A Tiny Red Flower

Abstract

VASIL BYKAU, the most eminent Belarusan writer of the past half-century, died of cancer on 22 June 2003, three days after his 79th birthday. Bykau came to prominence on the Soviet literary scene with the publication of his novel The Third Flare (1962) set during World War II. This, and the novels that followed, The Dead Feel No Pain (1965), Alpine Ballad (1966), The Accursed Hill (1968), The Kruhlanski Bridge (1969), Sotnikau (1970), Obelisk (1971) and Pack of Wolves (1981), revolutionised the war-reportage /novel genre throughout the Soviet Union, replacing the hitherto standard stereotypes of 'good' Soviet partisans, wicked Nazis and treacherous collaborators with more complex individual characterisation and the grim realism of war. His books became bestsellers throughout the USSR, translated into Russian and other Soviet languages, and he won a number of leading Soviet literary prizes. Fame, however, did not protect Bykau from the attentions of the censors, who disliked critics of the Stalinist regime. With the arrival of Mikhail Gorbachev, perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union, Bykau was at the forefront of the campaign for Belarusan independence and the revival of the Belarusan language and culture which, under Soviet rule, had been downplayed. He became a leading member of the pro-democracy pro-independence Belarusan Popular Front and of Martiraloh - the organisation set up to honour the victims of Stalin's purges in Belarus - and was elected first president of the new Belarusan PEN Centre. The arrival of Alaksandr Lukashenka as president of Belarus in 1994 changed all that: control over all aspects of life increased; Belarusan language and culture were discouraged; freedom of speech and of the press was under constant threat. Under Bykau's leadership, Belarusan PEN resisted these trends. The regime retaliated with various forms of bureaucratic harrassment. At the end of 1998, Bykau left Belarus under the auspices of the 'Cities of Refuge' initiative. He finally settled in Prague at the personal invitation of Czech President Vaclav Havel. Back in Belarus, literary magazines were forbidden to publish any of Bykau's works. Bykau repeatedly stressed that his stay abroad was purely temporary, but his health was deteriorating; in March this year he underwent surgery for cancer and, as soon as he was able to travel, returned to Belarus where his death on 22 June coincided with the anniversary of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, an event that had been so central to his work.