When I was a child, finishing elementary school (I was ten or so), my primary class teacher gave me a present. A book.
I think it’s only me who got this present, but I cannot claim for sure. Perhaps some other kids got some presents too. Perhaps some of them got the same present. I’m not sure. That may change the story a little. But I’d like to believe I was pretty unique in this.
The book was of a Belarusian author. In Belarusian language. Surely my first, if not the only one— till some much later time.
She signed the book. She wrote that she hopes one day I’d grow to like and understand the language.
Dark Matter
It’s mystical how the memory of this visited me. We have just finished watching Dark Matter s02e05 (on my new projector), which is a masterpiece. The show is somewhat silly, and you cannot watch just this very episode to get it. You have to be in the context to understand it properly, all its minuscule details.
We, the observers, watched the thirteen episodes before this one, so the team that produced this very episode could tell the completely parallel story within just 45 mins or so.
Context
This note could be as short as it gets, but to get it, you need to know the context.
Having a mother born in Russia and father born in Ukraine—
Who knew all three languages perfectly well, and could actually teach them somewhere, or at least me!
I had no father, and my mum wasn’t too intellectual either. And so I’ve grown sincerely not understanding why would anyone want to learn Belarusian language.
When I don’t understand why would I want to learn something, I don’t learn that. I know the school course or math perfectly well, because of the very talented teacher I had, plus my natural curiosity towards math. Plus the wonderful ability of math, when you can explain everything. You don’t need to study math, you don’t need to remember any of its rules: if you understand math, you can write rules yourself. It’s not by memory, there’s nothing to memorise: all you need is the understanding.
It’s pity I don’t utilise that professionally. How would I do that? We have computers!
When I’ve been in college, I had the most useless math teacher in the world. I hate her. She made me hate math, and I have literally zero knowledge of her entire course. I survived exams with hacks, soft skills and social engineering. I know fucking nothing. I’m not proud of it, not in the closest.
Same thing was with the language. If you yourself, fellow Belarusian, do not speak your very language in your very country. The fuck you expect an emigrant’s son to know your language?
You know how many people speaking Belarusian I met in the wild while living in Belarus? Fucking zero! Zero! Nil!
I don’t claim they don’t exist. They do, and I do personally know many of them now, actually.
The love of my life speaks Belarusian. But never with me. With her mother and her gay boyfriend. Not even her big brother, I assume.
But when I was a child… nobody. Crickets.
My mother, obviously, couldn’t attract Belarusian speakers affection. She’s the poster boy of that typical Russian occupant that comes to live on the corpses of those Russia killed.
My childhood friend, my next door neighbour, just relatively recently, a year or two ago, mentioned that he understands and speaks Belarusian language very well, because during his childhood his mother’s friends were speaking Belarusian at home. And when they were visiting them, they spoke Belarusian.
Today they live in some other country. That friend lives in Belarus. And doesn’t speak Belarusian.
Quite expected, considering you’d get repressed or at least very much noted (by KGB) for being potentially problematic. For speaking Belarusian. In Belarus, my ass!
So them were plenty, during my childhood. I have no idea what’s that in Belarus of today. Haven’t been there for almost a decade. And it’s getting almost two since I’ve left.
Being married on a Ukrainian, and living in the very Lviv, I didn’t speak Ukrainian. I didn’t know it, and I wasn’t too eager to learn. I spoke mostly English, with some mix of Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian locally.
Our first child, I’ve been speaking English with her, while we were together. I had no other language at my disposal, and Russian is a no-go for me, I’d rather prefer not speaking at all than even thinking in that barbaric imitation of a human language.
That was before Nadia was diagnosed with autism, and before it was too late for her nor starting to speak even a few words. She’s seven now, and there’s not a single word she says. She’s able to speak, she’s not deaf. And perhaps she may have some talent to music. It’s such a pleasure to see her watching Soul. She closes her eyes and listens to Joe Gardener playing the piano.
I’m so happy to have that Harman & Kardon stereo system!
She has no motivation to speak, as I see it.
Same was for me. I didn’t understand English till the moment I realised the reason I want to understand it. Now it’s my first language. When I’m on my own, I think in English most of the time.
With a great deal of mistakes! You don’t afraid of making mistakes with your native language. That’s what makes your native. You’re not seeking to know it perfectly, you just use it as an instrument.
I didn’t understand why would I even bother with speaking Ukrainian (and to an extend, Belarusian). Up until I saw Russians changing signs in Mariupol. From Ukrainian Маріуполь to Russian Мариуполь.
One letter.
I wasn’t even shocked. I cannot formulate this. That’s when I understand why had they started the war.
I started speaking Ukrainian and Belarusian since that moment. Since then, I don’t remember me using Russian ever again. I’m proud to have it mostly forgotten due to no practice. I’m struggling with many words. What a bliss!
Books
Also, I’d like to write about books that I brought to my cousin, but it’s too late now.
OK, continuing the following day.
Since circa 2014 I started reading in English, and living in the English part of the internet, and then some English-speaking culture too, for a while. In circa 2016, I realised I’m not going to read all the Russian language books I had in my home library, my father left me as a heritage from him.
I’m not reading paper books, I prefer my Kindle. And I’m not reading in translations, when I can read in original. I haven’t been reading Russian since then, since there’s nothing to read, but Leo Tolstoy, the rest of their literature is just a stolen piece of horse shite. And since 2022 I don’t read Russian specifically, regardless of whether the original was in Russian or not. Instead, go find the original book they ripped off and go read it in its original language. Their culture has nothing original.
And so, I wanted to bring all of my (my father’s) books to the nearest local library (which was in Minsk, Belarus). While my cousin went kinda hysterical I’m going to throw away all my books (yo, not throw away, release them for public for free!). I listened to him, and brought all of the books to his house (my maternal granfather’s house), to Russia. That was quite expensive, but we managed to organise that, me and my mum.
Oh, how happy I am I did not keep that garbage in Belarus. Not that Belarus has no Russian language literature, it’s almost the entire of the country. But if one day they’d eventually de-occupy themselves, they’d have at least some hundreds of Russian books less! Russian literature belongs to Moscow, and probably St. Petersburg. The rest of Russia is to be de-russified, and de-occupied, as it’s not their territories to begin with.
Pushkin
Now, with all that said. I wonder: where is that book? We left some books. I went from hundreds, probably a thousand, to tens. They’re in English, Belarusian, Ukrainian, and maybe a few Russian books I left for some reason back then. I remember my mother was against me getting rid of Pushkin Alex, the afro-russian (lol) guy who stole most of his poetry.
I even hooked a girl with it. Well, she was my then-girlfriend for a while, and I invited her to my home.
‘What would we do there?’ she asked.
‘What do you think we will?’ I replied. Obviously, we were going to have wild sex all night long. ‘We’d read the huge tome of Pushkin I’d placed on my bedside table!’ I’d said.
We laughed about that joke. She was amazed to actually see that huge tome of Pushking right beside my bed. Which I carefully put there, for some reason thinking I may actually use that joke. So, that tome served its purpose for me. Plus, I read a few poems from there during my middle or elementary school. I’d happily throw it away these days, fuck Pushkin.
Tolstoy
I’m sad to say that, but I’d actually throw away all Tolstoy too. He was my favourite author for a while, but you cannot replace a masterfully written words and sentences, becoming paragraphs, becoming long books, with the actual fucking culture. I’d replace him with, say, Oksana Zabuzhko, without thinking a single second. I am at that point when I see the author as a single piece of a human being, without separating their genius with who they are and what’s their position.
Russians are masters of severing one from another, and actually tolerating lots of evil outright demonic things.
I hate Ruzzianz for the cult they created out of three writers that they had some very long time ago, fucking centuries ago! And then repressing all the prominent authors during the previous century, just to make a cult out of them later. Fucking unwashed barbarians.
Belarusian
I don’t remember the name of that Belarusian book. My memory and logic, both tell me that must be some children literature. Which one? I have no idea.
I just hope one day I’d come visit my mums and it’d be there, the book. While ruzzia wages the war, and Belarus is the de-facto Byelorussian SSR ruled by the KGB at the moment, I have very little chances of visiting and staying safe. That would be one of the quest to search at home.