Baranavichy: historical feast held despite official bans
On 2 June a historical and cultural
feast was held in Milavidy (the Baranavichy district) to commemorate
the insurgents of 1863.
As we have already written, the
Baranavichy City Executive Committee twice banned the feast in honor
of the 150th anniversary of the battle of Milavidy. The official
reason was that the authorities were allegedly going to hold
festivities in honor of the battle at the same place and in the same
time.
However, more than 100 civic activists who gathered at
the Milavidy field on 2 June, found no traces of the stated official
festivities. Thus, amateurs of the Belarusian culture and history
from Baranavichy, Minsk, Brest, Slonim and Ivatsevichy lit candles
and laid down flowers to monuments in honor of the insurgents. Ales
Marachkin, Mikola Kupava, Ales Mara and other artists laid down to
the monument a wrath of oak branches entwined with a white-red-white
ribbon. The present people sang the anthem "God Almighty"
and then headed to the village of Rusiny, to the headquarters of the
Baranavichy city branch of the Belarusian Language Society, where a
solemn event dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the battle was
held.
Speeches were delivered by the head of the Baranavichy
BLS Council Viktar Syrytsa, the deputy head of the Movement "For
Freedom" Yury Hubarevich, the head of the Belarusian Popular
Front Party Aliaksei Yanukevich and a well-known local core
researcher Mikhail Bernat, who did a lot for the memory of his
fellow-townsmen. An interesting speech with poems was held by the
candidate of historical and philological sciences Yazep
Yanushkevich.
Aliaksandr Paulouski, Larysa Housha and Zmitser
Rymsha became the winners of the historical quiz on the topic of
Kalinouski's uprising. The feast participants were also given an
opportunity to write postcards to political prisoners by using
"Kassiners' mail", were presented nice postcards and
booklets and a special issue of "Muzhytskaya Prauda"
newspaper. They could also treat themselves to karavai (round loaf)
and pancakes, and taste "kassiner porridge" prepared in the
field conditions. There was also the traditional Swedish table with
sandwiches.
The artistic part of the event consisted of live
performances by the folk singers Zmitser Bartosik and Viktar
Shalkevich and saxophonist Valer Shyla, a reconstruction of single
combats by the Baranavichy knight club "Shliakhetskaya Zastava"
and a demonstration of a collection of clothing of peasants and
nobles of the 19th century, produced by the coordinator of the
"Historical-cultural campaign of 1863" Vasil Hryn and
Yuliya Litvinava.
Law-enforcement agencies staged no
obstacles to the festivities.
