Toward a Conclusion

Summary

On October 30, 2023, Kupalautsy actress Krystsina Drobysh posted photos on her social media accounts of a forgotten production that had taken place in 1991 and was subsequently removed from public records. The photos are of an adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning Belarusian author Sviatlana Aleksievich's oral history, Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War, at the Yanka Kupala National Theatre in Minsk, Belarus. Due to controversy around the production, which was televised in 1992, and a lawsuit against Aleksievich by mothers who objected to the dark portrayal of their soldier sons, the production was removed from the stage and most records of it disappeared. Due to her own sleuthing and contacts, Drobysh recovered documents and memories of the production, directed by Valery Raevsky, with a cast that included most of the troupe at the time. Drobysh told Kamunikat.org, the Belarusian Internet Library, why she wanted to recuperate the historical event:

Not only the play itself, but also the fact of its existence was erased from history. In approximately the same way, the dismissal of nearly the entire troupe of the Kupala Theatre in 2020 could have been erased from memory, if it had not happened in the age of the internet. That's why it was extremely important for me to restore this gap.

Following the impulse of Belarusian theatre artists to document their experiences and work in 2020, the book aims foremost to create a public record of the performances of these artists in a time of crisis. Through historical description and dramaturgical analysis, photographs, and a vital interview with a key figure, this account attempts to capture various forms of preservation.

As we have seen, Belarusian theatre artists were key players in the resistance movement in Belarus, helping to mobilize the resistance, bringing international attention to the crisis, shaping counternarratives to the regime's propaganda, and providing spaces—both digital and physical—to mourn and grieve those who were murdered or forced into exile. Documentary theatre, film, and digital performance became a substantial way to respond to the crisis, building on historical evidence, phenomenological detail, and lived experience.