--Who do you love?

 -- I love Belarus.

 --So it’s mutual.

The password of the rebels,

1863-64 years

   The apostles of The Motherland

 

          “That one is blessed, who gives away his life in the sake of his friends”.

          Was she a Christians – our first “babka” Rahneda, who was driven to a foreign land by force? Or maybe, she lifted a pagan sword above the robber and destroyer of her motherland – Uladzimer? …We will never learn that. But that is important, that the flame of her proud and recalcitrant heart hasn’t faded for us over the ages.

          Did she -- her granddaughter, the beauty-princess Pradslava -- have the presentiment of what agonizing centuries waited for her motherland, when she entered into the church for the first time and remained there in order to light candles and to dedicate her life to the light of enlightenment and the love for her native land? Which presentiments led Euphrasinnja to the distant world far away from her motherland at the end of her life in order to stand up for her native land just there? There, beside the holy Tomb, she – like “a sun ray” – prayed sincerely until her death and lit and lit the candles…

          With the sword of Rahneda and the cross of Pradslava…

For how many generations of descendants they lit up their way! For them who lifted their swords of fighting and the candles of enlightenment… What do we know about them?

          Litva fell down in front of the invasions in XVIII c. when it lost half of its settlers… That better half – educated, steadfast, able to fight.

          It fell but didn’t give up! In Belarus, the rebellions flared up every thirty years. As a new generation grew up… They were destroyed, tormented, hung. Their lives extinguished like candles cut down by a sword… But they remained – the righteous of the swords of Tadevush and the rays of “Muzhytskaya praŭda” (“The peasant truth”) of Kastuś!

          The empire had no luck with the people. And what should it do with such a cripple with his unbendable knees, who can’t stoop down his back for the whip? An outstanding invention – to destroy the memory, to extinguish the candles of intellect, to turn them into foreigners on their own land…

          What do we know about that “rebellion” of enlightenment and education, faith and devotion? About them – the “knights” of Belarusness? …Or are they going to be forgotten, cursed “natsdems” forever?

         They were tormented, shot, kicked out from their motherland… But the light of their faith in the revival will remain.  Their dreams and hopes, their prayers, and their precepts will come to us:

         “Your candles have been lit and you become apostles of Belarusan business. Now, like bright stars, you will go around the world in order to bring the great joy about the rising of Belarus with you. You will say to the Belarusan people that their fatherland has risen, its coffin is broken and the stone is thrown aside from its coffin. You will say to them that Belarus had been alive; it is alive and will live. And its Promised Land is already near. But if Doubting Thomas appears and doubts the truth of your words, say to him you sow your Mother-Belarus yourself and put your fingers in its wounds. But if that doesn’t help, too, then go away from him and hurry there where you are expected, where your words won’t be a voice calling in a forest. But be afraid of your candle fading, because a storm will take you over your way and you are supposed to survive not one thunder during your travel. Be careful and be afraid that the candle of your love to your suffering Mother-Belarus might fade. Take care of yourself and don’t forget to add oil to your lamps in order to have it for greeting it, your White Ruś, when it will come to judge us at the time of all its great glory” *

 

“It’s possible to love without memory –

a girlfriend,

but not a motherland”.

          To wake up in the second half of life, when the heart is tired of the “benefits” of  socialism and the head is full of gray hair, and to begin to take off patiently the cobweb of nightmarish dreams from memory… To understand yourself to be a “deceived generation” born under an asphalt of unconsciousness, in a darkness of lies. …To find yourself in a foreign land and to hear just here – from very light, saint and human, our dear “dziadulia” Uladyka  -- Metropolitan Mikalai – his last precept: “We pray for our saint Belarus. Our – because we love it anywhere we are. The saint – because it suffers.”

          There, beyond the ocean, is my crucified motherland. What can I do for you, yet?..

          My church and faith is Belarus! I take my monastic vow for you and light up the candles of your truth…

          But what is there nearby, do you hear?.. A small young sprouting voice makes a hole in the deafness of the asphalt:

          “Thanks for acceptance”.

          “Thanks for permission to join harmony of your voices with my weak and inexperienced one”.

          “They asked me today if I am afraid. I said ‘no’.  But it’s not true! I’m afraid! So much! I’m scared, that you as presented me my happiness as are going to take it away!”**

          Don’t you see how many of them, sprouting voices, are here?.. Soon, a young forest will be here!

          But don’t be afraid of anything, my young friends. It’s impossible to take away happiness, because happiness is that, what you give away yourself.

          Grow up, get stronger and go bravely… So only light, light up your candles…

 

Toronto, 2002

                                                                                                   

                                                                               

*The speech of “natsdem” Yazep Liosik to the graduating students of Belarusan science course in the year 1922 in Minsk.

**From a journal of a girl Volia published in the previous issue of our newspaper.