Five years after the stolen election, Belarusian poet Uladzimir Liankievič offers a personal reflection on the legacy of the Belarusian uprising. Impressions from schoolbooks from his childhood and...
Text: Uladz Ljankevitj [Uladzimir Liankievič]
August 21 2025
During the protests in Belarus in 2020, poet, writer and lawyer Maksim Znak was arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison. While in prison, he began writing and smuggling out The Zekameron, one...
In October 2019, PEN Belarus started monitoring violations of rights in the cultural sphere. Since the stolen election in 2020 Belarus has experienced an unprecedented wave of repression against civil...
In November 2020, Kacharyna Andreyeva covered a demonstration honoring the memory of artist Raman Bandarenka, who was beaten to death during a protest. Thousands of people were arrested and Andrejeva...
This text, signed by the pseudonym E.V., closely describes the course of events surrounding the liquidation of the Belarusian PEN and the Writers' Union. The liquidation was part of the massive...
More than 36,000 people have been arrested in Belarus over the past year for political reasons. The author, Andrej Dyńko, is still under criminal investigation. His colleagues, the editors of Naša...
The Tucholsky Prize for 2021 is awarded to the Belarusian poet Dmitry Strotsev. The prize is awarded by Swedish PEN and is handed out today by the Minister for Culture of Sweden in connection to...
Dmitry Strotsev's poetry moves in its very own border country in between political themes, issues of power abuse, religiosity, and spirituality. He illustrates the government’s abusive violence and...
We woke up. We heard voices calling us, we heard our own voices crying out. The people’s uprising in Belarus became a mighty wave erupting from somewhere that looked like nowhere, which wasn’t true...
The crackdown on the peaceful protesters during the first days of August was strikingly violent. Many were arrested and beaten, at least one person was killed. In ”The Unprotected”, a series of poems...
In early September, the poet, musician, and PEN member Uladzimir Liankevich was arrested during a peaceful manifestation in Minsk. He was sentenced to six days in prison. He was again arrested in...
“ Can you work in Minsk these days? ” Johan Öberg asks Svetlana Alexievich. He is in Gothenburg, she is in Minsk, and they are speaking in a live interview - the finale of this year ’ s digital...
Conversation: Svetlana Alexievich & Johan Öberg
December 01 2020
On October 21, one of Belarus' foremost poets, Dmitry Strotsev (b. 1963) disappeared without a trace. The day after, his name appeared on a list of interns at the infamous Akrestsina Detention Centre...
Belarus is often called Europe’s last dictatorship. However, oppression within the country does not adhere to the more common nationalistic model—quite the opposite.
