Belarus is a European country with a European heritage. Writers, musicians, philosophers and religious thinkers from this region had been part of European mainstream culture since the middle ages. This was stopped a little over 200 years ago when it became part of the Russian empire.

These days, Belarus appears in and out of the Western media when Belarusians express their discontent and when the authorities crack down against them,  either directed by, or with the support of, the Kremlin.

The fate of my ancestors exemplifies how Moscow sought to impose its will by destroying lives.

My grandfather who was closely associated with the area, had three brothers and two sisters.

Jan died in 1920 fighting the Bolsheviks and his grave is located in Shcharkoshina in northern Belarus.

Marian was deported in 1938 and was never heard of again.

Adam, who became a noted scientist and member of the Soviet academy of Sciences was arrested and shot in 1938 in Leningrad.

Two sisters  died during the siege of Leningrad in World war II.

My grandfather, Stanislav, was arrested and deported to Siberia. from Vilnius. He was accused of  fighting the Bolsheviks in 1919-21 and of being a landowner. My father and aunt were deported with him. My aunt’s  story is given in the blog. 

That fate of my family was by no means unique. Almost every family in this area of the world, has similar  stories of indiscriminate tragedy.

 However, most people in the former Soviet Union are not aware of their family histories: years ago those who survived were too afraid to talk about it.

Now they are no longer alive, and the memories of the executions, deportations and suffering are gone with them and replaced with the Kremlin’s narrative which presents an altogether different picture. In the Soviet and post Soviet narrative, the victims are forgotten as if they had never existed and the perpetrators are given heroic status.

We live in a different era and a different place. As a Western European, I have been lucky enough to live  in Eastern Europe. I experienced Communist regimes in the 1970’s, regularly travelling to most of the countries. I witnessed the prelude to martial law in Poland in 1981 and its aftermath. I experienced the hopes and fears of those who demanded a better life but were crushed. I saw the East German Trabants lining up on the Hungarian- Austrian border.  Now, I have been honoured to live amongst Belarusians who watched their government ignore their wishes,  and stood up for their rights, even though they faced the threat of brutality and incarceration. I was with them when they saw their country descend into fear and hopelessness when the rest of the world started to forget that they had ever protested.

The underlying theme of the blogs may seem to be tragedy.

Tragedy and the disregard of people’s suffering has a momentum of its own. The cycle continues. There is a resignation that it is inevitable, because those who created it don’t want to stop. Those who have influence on them don’t want to stop them, either because of ignorance, fear or self-interest. This is the real tragedy.

I believe that fear and repression are not inevitable. Understanding and recognising the mistakes of the past, and the will to learn from them can give us hope. This is the real theme of the blogs.