completely different categories.

It is clear that these categories are not accessible to the authorities.

The most talented actors, directors, playwrights left the country.

What's left is so-so, I'd say.

And require them to earn something else?

I don't know, let them trade in the theater.

"I decided to promote the ideas of Belarusian and the Belarusian language at the Yale University level"

- During our conversation, I just now realized how beautifully you speak Belarusian.

How did you switch to the Belarusian language?

— I am stimulated by the Belarusians in America, who are really very devoted to the Belarusian idea and the Belarusian language.

Now I conduct almost all the streams on my YouTube channel in Belarusian.

Unfortunately, in the American academic community there is a lot of information about Ukraine, traditionally about Russian culture, but there are almost no people who deal with the Belarusian language and literature, there are no specialists.

That's why I decided to promote the ideas of Belarusian and the Belarusian language here at the Yale University level.

— After the events of 2023, you created, together with Russian artists, very strong community projects about protests and repression, in which the stars of Russian art - Lia Akhedzhakova, Konstantin Raikin and others took part.

Now the scale and severity of repressions in Belarus are higher than what was in 2020.

In what way do your creative works and your public activities reflect what is happening in Belarus during the war?

- This is a documentary play "Voices of New Belarus", dedicated to our political prisoners.

The premiere took place in Slovakia, Poland and Finland.

I also managed to implement this project last fall at Yale University.

Many translations of the play have been made.

New monologues are constantly being added, for example, the words of the Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski.

The play contains monologues of both famous people (Mykola Statkevich, Ihar Losik, Maria Kalesnikova) and ordinary Belarusians who came under repression.

I am convinced that the topic of Belarusian political prisoners should be in focus for the international community.

That is why I am promoting such a project.

It currently exists in Ukrainian, Polish, Slovak, Finnish, English and German, and we are expanding the range of languages.

The performers are various theaters.

We do this together with producer and translator John Friedman, who launched the big project "Offended.

Belarus".

Now we are sending "Voices of New Belarus" to various theaters.

Where I can personally do something, I do, other directors join in and make readings or plays.

For this play in the radio version, we received a national award from the Finnish Radio and Television Association.

For the first time, a foreigner was given such a Finnish Oscar (to me, as well as to director Samuli Valkama from Helsinki).

"The first series about Tikhonovsky has been filmed, I would make the next series about Bialiatski"

- What is the state of the production of the series "Akrestsina"?

- Before the war, we managed to shoot a pilot series.

The last day of filming was scheduled for February 25, but on February 24, the war began.

The performer of the role of the main character Yevgeny Karnavukh was from Kherson, from the Kherson theater, and our other actor Ihar Zabara spent more than a month near Bucha in his house near Kiev.

There were difficulties.

In general, the first series about Tsikhanovsky was actually filmed.

Unfortunately, there are problems due to the fact that the company "Malanka media" (recently declared an extremist formation) has no experience of working in big cinema.

All materials are in Vilnius at "Malanka Media" - video, sound, editing and everything else, but, unfortunately, they cannot release it yet.

I have hope that this project will reach the audience this year.

It's not my company doing it, I'm here only as a creative unit... The series should continue.

I would make the next series about Ales Bialiatski.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of material, and this is our pain.

- Not only.

Now, in the Coordination Council, I proposed to create an association around the idea of ​​national revival.

Now Russia is gradually absorbing our information and cultural space, actually destroying Belarusianness and Belarusianness.

This requires those who are abroad to triple, tenfold their work to preserve and develop it, so that later, if there is an opportunity, to return everything to Belarus.

This should be the first task and the first mission of those Belarusians abroad.

"The idea is very good, but when it comes to implementation, Belarusians have a hard time with it"

- You became a member of the reformed Coordination Council.

What can the Rada actually do now?

And what was your motivation?

- When the first composition of the Coordination Council was formed, there was an idea that there would be some negotiations to stop the violence, to somehow civilize the civil conflict organized by the government.

Unfortunately, there was no civilized solution, the members of the Coordination Council were actively arrested, so we could not behave actively in society or in the information space.

As soon as the council of the first convocation started to do something, someone was arrested in Minsk.

We worked, but not in the information space.

Now the situation is different...

In August 2022, Tsikhanovskaya decided to make a platform for various organizations working in the sphere of politics and society.

More than a hundred organizations delegated their representatives to the new Coordination Council.

It became a large, parliamentary-type organization.

It seems to me that it can be promising.

If someone wants to convey their views or develop a strategy, then there is no better place to find.

Everyone is there - representatives of the Cabinet, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya herself, who joins the meetings of the Kyrgyz Republic, politicians, public figures, and representatives of active organizations and diasporas.

You can do what you want.

There are also difficulties.

The first is how to make it not a bazaar, but an effective decision-making organization.

And there are problems here, because people are different.

Someone has experience in such assemblies, others do not.

Right now we are working on the regulations, and it has been going on for almost four weeks.

- It will influence, because every association of Belarusians has the potential to influence what is happening in Belarus... This gives an opportunity to work out a strategy in a unified way, including for the United Cabinet, and for Svetlana Tsikhanovskaya, and for our movement in the struggle for independent Belarus.

Of course, the whole issue is in implementation.

The idea is very good, but when it comes to implementation, Belarusians have a hard time with it.

And we saw it in 2020.

The idea was good, but this is how we implemented our revolution.

And there is also a feeling that at the stage of implementation we may lose some valuable things.

?

- This is difficult.

If we are talking about narrow goals, for example, the departure of the dictators Putin and Lukashenka, then we can cooperate here, because our goals coincide.

But if we talk about culture, about language, then how is it here?

I have Belarusian language, Belarusian culture, they have their own language, their own culture.

Everyone is engaged in their work, their cultural space.

And here I don't see how to mix these two cultural spaces in a global sense.

In politics, for example, in an anti-war coalition or an anti-Putin coalition, you can do something jointly.

Or how was the Nobel Prize to protect human rights.

But culture, language and so on... Ukraine is developing its own, we are doing ours.

• Anna Sous

  Journalist of Radio Svaboda

  Editor of the "Only women" community on Facebook 

  sousa@rferl.org

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