Authors

Discussion

Vasil Bykau, a celebrated Belarusian author, is known for his powerful literary portrayals of World War II. Bykau wrote all of his works in the Belarusian language – but he also translated himself into Russian, knowing that he would be translated into other languages from the tongue of the Soviet “center,” and also understanding that working in both languages would give him some space for navigating the censorship apparatus. In post-Soviet times, this fact has left a complicated legacy: On the one hand, Bykau today is clearly the internationally most renowned Belarusian author, not in the last thanks to his conscious way of handling the translation process – on the other hand, his work has often been read as a part of Russian literary traditions, or straightaway as that of a “Russian” author. This paper examines the mechanisms behind this cultural appropriation and explores the broader implications for reclaiming Bykau’s legacy as a Belarusian writer. 

Bykau’s works tackled the themes of his time: He wrote about war, about Red Army soldiers, about the Partisans. But he did so in a way that subverted the official Soviet narratives built around those themes. There is space for complicated thoughts on tabooed topics such as collaboration, the role of army officials, and the sacrificing of civilians. Although working within the borders of official Soviet literature, Bykau paints a perspective that, in the end, offers a fundamental critique of everything Soviet. This comes out openly in later works like “Sign of Misfortune” (1982) – and in those later works, Bykau’s critique also gains a distinctly Belarusian national identity. It is this national perspective that the later Bykau sees as what his works were always about, as he makes clear in his autobiography “The Long Way Home” (2001). The paper follows such a reading of Bykau’s work: After deconstructing the author’s “Russification,” it reconstructs the Belarusian dynamism of Bykau’s oeuvre – and thereby seeks to decolonize the author’s legacy.