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  • Zhanna Litvina: About ’17 Years on the Throne’, the BAJ ‘Family’, and Her Birthday Shared with Lukashenka…

    Before the interview, some colleagues teased me, “Ask her when the last time she interviewed someone was.” Like, she is the chairperson of a journalist organization but she has forgotten what it is like to be a journalist. However, answering this provocative question, Zhanna Mikalajeuna began earnestly recall her talks with Heroes of Socialist Labor, chairpersons of kolkhozes etc. It was so realistic that her answers have not even fit in the final version of this article.

    BAJ’s PERSONAL RECORD

    Zhan­na Litv­ina was born in the vil­lage of Vadapoj near Min­sk. She grad­u­at­ed from the jour­nal­ism depart­ment of the Belaru­sian State Uni­ver­si­ty. From 1976 to 1994, she worked at the State Tele­vi­sion and Radio; there, her last posi­tion was the chief edi­tor of Belaruska­ja Mal­adziozh­na­ja radio sta­tion. From 1994 to 1999, she led the Min­sk bureau of Radio Lib­er­ty. She found­ed Radio Racy­ja. In 1995, she found­ed the FM sta­tion 101.2, which last­ed a lit­tle over a year and was closed down by the author­i­ties. In 1995, she found­ed the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists which she leads to date.

    “Only a selected few are trusted today with the live broadcast”

    After the jour­nal­ism depart­ment, you were employed by the State radio. Wasn’t the young girl wor­ried that the entire coun­try would hear her but she wouldn’t be rec­og­nized on the streets?!

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: The radio jour­nal­ist can­not become a star… I felt total­ly self-suf­fi­cient in the envi­ron­ment where I was known. Before it was closed, Belaruska­ja Mal­adziozh­na­ja radio sta­tion was at its finest hour. We were known to all politi­cians, pub­lic fig­ures… Because each of them had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to get on the air. What we did not have, it was the censorship’s obsta­cles. This got us burned.

    Zianon Paz­ni­ak came to us. Live broad­cast… He was not wel­come at any edi­to­r­i­al team. But we got him on the air, prob­a­bly, due to some jour­nal­is­tic inso­lence… And many things were for­giv­en to us. Inci­den­tal­ly, we anchored the very first live broad­cast with Ihar Han­charuk (lat­er, he head­ed Stal­it­sa radio sta­tion for some time and now he does Top­i­cal Inter­view show on tele­vi­sion from time to time). It was an ordi­nary broad­cast – it was inten­tion­al­ly sched­uled for the very late evening so that as few peo­ple as pos­si­ble could hear it. The text got vet­ted in all offices, it was writ­ten down to the last com­ma… Already after, we were told that the direc­tor of the pro­gram direc­torate (I won’t even tell his name) had come to the edit­ing con­trol room, from where the show was broad­cast and said: “If some­thing is wrong – mix it!”


    See, how much time passed, and Vol­s­ki was recent­ly “cut down” on tut.by in the exact­ly same way. How have you react­ed to it? Has it been civ­i­lized?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: You know, if over 20 years ago they had shut down us, pio­neers, who were gasp­ing for the live broad­cast, it would have had some log­ic; we could blame it on Com­mu­nists, on back­ward­ness. And the man­i­fes­ta­tions of cen­sor­ship today… I have some­thing to com­pare it with, and I’m just in shock. Ear­li­er, we had live CNN inserts on the Belaru­sian tele­vi­sion, and Radio 101.2 rebroad­cast­ed BBC and Deutsche Welle live… Now, it all has been destroyed. Only a select­ed few are trust­ed today with the live broad­cast. Today, the cen­sor­ship is much harsh­er than the one which exist­ed dur­ing the Per­e­stroi­ka.

    And we look at tut.by as a pri­vate busi­ness? Why should Yury Zis­er risk his own busi­ness so that Vol­s­ki could laugh at Jar­moshy­na? Can we gen­er­al­ly regard our media as a pri­vate busi­ness?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: We have no pri­vate busi­ness in mass media. Speak­ing of the radio, the fre­quen­cies are in pub­lic prop­er­ty, and they can be tak­en back at any moment. I would not also call the news­pa­per a pri­vate busi­ness as, dur­ing the last 12 years, we are wit­ness­ing the grad­ual destruc­tion of the insti­tu­tion of inde­pen­dent media. The edi­tors were dif­fer­ent back then as well… By the way, there is an inter­est­ing phe­nom­e­non today: the news­pa­pers’ edi­tors do not write for their news­pa­pers.

    Did you real­ly sit at the micro­phone at Belaruska­ja Mal­adziozh­na­ja?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Ini­tial­ly, yes. But, at some point, I dis­con­tin­ued. Because we had a super free­dom in the edi­to­r­i­al office. How­ev­er, every Tues­day the Cal­vary came – the plan­ning meet­ings began at 10 am. Hien­adz Buraukin already left at that time, and the State Tele­vi­sion and Radio were head­ed by Ali­ak­san­dr Stal­iarou. And every Tues­day I was called up and chas­tised mer­ci­less­ly. We aired a Sat­ur­day morn­ing pro­gram at 9.15 am, a very pop­u­lar one, and I was crit­i­cized every time — “why this, why not that”!.. To sit at the micro­phone, I must be the same as my team. But it could soon lead to the full destruc­tion of the edi­to­r­i­al team. I had to act as a defend­er. It seemed to me that it was more impor­tant than to sit at the micro­phone.


    Sure, then you could not tell, “They did it behind my back”.

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I nev­er said that! The prepa­ra­tion for each plan­ning meet­ing was a search for jus­ti­fi­ca­tions: why the jour­nal­ists said this and not that on the air. Dur­ing the plan­ning meet­ing, many col­leagues did not even speak to me in the pres­ence of the man­age­ment. But when the plan­ning meet­ings was over, they used to approach me and express words of sup­port. But they could not get up and say a word [open­ly]…

    “Aliaksandr Ryhoravich was spotlighted, with focus on his hair”

    But how did you man­age to invite Paz­ni­ak to the State radio?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: It should be borne in mind that Paz­ni­ak was then a mem­ber of par­lia­ment, and it gave us the right to invite him. His every vis­it was a stress. I recall how I was dragged to the pro­gram direc­torate ahead of one of his appear­ances and scold­ed, “this BPF again!” The trick was that we sub­mit­ted the micro­phone fold­er where we indi­cat­ed the name of the invit­ed per­son and the main top­ic of con­ver­sa­tion. And then, the air was the air: peo­ple said what they said.

    Although, in the case of Zianon, his very invi­ta­tion on the air was already a chal­lenge and a seri­ous sig­nal to the man­age­ment. I come back from the boss all so des­o­late, then Zianon Stanislavavich arrives, we brew him cof­fee… And here Paz­ni­ak deliv­ers a mono­logue about the cor­rup­tion of jour­nal­ists etc. And I look at him and think, a cou­ple of min­utes more, and I will cry from resent­ment…

    Inci­den­tal­ly, Ali­ak­san­dr Ryho­ravich Lukashen­ka was one of the fre­quent guests of the live broad­cast. When a planned guest failed to arrive, we always knew that we could call Lukashen­ka, and he would come and speak with ease on any top­ic. A per­son who talks open­ly about any­thing – this is a god­send for a radio jour­nal­ist! When we cel­e­brat­ed the 30th anniver­sary of Belaruska­ja Mal­adziozh­na­ja, Ali­ak­san­dr Ryho­ravich was also present at the anniver­sary par­ty. The most amaz­ing thing is that, after the elec­tion cam­paign approached, all pic­tures with guests on them, includ­ing him, dis­ap­peared from my office.

    What was your rela­tion­ship then?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Absolute­ly friend­ly. After the reform of the State Tele­vi­sion and Radio and its trans­for­ma­tion in the Belaru­sian Tele­vi­sion and Radio Com­pa­ny, as I remem­ber, there was a cer­e­mo­ny of pre­sen­ta­tion of cer­tifi­cates to the can­di­dates for the pres­i­dent. Before that, Ali­ak­san­dr Dabravol­s­ki came to my office and brought me the ID of the elec­tion agent of Stanis­lau Shushkievich. After the pre­sen­ta­tion of the can­di­dates’ cer­tifi­cates, Ali­ak­san­dr Ryho­ravich saw me, “Oh, Zhan­na, come, we are get­ting togeth­er in this room, come to my team!..” I gave it a thought and even did not both­er to explain to him that I was already Shushkievich’s elec­tion agent. I was great­ly hon­ored to be Shushkievich’s elec­tion agent along­side Hien­adz Buraukin, Vol­ha Ipata­va, Stanis­lau Bah­dankievich and the dis­graced Gen­er­al Jaho­rau!..

    … I remem­ber that after the draw Lukashen­ka had the very first live appear­ance. A few oth­er per­sons were invit­ed with Shushkievich for live appear­ances, but Lukashen­ka was accom­pa­nied only by Ali­ak­san­dr Fiadu­ta. The tele­vi­sion is a harsh art. There­fore, Ali­ak­san­dr Ryho­ravich was spot­light­ed, with focus on his hair. And Fiadu­ta was seat­ed side­ways. Every­thing was done to make them look unat­trac­tive. Kiebich was the main star and the oth­ers were blind­ed and seat­ed in a ter­ri­bly unaes­thet­ic way. I remem­ber myself say­ing already dur­ing the very first min­utes of Lukashenka’s appear­ance: “Peo­ple, here is the man who will become the head of state…”

    Before the sec­ond round, Fiadu­ta and Sinit­syn were still work­ing upon me, lur­ing to Lukashenka’s side. I even came to the House of Gov­ern­ment – the inten­si­ty of their offers became unbear­able. And I explained to them: yes, my “patron” lost but it was sim­ply impos­si­ble for me to change teams. I won­der why such an offer was made to me.


    When you ceased to be the edi­tor-in-chief of Belaruska­ja Mal­adziozh­na­ja, you were left out in the cold for a long time, weren’t you?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I was then offered to take the posi­tion of the edi­tor-in-chief of the youth edi­to­r­i­al office at the tele­vi­sion – pup­pets, children’s sports etc. Dzi­u­ba was then offered the posi­tion of the edi­tor of the Sec­ond Chan­nel of the Belaru­sian radio, and he agreed. At the same time, a con­di­tion was put for­ward that some per­sons would sim­ply have no place at the Belaru­sian tele­vi­sion and radio. I could not stay there because it would be a betray­al. Five or six months lat­er, just on the New Year’s Eve, I ran into Ali­ak­san­dr Stal­iarou. He asked me how I was doing. I said, “I’m doing fine but there is one thing I can’t for­give you…” He even changed his coun­te­nance. And I tell him, “I can’t for­give you that you didn’t kick me off ear­li­er but only now – I would have done much more!” And indeed, dur­ing that peri­od of time before the new regime became ful­ly estab­lished, there was a time dream came true…





    “Kiesner calls me, “Zhanna, tee-hee, but we all quit!”

    I under­stand that Ali­ak­san­dr Ryho­ravich indi­rect­ly con­tributed to the cre­ation of BAJ?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: In 1995, already at the first con­stituent meet­ing of BAJ, we adopt­ed the first protest state­ment against the expul­sion of such news­pa­pers as Nar­o­d­na­ja Volia, Imia and BDG from the print­ing works. Then, the news­pa­pers moved to Vil­nius for print­ing because at that time there were no such restric­tions at the bor­der, and they could be freely brought to Belarus. Next, Decem­ber came, and there were white spots in news­pa­pers in the place of Antonchyk’s anti-cor­rup­tion report… But then Zvi­az­da, Sovet­skaya Belorus­siya and some oth­er pub­li­ca­tions were print­ed with white spots – they still had courage. There was a ban on print­ing the report, but the edi­to­r­i­al offices decid­ed to leave the white spots. At that time, there still was no such sep­a­ra­tion: ours – not ours, us – them… The jour­nal­ists were equal and clean­er. Although, they already began tight­en­ing the screws at the tele­vi­sion with­out Buraukin…

    And when you start­ed your job at the State radio, was Buraukin already the boss there?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: No, he was appoint­ed lat­er.

    What changed?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: First of all, the lan­guage. The [Belaru­sian] lan­guage was present on the radio before but with the arrival of Buraukin, it expand­ed unprece­dent­ed­ly on the tele­vi­sion… Hien­adz Mikala­je­vich has a unique gift of nature – the abil­i­ty to spot a tal­ent and to respect the tal­ent. Under Buraukin, such peo­ple were giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty for self-real­iza­tion. By the way, it was already Buraukin who appoint­ed me to the posi­tion of the edi­tor-in-chief of Belaruska­ja Mal­adziozh­na­ja. When I was appoint­ed, I was the youngest per­son to occu­py this posi­tion. But even ten years lat­er, when I was fired and I was almost 40, I still remained the youngest!

    And Buraukin, when he appoint­ed you, did he give you the free hand – “do what you want”?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: No free hand. It should be borne in mind that that the sys­tem was still sol­id. He sim­ply trust­ed us and allowed us to do what our young team saw fit.

    You once told that you were afraid to even enter Buraukin’s office. Was he that hard?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Always busy, always con­cen­trat­ed! I told him not so long ago that I had been afraid of him. Hien­adz Mikala­je­vich laughed for a long time: “Zhan­na! Be afraid? Of me?! Why should any­one be afraid of me?!”

    But you were a boss as well! How many sub­or­di­nates did you have?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: When we quit, there were eigh­teen of us. Each of us was sum­moned indi­vid­u­al­ly and offered to stay; we were promised all kind of ben­e­fits and posi­tions. I came in our “news­room” across from the front desk and said, “Peo­ple, you should think seri­ous­ly. You are on the wait­ing list for hous­ing, half of the team live in the dorms. What will you do tomor­row, where will you seek a piece of bread?” And I left. Almost every­body refused to get trans­ferred to anoth­er office. They asked Kies­ner to call Litv­ina. Kies­ner calls me, “Zhan­na, tee-hee, but we all quit!”

    To me, it was a shock! At that moment, I had no idea where I could find a job… I qui­et­ly con­sult­ed peo­ple about where I could go and work as an adver­tis­ing agent or an edi­tor… But then, when they all quit, they made me a per­son­al­i­ty, and I have always empha­sized that. When you are alone, it is very sim­ple for you. And in this sit­u­a­tion, it was like at Exupéry’s, when you need to sur­vive and to get there because they are wait­ing for you. Vital Siamashka’s phrase was spin­ning in my head, “Zhan­na, you can­not be dif­fer­ent already…”

    “This is the same as to live in a family with a wife and have a mistress at the same time”

    Then, your team quit in sol­i­dar­i­ty with you as well as because they did not want to work for the State radio any longer. Today, we hear some­times that nor­mal peo­ple also work in odi­ous state media. After so many years, too?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I think, yes. Only these peo­ple have been forced into a par­tic­u­lar spe­cif­ic niche. This is the same as to live in a fam­i­ly with a wife and have a mis­tress at the same time. Although I think that there are many con­vinced peo­ple among jour­nal­ists, espe­cial­ly from the new gen­er­a­tion, who sin­cere­ly believe in all this. And per­haps, there is also a share of prag­ma­tism there. But the cun­ning insin­cere oppor­tunists – this is more despi­ca­ble…

    OK, but if a per­son takes a job in Sovet­skaya Belorus­siya after the clo­sure of, say, BDG, and he or she says, “But I’m writ­ing about sports (cul­ture, arts…)”. And mean­while, they pub­lish “Iron on glass” at the adja­cent page. Who are they, these per­sons?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I wouldn’t take such a cat­e­gor­i­cal stance. Because every­one makes a choice one day. And when you talk to each one indi­vid­u­al­ly… For exam­ple, I had a shock about Liud­mi­la Masliuko­va. She was a friend of Shchukin, in such oppo­si­tion to the regime, wrote a lot for Nar­o­d­na­ja Volia!.. And sud­den­ly, she finds her­self in Sovet­skaya Belorus­siya and begins to write the exact oppo­site… Some peo­ple explained this by a dif­fi­cult fam­i­ly sit­u­a­tion. But I don’t under­stand such things – I believe that they are inex­cus­able. Here the lim­its of pro­fes­sion­al integri­ty were crossed.

    You were also called to come to the oth­er side, they promised to you that you would be hunky dory. If we reject pre­ten­tious words, what held you off?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I was offered to take a posi­tion in the infor­ma­tion ser­vice of the tele­vi­sion. But it was unac­cept­able in the new con­di­tions. And it also helped that I already had an offer to lead the Belaru­sian bureau of Radio Lib­er­ty. Con­science. And people’s atti­tude. It is very impor­tant what peo­ple whom I respect think about me. Per­haps, this is my Achilles’ heel. To me, it is very impor­tant to stay who I am and not to give grounds for some doubts and mis­trust.

    “When the newspapers began closing down, their editors felt that they remained alone with their editorial teams”

    When you head­ed Radio Lib­er­ty, in which con­di­tions did it exist here in the coun­try? Was the bureau accred­it­ed?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: No we sim­ply rent­ed an apart­ment. But then they were seri­ous nego­ti­a­tions with Shushkievich (when he was the speak­er) about rebroad­cast­ing the radio in Belarus. At that time, it just took place in Rus­sia and in Ukraine. But Radio Lib­er­ty failed to get this autho­riza­tion in our coun­try.

    In your opin­ion, why, dur­ing this long time of pres­sure on inde­pen­dent mass media, did they get at every­body except Radio Lib­er­ty?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Good ques­tion. Maybe, because it is a brand… Maybe, a habit. Should I now look for oth­er rea­sons? Then, one should find out why the jour­nal­ists of Euro­ra­dio received the accred­i­ta­tion but not Radio Racy­ja.

    In gen­er­al, those inde­pen­dent mass media which sur­vived until today, how dan­ger­ous are they for the author­i­ties?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: This ques­tion is not how dan­ger­ous. Just think how much Nar­o­d­na­ja Volia expe­ri­enced, for exam­ple. Iosif Paulavich (how­ev­er dif­fi­cult he might be), what­ev­er the trou­ble was com­ing, any­way, he was sav­ing his pub­li­ca­tion and man­aged to stay his ground. Our region­al pub­li­ca­tions are also vet­er­ans. When the news­pa­pers began clos­ing down, they felt that they remained alone with their edi­to­r­i­al teams. What­ev­er state­ments were adopt­ed, what­ev­er the Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists said – any­way, it was your prob­lem, which you had to solve on your own. Per­haps, this is what caus­es self-cen­sor­ship and cau­tion in arti­cles and reprints. And anoth­er thing – they are very near their local author­i­ties, which can do to them any­thing at any time. It is eas­i­er for nation­al pub­li­ca­tions in Min­sk.

    They got used to pub­li­ca­tions, and now there is man­hunt for peo­ple who are able to seek and present infor­ma­tion. The case of Surapin is just sav­age! The very fact that he was arrest­ed for pub­li­ca­tion of his pho­tos is unprece­dent­ed. A war with a pic­ture! The same as police­men at ral­lies say in their radios, “Don’t let them take pic­tures”. I also was shocked at the ral­lies, which I call the “applause ral­lies” when the jour­nal­ists were pres­sured because they had cam­eras – not to let them make pic­tures!

    Why? Is it because the pic­ture will get abroad and will again defame our “ves­sel”?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Abroad as well, yes. But also here, so that it doesn’t irri­tate, doesn’t stir up pub­lic opin­ion… Recent­ly, how­ev­er, Juli­ja Darashkievich said that the police­men wit­ness­es had not said dur­ing the court hear­ings that she had been swear­ing and wav­ing her arms…

    “I get a toothache from today’s FM stations”

    Did you quit Radio Lib­er­ty because of Radio Racy­ja?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Yes, because Radio Racy­ja was my baby, and it would be incom­pat­i­ble fur­ther on. The first broad­casts began, and I had to take care of the new radio, with the help from Nina Barshcheuska­ja, from the Belaru­sian ser­vice of the Pol­ish Radio. Because the pilot pro­grams were broad­cast by the Pol­ish Radio’s trans­mit­ter: Dzi­ma Novikau, the cur­rent head of the Euro­pean Radio, was bring­ing the first pro­grams on VCR cas­settes to Nina Barshcheuska­ja. She seri­ous­ly helped us, and I’m grate­ful to her for life.



    I recall Tat­st­siana Miel­nichuk say­ing that she has been miss­ing the radio which is steadi­ly dis­ap­pear­ing. Do you miss it?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I’m in love with the radio which was mine. I don’t lis­ten today to the FM radio, to me, they are speak­ing with the same voic­es, this mean­ing­less bark­ing at absolute­ly all the sta­tions trig­gers neg­a­tive and sad emo­tions in me. I get a toothache from that! Only Stal­it­sa stands out with its Belaru­sian lan­guage.

    Speak­ing of the clo­sure of Radio 101.2, you said that it had been impos­si­ble to antic­i­pate this clo­sure. And to pre­vent it? “Be care­ful”?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Then, it wouldn’t be Radio 101.2.

    Today, when there is no pos­si­bil­i­ty to lis­ten freely, why do the three radio sta­tions (the Euro­pean Radio, Radio Lib­er­ty and Radio Racy­ja) need to get on the air?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Per­haps, it is to ensure some audio pres­ence online… Although, many peo­ple are hard­ly sit­ting and lis­ten­ing to some­thing online… Per­son­al­ly, I don’t have enough time for this… But hands off the holy! The radio is the radio! My heart bleeds that we have not been able to do a sin­gle real radio project here… Here, local­ly, in Belarus! While there is Echo of Moscow! But here they did not let us do some­thing like this.

    What is the phe­nom­e­non of Echo of Moscow?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: They have a rea­son­able infor­ma­tion pol­i­cy.

    Prob­a­bly, they are just less sti­fled there…

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: For the time being…

    By the way, besides dif­fi­cul­ties with obtain­ing infor­ma­tion, what oth­er prob­lems do our jour­nal­ists face?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Edu­ca­tion. In order to get it, you need to have tal­ent. It is good that there is still some oppor­tu­ni­ty for edu­ca­tion thanks to the Swedish Insti­tute FOJO. But more…

    That is, you don’t take into account the jour­nal­ism depart­ment at all…

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I don’t know the today’s depart­ment – this answer will be just the cor­rect one.

    Did it make you a jour­nal­ist?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I think it didn’t. But the fact that I had this diplo­ma allowed me to come to the jour­nal­ism.

    At the last Con­gress of BAJ you were re-elect­ed as chair­per­son. Aren’t you tired of these claims that you are “sit­ting for so long on the throne, like Lukashen­ka”?!

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Lukashen­ka did not cre­ate sov­er­eign Belarus. I have a bit more “author’s rights” on BAJ (laugh­ing)… In the morn­ing of the Congress’s first day, I did not know whether I would stay, reserv­ing the right to say good­bye right in the meet­ing room. The film of the Belaru­sian TV gave a strong impe­tus, then, there was this mail­ing ahead of the Con­gress, the ban on trav­el abroad – it dealt the final blow… Some are dealt with this way, oth­ers – anoth­er way… They want me to feel sick­ly so that I wept bit­ter tears and quit. No, it won’t hap­pen this way. Although, yet in win­ter, I was sure that it would be my last Con­gress and I would leave.

    And who can lead the orga­ni­za­tion?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Per­haps, one con­tender is Andrei Bas­tu­ni­ets. Or Starykievich. They could eas­i­ly become [chair­per­sons]. The main thing is the office and the team behind. And why not Kalink­i­na?





    “Do you know what else Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists didn’t do?”

    Don’t you regret that you don’t work now as a jour­nal­ist but only as an admin­is­tra­tor?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I regret it very much! Although, it would be dif­fi­cult today to pic­ture Litv­ina becom­ing a reporter…

    Would you like to lead an edi­to­r­i­al team?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I’d like to be involved in a struc­ture involved in broad­cast­ing. Because the radio remains my unful­filled dream.

    But we already agreed that the broad­cast­ing is dead!

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: No, the time of broad­cast­ing is yet to come. But would I have the strength to start all over…

    “Echo of Belarus”?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: It would be nice!.. Do you know what else Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists didn’t do? We have not writ­ten the his­to­ry of our jour­nal­ism of the last 20 years – at least from the estab­lish­ment of the country’s sov­er­eign­ty. This is our oblig­a­tion – those who lived through it – to write it. This is his­to­ry already, some­times leg­endary, and this should not dis­ap­pear. Because peo­ple go away: Ihar Hier­mi­anchuk, Tat­st­siana Sapach, Uladz­imir Babary­ka, Vital Taras… And they should remain in his­to­ry. But what to say when even entire pub­li­ca­tions dis­ap­peared; it is a whole lay­er which should also remain!

    It turns out that, on the one hand, it was every­day life as the jour­nal­ists serve today’s soci­ety in the present time. But, on the oth­er hand, this could be inter­est­ing because this is his­to­ry already. Although I remem­ber how we laughed a bit at some elder­ly pro­fes­sors at the jour­nal­ism depart­ment who had been doing some­thing once…

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Rare jour­nal­is­tic work is “imper­ish­able”. Because the jour­nal­ism exists and devel­ops in a very spe­cif­ic envi­ron­ment, which it reflects. The jour­nal­ism is inter­est­ing today. Dur­ing the Per­e­stroi­ka peo­ple tore to pieces Ogonyok and read it to tat­ters. Would you read it today with inter­est? Only if you real­ly force your­self. The era is gone. I myself some­times see how peo­ple grab Nar­o­d­na­ja Volia and imme­di­ate­ly look for an arti­cle by Kalink­i­na on the first page. Twen­ty years lat­er, and for a stu­dent of the jour­nal­ism depart­ment it will be unknown peo­ple, unknown con­text. They will not under­stand how we man­aged to live and work in this sit­u­a­tion. I believe they will not under­stand many pub­li­ca­tions by our col­leagues.

    If I may go back to the top­ic of your eter­nal chair­per­son­ship and pos­si­ble suc­ces­sors. Have you man­aged to build a sys­tem, which is not ful­ly depen­dent on you only? Will not all the projects and agree­ments per­ish when you quit?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: No way! There is no monop­oly in BAJ while it may seem oth­er­wise from out­side. I con­duct impor­tant meet­ings at the inter­na­tion­al lev­el because I am the leader. In the same way, the future lead­ers of BAJ will con­duct them. The most impor­tant is not to allow destroy­ing the orga­ni­za­tion and not to fall apart from with­in. If we stay togeth­er, any­one could replace Litv­ina.

    You said that that mail­ing before the Con­gress made you mad. But you have seen it all! How could such a stu­pid provo­ca­tion enrage you so much?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina:  The provo­ca­tions are specif­i­cal­ly cal­cu­lat­ed to catch unawares and “knock out” a per­son.

    Also, it sur­prised me that in the film “Bash on BAJ” you had talked to that girl who was run­ning after you as a small dog. Why do this?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I can tell you how it hap­pened. Usu­al­ly, after Decem­ber 19, I don’t answer the inter­com or open the door if I don’t expect any­body. An hour before I went out of the house, there was a call on the inter­com. I thought, who would need any­thing? The, I went out to go to BAJ and after­wards – it was on Decem­ber 18 – to go to the ceme­tery because it was an anniver­sary of Vital Taras’s death. I was walk­ing absorbed in all these thoughts and mem­o­ries. And then there was this effect of sur­prise, they hawked on me. My first reac­tion was – “I won’t talk to you” because I saw the micro­phone of the Belaru­sian tele­vi­sion. It was cold, I was in a hood – and they were pok­ing a micro­phone at me. Sure­ly, Hihin had a dif­fer­ent reac­tion to Radio Lib­er­ty (when he was asked to com­ment on the ted­dy bear air­drop… (smil­ing) I could not afford it. Inci­den­tal­ly, this Shu­man­ska­ja erased the end part of our inter­view. Because the trol­ley bus arrived, and the last ques­tion was, “What do you think: even my class­mates are work­ing in your office. Why are some work­ing in BAJ and oth­ers on the tele­vi­sion, as myself?” Then, I final­ly pulled myself togeth­er and said, “Because some are doing their pro­fes­sion and the oth­ers, a provo­ca­tion”. Sure­ly, it was delet­ed. So, that was the effect of sur­prise… Although I pulled myself togeth­er and did not start find­ing out what kind of doc­u­ment she had there etc. What I can­not for­give myself is that I was answer­ing in Russ­ian.

    Why didn’t you bring to the court the case of this “ther­a­pist” who was dis­cussing your move­ments and near­ly made a diag­no­sis on you?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I even retained a lawyer… But one thing after anoth­er… How­ev­er, there is no statute of lim­i­ta­tions in such cas­es so Miat­siel­s­ki will still get it one day. A ther­a­pist, you bet: I wig­gled my fin­gers, so I was think­ing about mon­ey!





    “Do you know what else Belarusian journalists didn’t do?”

    Don’t you regret that you don’t work now as a jour­nal­ist but only as an admin­is­tra­tor?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I regret it very much! Although, it would be dif­fi­cult today to pic­ture Litv­ina becom­ing a reporter…

    Would you like to lead an edi­to­r­i­al team?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I’d like to be involved in a struc­ture involved in broad­cast­ing. Because the radio remains my unful­filled dream.

    But we already agreed that the broad­cast­ing is dead!

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: No, the time of broad­cast­ing is yet to come. But would I have the strength to start all over…

    “Echo of Belarus”?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: It would be nice!.. Do you know what else Belaru­sian jour­nal­ists didn’t do? We have not writ­ten the his­to­ry of our jour­nal­ism of the last 20 years – at least from the estab­lish­ment of the country’s sov­er­eign­ty. This is our oblig­a­tion – those who lived through it – to write it. This is his­to­ry already, some­times leg­endary, and this should not dis­ap­pear. Because peo­ple go away: Ihar Hier­mi­anchuk, Tat­st­siana Sapach, Uladz­imir Babary­ka, Vital Taras… And they should remain in his­to­ry. But what to say when even entire pub­li­ca­tions dis­ap­peared; it is a whole lay­er which should also remain!

    It turns out that, on the one hand, it was every­day life as the jour­nal­ists serve today’s soci­ety in the present time. But, on the oth­er hand, this could be inter­est­ing because this is his­to­ry already. Although I remem­ber how we laughed a bit at some elder­ly pro­fes­sors at the jour­nal­ism depart­ment who had been doing some­thing once…

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Rare jour­nal­is­tic work is “imper­ish­able”. Because the jour­nal­ism exists and devel­ops in a very spe­cif­ic envi­ron­ment, which it reflects. The jour­nal­ism is inter­est­ing today. Dur­ing the Per­e­stroi­ka peo­ple tore to pieces Ogonyok and read it to tat­ters. Would you read it today with inter­est? Only if you real­ly force your­self. The era is gone. I myself some­times see how peo­ple grab Nar­o­d­na­ja Volia and imme­di­ate­ly look for an arti­cle by Kalink­i­na on the first page. Twen­ty years lat­er, and for a stu­dent of the jour­nal­ism depart­ment it will be unknown peo­ple, unknown con­text. They will not under­stand how we man­aged to live and work in this sit­u­a­tion. I believe they will not under­stand many pub­li­ca­tions by our col­leagues.

    If I may go back to the top­ic of your eter­nal chair­per­son­ship and pos­si­ble suc­ces­sors. Have you man­aged to build a sys­tem, which is not ful­ly depen­dent on you only? Will not all the projects and agree­ments per­ish when you quit?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: No way! There is no monop­oly in BAJ while it may seem oth­er­wise from out­side. I con­duct impor­tant meet­ings at the inter­na­tion­al lev­el because I am the leader. In the same way, the future lead­ers of BAJ will con­duct them. The most impor­tant is not to allow destroy­ing the orga­ni­za­tion and not to fall apart from with­in. If we stay togeth­er, any­one could replace Litv­ina.

    You said that that mail­ing before the Con­gress made you mad. But you have seen it all! How could such a stu­pid provo­ca­tion enrage you so much?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina:  The provo­ca­tions are specif­i­cal­ly cal­cu­lat­ed to catch unawares and “knock out” a per­son.

    Also, it sur­prised me that in the film “Bash on BAJ” you had talked to that girl who was run­ning after you as a small dog. Why do this?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I can tell you how it hap­pened. Usu­al­ly, after Decem­ber 19, I don’t answer the inter­com or open the door if I don’t expect any­body. An hour before I went out of the house, there was a call on the inter­com. I thought, who would need any­thing? The, I went out to go to BAJ and after­wards – it was on Decem­ber 18 – to go to the ceme­tery because it was an anniver­sary of Vital Taras’s death. I was walk­ing absorbed in all these thoughts and mem­o­ries. And then there was this effect of sur­prise, they hawked on me. My first reac­tion was – “I won’t talk to you” because I saw the micro­phone of the Belaru­sian tele­vi­sion. It was cold, I was in a hood – and they were pok­ing a micro­phone at me. Sure­ly, Hihin had a dif­fer­ent reac­tion to Radio Lib­er­ty (when he was asked to com­ment on the ted­dy bear air­drop… (smil­ing) I could not afford it. Inci­den­tal­ly, this Shu­man­ska­ja erased the end part of our inter­view. Because the trol­ley bus arrived, and the last ques­tion was, “What do you think: even my class­mates are work­ing in your office. Why are some work­ing in BAJ and oth­ers on the tele­vi­sion, as myself?” Then, I final­ly pulled myself togeth­er and said, “Because some are doing their pro­fes­sion and the oth­ers, a provo­ca­tion”. Sure­ly, it was delet­ed. So, that was the effect of sur­prise… Although I pulled myself togeth­er and did not start find­ing out what kind of doc­u­ment she had there etc. What I can­not for­give myself is that I was answer­ing in Russ­ian.

    Why didn’t you bring to the court the case of this “ther­a­pist” who was dis­cussing your move­ments and near­ly made a diag­no­sis on you?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I even retained a lawyer… But one thing after anoth­er… How­ev­er, there is no statute of lim­i­ta­tions in such cas­es so Miat­siel­s­ki will still get it one day. A ther­a­pist, you bet: I wig­gled my fin­gers, so I was think­ing about mon­ey!

    Here just a few items from the famous col­lec­tion of frogs



     

    “I am ter­ri­bly afraid of my birth­day”

    As I under­stand, two things are relat­ed to your birth­day. The first one, you were born on the same day and in the same year as Lukashen­ka. I don’t want to dis­cuss it the umpteenth time. The oth­er thing is that you’re avoid­ing this date because mis­for­tunes pur­sue you on this exact day…

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I am ter­ri­bly afraid of this day. When it starts, I usu­al­ly think of one thing – let it be over as soon as pos­si­ble so that no trou­ble hap­pens again. It start­ed when I was 30 years old. On the eve of my birth­day, my pre­de­ces­sor in Belaruska­ja Mal­adziozh­na­ja, Edi­tor-in-chief Ivan Iosi­favich Sadous­ki, had an acci­dent. He died just on August 30. The clo­sure of Radio 101.2 also hap­pened on August 30, at the end of the day, at about 4 pm. We receive a let­ter from the Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, which informed us that our trans­mit­ter was cre­at­ing some tech­ni­cal inter­fer­ences. Although the min­istry itself had placed it in that loca­tion and they were ser­vic­ing it. But they warned us that August 31 will be the last day of Radio 101.2’s broad­cast… Just recent­ly, three years ago, on that day, Dzi­ma Parfi­novich died, a true friend and an employ­ee of our office. Such “coin­ci­dences” scare me.

    Rank-and-file mem­bers of BAJ knew Dzmit­ry Parfi­novich as your dri­ver. Did he have oth­er duties?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: We met with him a long ago in an absolute­ly incred­i­ble way – when we were indeed look­ing for a dri­ver. In 1995, when the orga­ni­za­tion was just being cre­at­ed and we reg­is­tered BM-Infarm JSC, I was rid­ing in a taxi and I absolute­ly hap­haz­ard­ly asked the dri­ver whether he knew some­one from his car com­pa­ny who would want to go work as a dri­ver of a pri­vate car. He said that he would think about it. Two days lat­er, Dzi­ma Parfi­novich called my num­ber, we met, and since then, he was in BAJ. His incred­i­ble reli­a­bil­i­ty made him a well-respect­ed and loved per­son in BAJ, he became an assis­tant and a friend.


    «To go to the city” meant «to get washed in a bathtub»!

    The vil­lage of Vadapoj, where you were born – does it still exist?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Our house, when we sold it in 1990, was the last one – every­thing around it was aban­doned. Vadapoj is just near Min­sk, about six kilo­me­ters from Sokal through the for­est.

    Why have you sold your par­ents’ home?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Because it was unbear­able. I was jok­ing­ly say­ing at that time that I would love peo­ple more and hate them less some­times if I did not have that house. You come home and see that gar­den­ers had dis­man­tled your chim­ney… The pad­locks were knocked down from doors, in the mid­dle of the house there were dirt and traces of a motor­cy­cle… That’s why we sold this house, I may say, the native cor­ner, for a few pen­nies. The new own­er took it apart and took it away. It was the last house in the vil­lage of Vadapoj…

    The vil­lage just on the out­skirts of Min­sk. Did you feel like almost a Min­sk dweller or still a rus­tic wench?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I just felt that my heart was there, that I loved this place infi­nite­ly. I had a few girl­friends in the vil­lage, we had our own world, our com­pa­ny, and I could not imag­ine that it could be bet­ter some­place else… My mother’s broth­ers had been also bring­ing their chil­dren there, so we had a big com­pa­ny! Min­sk still remained a “city”. «To go to the city” meant «to get washed in a bath­tub»! (laugh­ing)

    Your father was the famous artist painter Mikalaj Zalozny. And your moth­er?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: She was a teacher – first, in the Belaru­sian and then the Russ­ian lan­guage… And, by the way, my father’s works are exhib­it­ed in our Art’s Muse­um and in the Tretyakov Gallery…



    I know that your sis­ter have also became an artist painter. And you haven’t, why?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: God gave me no tal­ent!

    I know that your sis­ter, Natal­lia Zaloz­na­ja, moved to Brus­sels. How did it hap­pen?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Absolute­ly hon­est­ly, by hard work, by tal­ent – it hap­pened 12 years ago. Before that, they tried to live in the Nether­lands but came back home. After that, a gallery man­ag­er invit­ed some Belaru­sian artists to go live there on quite unfa­vor­able terms. He had a few gal­leries and he guar­an­teed a cer­tain income on the con­di­tion that the artist paint­ed a cer­tain num­ber of paint­ings a year. Then, he got tired of this busi­ness and he closed down his gal­leries. But my rel­a­tives were able to gain a foothold there and they stayed. Now, their works are sold there in gal­leries, they don’t stand on a square with a pen­cil. Though, cer­tain­ly, as the cri­sis began, peo­ple began to buy art last of all…

    Don’t they spec­u­late that they came from a “bloody regime”?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: God for­bid!.. Art does not have a nation­al­i­ty there… By the way, I, as the chair­per­son of BAJ, nev­er give any rec­om­men­da­tions to doubt­ful refugees. I’ve seen enough how my sis­ter and her hus­band were get­ting on their feet. Even now, they have dif­fi­cul­ties to sur­vive from the finan­cial point of view: they repay loans to give edu­ca­tion to their son… So, some are offend­ed that I don’t give ref­er­ence let­ters to “polit­i­cal migrants”. Because there are true and false vic­tims.


    “I know what it means “the soul hurts” – for me, it is absolutely physical feel”

    Please par­don the tact­less ques­tion but I know you had a broth­er.

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Yes, I also had a broth­er, and when he was 10 years old, there was a ter­ri­ble tragedy and he died… Nobody hap­pens to have a stel­lar life, with­out tragedies, with­out loss­es. There are loss­es when your soul hurts. I know what it means “the soul hurts” – for me, it is absolute­ly phys­i­cal feel, when I feel a pain in the solar plexus. This is the hard­est pain, it goes away only with time. That tragedy, the death of the broth­er is one of such loss­es. And my fam­i­ly lived with this loss all the time as long as my mom and dad were alive. It is not true that it sub­sides over time – a trace remains. Some­times, I think that peo­ple, who are yet to expe­ri­ence such tragedy, have not under­gone their probe from God. Peo­ple who have expe­ri­enced such pain are more sin­cere in life, they are able to empathize and to respond to mis­for­tune and pain of anoth­er per­son.

    Zhan­na Mikala­je­u­na, how did it hap­pen?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: …The tragedy hap­pened in 1959, I was 5 years old then. Chil­dren almost the same age as my broth­er secret­ly took a gun from adults in the hunt­ing field. One may call this an acci­dent… But it remained for the entire life… Nobody aimed at him on pur­pose, it was an absolute­ly ran­dom bul­let – right through to the heart… Although I was very young, I remem­ber how my father brought my broth­er from the for­est in his hands… And I remem­ber how he was hug­ging me strong­ly, sim­ply squeez­ing me then…

    “For 18 years, I lived at the corner of Karl Marx and Volodarskiy streets – now, there is a bread shop there”

    Did you express­ly want your dacha to be sit­u­at­ed in a vil­lage?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: It was clear that becom­ing a mem­ber of a gar­den­ing co-oper­a­tive and buy­ing a dacha there would not replace that plea­sure when you are one on one with nature, when you observe it… For me, a vil­lage is a place where you stay with your thoughts, where you can dream, where you “grow back your nerves”. So, there was no ques­tion of a dacha, we kept look­ing for a house in a vil­lage. And then, we stopped quite by acci­dent on the way to anoth­er place and asked whether some­one was sell­ing a house there. It was in 1990, I was the edi­tor at Belaruska­ja Mal­adziozh­na­ja.

    You said that you even had to bor­row mon­ey to buy this house…

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: At that time, it cost 5,000 rubles. Clear­ly, it was more than today’s $5,000. Recent­ly, a house was sold in our vil­lage for $25,000, for exam­ple… My moth­er gave us her “funer­al” mon­ey, Ali­ak­siej and I had our wed­ding gift of 1,000 rubles, we bor­rowed 1,000 rubles from Aliaksiej’s rel­a­tives, and in this way, we were rais­ing mon­ey for the house. It was the same thing with the apart­ment. For 18 years, I lived at the cor­ner of Karl Marx and Volo­darskiy streets – now, there is a bread shop there. Six win­dows just above the pave­ment – it was our apart­ment for 18 years. And Litvin was com­ing there as my fiancé. When we got mar­ried, we lived there. And my father was still wait­ing when they would build the “artists’ house” on Surhana­va Street. There were already five of us in the apart­ment, my father was at the head of the queue to move out of that base­ment. So, he got a three-bed­room apart­ment. Then, my sis­ter got mar­ried, every­one want­ed to live sep­a­rate­ly… Final­ly, we exchanged this three-bed­room place for small­er apart­ments.

    I addi­tion to col­lect­ing frogs, I see that you have a great pas­sion – the gar­den-beds with cucum­bers and car­rots… Many are used to see­ing you in a suit, at a micro­phone in the grand­stands. And here it turns out that Litv­ina is dig­ging in the ground, grub­bing up weeds!

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Here are the “famil­iar strangers”! (laugh­ing) Prob­a­bly, many of us have such a mis­match of the “offi­cial” image with the true appear­ance…

    But you don’t restrict your­self to the gar­den-beds – do you go to the sea­side?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Yes, but you can go to the vil­lage almost every week­end, and the hol­i­day is very short – 10–12 days. We go to our dacha right up to the begin­ning of the win­ter, but not in the win­ter, because it is very cold in the house… And the gar­den-beds are not an end in itself, it is just a way to stay fit. To work on the gar­den-beds is a very sin­cere desire, I long for the land since Vadapoj. I am attract­ed to this house because I have an over­load of peo­ple and prob­lems… Peo­ple rarely come to BAJ to share their joy. It just so hap­pens that peo­ple come with prob­lems. And so many peo­ple with prob­lems just start to eat you out. There­fore, to escape for a few days is a sal­va­tion. Every­one needs a “donor nutri­tion”. I have found it here.



    “Maybe, I would not want some of the BAJ members to be in the same place where my soul is”

    It seemed to me that for you the dacha is a very inti­mate space where you don’t allow every­one. On what basis do you decide whom to allow? For exam­ple, have every­one from BAJ been at your dacha?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: 1,200 peo­ple? Cer­tain­ly not! Maybe, I would not want some of the BAJ mem­bers to be in the same place where my soul is. Although those peo­ple, with whom I have been work­ing side by side, who are close to me in spir­it, whom I con­sid­er being friends – they are always wel­come there.

    You said a very inter­est­ing thing! It turns out that there are peo­ple in BAJ whom you would rather not see at your dacha?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I think that such peo­ple hap­pen in every person’s life.

    It is one thing – in someone’s life, but the oth­er thing – in an orga­ni­za­tion, which you lead.

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: You caught me!.. (laugh­ing). For some­one, I should still remain just a func­tionary. When there are too much sin­cer­i­ty and open­ness – it is just sil­ly. Every per­son must have some piece of the soul where not all the doors are open.

    What have you and your hus­band done at your dacha with your own hands, and what have you hired oth­er peo­ple to do?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: What we have been able to do with­out pay­ing mon­ey, we have done with our own hands. In some cas­es, it was just a crowd of Litvin’s friends. For exam­ple, they poured con­crete for the foun­da­tion – my job was just to cook three times a day and wash the dish­es. Aliaksiej’s rel­a­tives bat­tened the house inside; they came from the Stolin dis­trict express­ly to do this.

    In addi­tion to the gar­den-beds, do you do some­thing else oth­ers can­not imag­ine you could do? Maybe, you knit socks in front of the TV?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: No, I don’t know how to knit nor sew. I believe that nature is the source where I accu­mu­late ener­gy and restore my forces. Where I can be alone.



    “I can’t imagine having another husband!”

    I read in one of your inter­views that you first heard and only then saw your hus­band…

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Some­times, I say to him that the nor­mal peo­ple meet at a danc­ing par­ty, some­where in a restau­rant or in a dorm. And you and I met in a library!.. After grad­u­at­ing from the his­to­ry depart­ment, he served in the Inte­ri­or Troops for two years. And he was still going to the library – it was the Kupalauska­ja library on Volo­darskiy Str., near the sta­di­um. It was strange to see an offi­cer in field uni­form, in boots, and with a stack of books. My girl­friend and I start­ed to gig­gle. And lat­er, I spent much time in the library, and this man as well. So, this acquain­tance hap­pened by chance. We got mar­ried a year lat­er.

    Did you already grad­u­ate from the uni­ver­si­ty at that time?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: No, I got mar­ried in my 4th year of the uni­ver­si­ty… And there was anoth­er small detail. When I told him my name, he replied, “Оh! My niece was born two days ago, and she was called Zhan­na!”

    That’s all it was inter­est­ing in your his­to­ry of love?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: It was just like that…

    So what, the mil­i­tary men don’t court women?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: This mil­i­tary man had a uni­ver­si­ty behind him! And these were the first months of his ser­vice.

    And why was he enlist­ed in the army after the uni­ver­si­ty? He should have under­gone the reserve train­ing as a max­i­mum.

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: Because it was one of the offers for his post­grad­u­ate work assign­ment — to do the mil­i­tary ser­vice. And he agreed because he did not want to go any­where. Lat­er, he got the posi­tion of a junior researcher at the Insti­tute of Par­ty His­to­ry. And after­wards, over many years, Ali­ak­siej found enough mate­ri­als in the archives for his entire life! By the way, I used to find myself in a sit­u­a­tion, which pleased my feel­ings a lot. When we appeared with Ali­ak­siej in pub­lic, and he was told, “So, is Litv­ina your wife?!” Or vice ver­sa, “So, Litvin is your hus­band?!” It is a thrill when two per­sons are devel­op­ing in par­al­lel, self-suf­fi­cient­ly, with­out inter­fer­ing with each oth­er, and live togeth­er for so long. I can’t imag­ine hav­ing anoth­er hus­band! And I thank God for this. On Octo­ber 5, we will cel­e­brate the 38th anniver­sary of our mar­riage. We don’t have chil­dren – and some­times I think that if we had them, I would have behaved very dif­fer­ent­ly. Because in our sit­u­a­tion chil­dren some­times become hostages – as it hap­pened to Iry­na Khalip, for exam­ple. And, like every woman, I would not be able to step over it.

    Your hus­band is a renowned his­to­ri­an…

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: For over 20 years Ali­ak­siej has been work­ing as the head of the Mil­i­tary His­to­ry depart­ment of the Insti­tute of His­to­ry at the Acad­e­my of Sci­ences. When I was already the edi­tor at Belaruska­ja Mal­adziozh­na­ja, as soon as I got a mil­i­tary top­ic in a pro­gram, and I had doubts about what hap­pened, and where, and when… Espe­cial­ly if it was about some gueril­la brigade that was some­where in the woods… I then called Litvin, and you didn’t need to look any­where any­more, he imme­di­ate­ly pro­vid­ed you with an answer. He got his mem­o­ry from his moth­er.

    So, if Ali­ak­siej has been work­ing for many years already in the offi­cial Insti­tute of His­to­ry – have your activ­i­ties nev­er real­ly inter­fered with his job?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I think they have. But the lev­el of his qual­i­fi­ca­tion is very high, and the high posts were nev­er an end in itself for him. The sub­ject of his doc­tor­al the­sis was “Anti-Sovi­et mil­i­tary and police forces dur­ing the Great Patri­ot­ic War in the ter­ri­to­ry of Belarus”. The top­ic of col­lab­o­ra­tionism was ful­ly pro­hib­it­ed dur­ing the Sovi­et era. The doc­tor­al the­sis came at a price to Litvin but he final­ly defend­ed it.

    How do you spend your free time togeth­er?

    Zhan­na Litv­ina: I’m awful­ly fond of pick­ing mush­rooms – but only togeth­er with Ali­ak­siej. We get up as soon as the sun begins to rise – it is a true rit­u­al… Dur­ing each trip, there is an oblig­a­tory excla­ma­tion, “Will you come to look?..” It means that you must come and look how this mush­room grows. If it is far away, I shout, “No!..” But it is near, I run to have a look…




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