I drive an uber through the snowy Tri-City. The driver joins Polish with Ukrainian in a panslavian braid. I read a poem on my telephone one more time Mother's Voice Nasty Kudasavej.
When I enter Nasty's favourite cafe in Gdynia, there is already caramel cake and coffee with milk foam. He has green eyes and a green sweater. In the message she sent me before the meeting, she reserved that she speaks “not elegantly” in Polish. And now her words flow with flying and east singing.
Nasta is simply a Belarusian poet. He has lived in Poland since 2022. She had already considered leaving Belarus. The last drop of bitterness was Russia's attack on Ukraine on February 24. Nasty pulls the cake distant and tells it in pictures.
It's February 19th, a fewer days before the invasion. Nasta's driving with the kids. A car of Belarusian service is coming from the other direction, followed by a column of Russian tanks. Nasty pulls over. The car is completely quiet. And right next to her, right next to her kids, there are tanks. The column goes on for miles. Nasta would like to take a picture, but she's scared.
On his return home, he wants to send a message to his friends in Kiev, ask if they are okay, but is ashamed. She feels guilty, though she doesn't feel guilty.
He knows what a column of Russian tanks means. From her town to the Ukrainian border is not far away.
Secret Zoom
Nasta began to act in opposition to Lukashenko's dictatorship as early as the 1990s. erstwhile she studied in Minsk at the beginning of the fresh century, she attended demonstrations of the Young Front. At the time, participation in protests was much little risky than it is now.
– There were political prisoners then, but single. present there are over a 1000 and a half. We had an independent press, that's where I published the poems. due to the fact that I fight with a poem.
Now there is no independent press or independent publishing in Belarus. People miss the word. Belarusian publications mainly operate in Poland. A fewer are in Vilnius. What about readers in Belarus?
– I was at a secret zoom yesterday. Only trusted people get a link and password. In these meetings, incredibly popular... we read poems.
Hope Despite Repression
I ask for mass protests before the 2020 presidential election, erstwhile many opposition candidates were arrested, and another, after announcing the alleged triumph of Lukashenko, in which fewer people believe.
Belarusians, and most of all Belarusians, were massing on the streets. Nasta talks about a minute of large hope, inspiration, inspiration.
– How do you talk Polish “inspiration?” – he asks. Right. Whenever I think that I do not know how to say something in Polish, it turns out that the same as in Belarusian.
Nasta says that for the first time not only people from large cities participated in the protests. Demonstrations were besides held in towns and villages. She was amazed that there were so many interesting and brave people among her neighbors. That's erstwhile they met.
Says the women in white who gave flowers to the militia. She took quite a few beautiful pictures. Then she erased them all so she wouldn't exposure the athletes.
Because the bolt of repression has been tightened.
They didn't come present either.
Slap, bust. In Minsk, it was “very beating”, in the town of Nasty a small little due to the fact that it was harder to beat the neighbors. People started hiding.
"Those who have never protested have not always realized the dangers. Many have been arrested. Sometimes for spontaneous, emotional commentary. Now they're in prison. They're sitting for us.
About his fresh months in Belarus in late 2021 Nasta says, "A closed life." People stopped talking. She stopped writing. It was hard for her to tell.
With heartache, she reminded children to “talk nothing at school.” Then she stayed alone in the apartment. With the dissonance, with the gnash between her words and what she truly wants to tell them. And with fear.
– I listened all morning to see if anyone was knocking or coming for us. If they didn't come this morning, you could have a breath. Not today. In this constant fear, we stopped being human. It was for the kids that we had to leave.
Poem smugglers
Coming to Poland was a poetic explosion. The detonation of cumulative words and emotions. It hasn't been 2 years, and Nasta has 2 poetic volumes. They joined four, which she spent inactive in Belarus.
Her poems are smuggled to Belarusian prisons. And from prisons, thanks to Nasty.
Her friend collects photos of political prisoners and paints a image of each and all 1 of them. That'll be a thousand. Nasta wrote a series of poems about prisoners and murdered.
One is the monologue of the tree doctor – arborist and activist, from the same yard as the government killed Roman Bondarenko. The first guy in prison tried to commit suicide. The trees he longs for in a poem grow into the light, they are not cruel to each other.
The poem I read in the uber is dedicated to Bondarence. After he was killed, beaten by safety services, Nasta went to Minsk.
– It was like a dream. So many people, all walking in the same direction, all with flowers. I ran to the market. I bought a black ribbon and – how do you talk Polish “carnations”? The female who sold them to me only asked: “Are you there?” In silence we reached Roman's yard. It was terribly sad and besides solemn. Then this poem came to me. Roman's mother's monologue due to the fact that I'm a parent too. It's specified a double feeling.
Mother's Voice
There's a human sea growing, but I don't believe it.
The large word "died" will not pass my throat
I'd alternatively pull the curtains and cook dinner.
I have potatoes, wine, meat, basil, thyme.
There the human ocean floods with storm squares
There on the flags carry the dense word “hero”
Why would I care about words? My boy will come.
She'll sit at the table, have dinner with me.
If he doesn't come, I'll get up and go to God.
I will tell him: “You who have set fire in our hearts!
I don't request a hero! Give me my son, alive!
My average son, alive, you hear, give him to me!’
(PL)
Lullabies and simple truths
I ask what Nasta misses most. He misses his mom, who stayed in Belarus. Behind the forest, behind “your trees”. What gives her hope?
People who inactive do their job, he says. Poland, whose destiny shows that even the worst situation can be exited.
– And that we here in Poland have our Belarus. Whatever it was, it activates. Sometimes there are 3 in Warsaw 1 day Belarusian events. For example, on October 29th, we celebrate the Day of the Shots. A 100 Belarusian political activists were shot that day in 1937. Among them were many poets, writing in Belarusian and Yiddish. all year, on October 29, we read their poems together. Last time 150 people came to perceive to us. People request that poetry, it gives me hope.
Kids give us hope too.
– I teach my children how to go into the light. And I'm going with them.
She wrote 2 poems for them. – But everything I write, I compose clearly, so that children understand. due to the fact that they're simple truths.
We've been talking for over an hour. Finally, I ask you what message Nast would send in a bottle before throwing it into the sea. He's just wondering. Finally, he says: “People, don't hurt another people.It’s okay. ”
