site.btaNobel Prize Winner Svetlana Alexievich at Apollonia Arts Fest: "Evil Is Complicated and Elusive"

"Evil is very complicated and elusive," Belarusian investigative journalist, essayist and oral historian Svetlana Alexievich said here on Saturday. The conversation with the 2015 Nobel Prize winner was part of the 39th Apollonia Festival of Arts here on Saturday. The event was moderated by Mariana Katzarova, UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur for Russia.

When the war against Ukraine broke out, she felt as if the world had upturned, said the writer, whose mother was Ukrainian and her father Belarusian. The Belarusian people never imagined that they will wage a war against Ukraine, and unlike the Russians they are not aggressive, even though the Lukashenko regime is regarded as co-aggressor.

"We must keep love in our hearts and drive hatred out of our hearts, because there is too much triumphant hatred in our world. Admittedly, democracy is being defeated, but this defeat is only temporary," Alexievich said, deploring the fact that "hatred is a state policy in many countries". "Writers today must write in the name of love. They should find something good, they should find purity, honesty, giving people something to live on, bring up their children and make their way joyful and not just dependent on these terrible times."

Asked whether, against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine, there is hope for a future without hatred, the writer argued that suffering is not for ever - just as German culture after WW II, so will great Russian literature will come back.

She noted that Europe opened its homes and hearts to Ukraine because it realized that those fleeing the war were elderly people bringing along their children and pets - i.e. a world close to Europe, sharing its values. 

Denunciations in Belarus are thriving at present because the dictatorship encourages this practice. Just as back in the 1960s, children are now indoctrinated that they must be ready to die for their fatherland, and this is the paramount value, the guest pointed out. "Televised propaganda brings out the worst and darkest aspects of human nature. Nevertheless, there are brave young people," Alexievich said. 

"We cannot live without the culture of suffering, a culture of self-sacrifice. Heroes are needed - otherwise we will not win, and this is unfortunate. Two cultures clash: one according to which an environmental catastrophe will end history, and another, in which culture reverts to medieval barbarity," the writer observed.

Alexievich told about her surreal experience of visiting the contaminated zone around the Chernobyl N-Plant.

Asked whether there is hope, she answered that hope is in time. "Putin and Lukashenka are struggling with time. Each one of us should not get involved in these things," she argued.

Her protagonists are eyewitnesses. Those are the people one can trust, recounting life as it actually happened. The writer said that time is of the essence to locate the eyewitnesses while they are still with us - both the victims and the executioners - and to record their first-hand stories.

Environment Minister Julian Popov thanked the guest for delving into the depths of the human soul. He acknowledged her unbelievable skill to turn the most brutal facts into the finest literature.

Award-winning writer Georgi Gospodinov said that a writer should be an ear and a heart so as to be able to bear the burden of these harrowing accounts and to pass them on. He called for turning the culture of suffering into a culture of compassion.

The audience also included literary critic Mihail Nedelchev, former deputy foreign minister Stefan Tafrov, historian and former deputy prime minister and education minister Veselin Metodiev, BTA Director General Kiril Valchev, BTA Deputy Director General Evgenia Drumeva and former BTA director general Panayot Denev.

Alexievich will meet the media in Sozopol on Sunday.