Music – From Streets to Underground and Exile
While people inside Belarus have limited possibilities to express their opinions against the war and the unwanted presence of the Russian army in the country, those who emigrated are freer to protest (Radyjo Svaboda 2022b). Besides numerous rallies and demonstrations of Belarusian diaspora, some prominent musicians and influencers have expressed their solidarity with Ukraine and addressed the Belarusian military asking them not to participate in the war. Responding to such calls and worries of conscripted soldiers mothers’, the Belarusian Ministry of Defense created a series of videos with soldiers rhyming that they don’t take part in the war, and continue their training and daily chores at their bases: “You, those who fled, don’t mess with me. I serve and I stay put in place, and not abroad at all, as the other individuals lie to you!” (Lenkevich 2022).
Belarusian musicians who live abroad can create without censorship; they take part in solidarity and charity concerts, and some have recorded versions of popular Ukrainian songs like “Oj, u luzi červona kalyna” or the Eurovision winning “Stefania”. In the summer of 2022, the Ukrainian song “Harno Tak” (“So Nice”) by the Belarusian singer Cheev, who had moved to Ukraine a few years ago, became extremely popular. Ukrainians used this song as a soundtrack to numerous amateur videos showing “nice” situations, from soldiers saving puppies to Russian tanks burning. YouTube comments show that some Ukrainians were surprised that the song was written by a Belarusian singer. Still, there are comments bitterly asking him to write “a song about the war and how Russia is bombing Ukraine from the Belarusian territory.”
In Belarus musicians singing in Ukrainian and Belarusian face risks of arrests, fines, and more grave sentences. Still, people listen and sing Ukrainian songs. A month after the start of the invasion, I was amazed to hear the song “Ja ne zdamsia bez boju” (“I won’t surrender without a fight”) by Okean Elzy performed by a street musician in Brest, a city close to the Ukrainian and Polish borders.
Belarus, and Minsk in particular, has never been very friendly to street musicians, performers, and other “unauthorized street activities.” There were no clear regulations as to where, when, and what music could buskers play, which led to a constant risk of arbitrary detention, fines or just ousting them by the milicyja patrols. Only in the last decade some steps to liberalize and regulate this sphere were taken, especially after the first experiments with fully pedestrian streets, conducted on the eve of the 2014 Ice Hockey World Championship, proved successful. In 2017 a system of permits for street musicians was introduced along with a map of twelve locations where music performances were allowed after approval by the state institution Minsk Koncert. Conditions for participants: “Live sound only, no more than five people in a band, maximum duration of a performance is two hours, no non-normative vocabulary and calls to violence, no propaganda of war” (Molokova 2017).
In 2020 many street musicians took part in protests and neighborhood concerts. The boundary between street and “non-street” musicians became blurred, even philharmonic musicians performed on the streets, squares, and in courtyards. They not only performed “politically safe” popular songs, but also “protest hits.” However, this was only possible for a few months until the mass arrests of musicians, vocalists, and orchestra conductors made such performances too dangerous. News about street musicians’ arrests became frequent, so they became careful about what to play. One way to play protest songs in public spaces was to add ornamentation and new arrangements, thereby making the melodies not immediately recognizable. It meant that milicyja officers patrolling the city underpasses needed to have a keener ear for the “forbidden melodies.”
When a journalist asked one street musician whether he had the guts to sing some Viktor Tsoy song, he responded: “Tsoy – no guts for this. [Because] impolite ‘men in black’ react too nervously to him." He added that he didn’t sing for the sake of money but in order to “not get crazy of the silence”: “I realize that here and now there’s not much I can do, but at least [I can do] something.” According to the reporter, at a street underpass at the outskirts of Minsk, a clarinetist played just a few notes of the Eurovision winning “Stefania” and people “rushed to him from everywhere, taking money from their wallets” (The Village – Belarus 2022).
The Belarusian democratic movement had been traditionally supporting Ukraine and considered the Russian imperialism a common enemy. Many Belarusians took part in Ukrainian protests – the Orange Revolution in 2004-2005 and the Revolution of Dignity in 2013-2014. Ukrainian flags could be seen at political rallies and demonstrations in Belarus on many occasions which gave the authorities pretexts to claim that these protests were instigated by “Ukrainian nationalists.” Since 2014, after the Russian annexation of Crimea and the start of the hybrid war in Donbass, expressions of solidarity with Ukraine intensified, also sonically. At opposition rallies in Minsk you could hear people chanting “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the Heroes!” or you could see young people hopping to the Ukrainian chant “If you don't jump, you're a Moskal!” like in this recording from 2016:
Ukrainian pop and rock musicians were always very popular in Belarus, with bands like Okean Elzy and Onuka performing in Belarus regularly. In 2018-2020 you could hear Kazka’s song “Plakala” literally everywhere – from cafes and car sound systems to mobile phone ringtones. Up-and-coming singers from Belarus took part in the Ukrainian song contest Holos[43] because there was no such show in Belarus for a long time. In 2022 listening to or singing Ukrainian songs became not just a sign of solidarity but also a risk factor. On 30 April, an unknown street musician was detained near the Niamiha metro station for singing Ukrainian songs (Euroradio 2022b). On 3 August another singer, Meryem Herasimenka, was detained after singing “Obyjmy mene” by Okean Elzy near a bar at Zybickaja Street (Voice of Belarus 2022). The video shows a crowd of people singing along with Meryem who encouraged them to “sing for Ukraine.” This performance angered the state propagandists and enforcers. The Culture Code amendments just entered in power then, so Herasimenka and the bar owner were accused of organizing an unauthorized concert. But after 30 days of administrative arrest Herasimenka was put under a criminal investigation – allegedly for donating money to buy a “Bayractar” battle drone for Ukraine. In January 2023 she was sentenced to three years of house arrest (Viasna 2023c).
After Herasimenka’s detainment, the most popular bar quarter around Zybickaja Street came under stricter scrutiny and regular raids. Three other bands were detained there in August 2022, including Best Band Sound, even though the musicians didn’t perform any “political” songs (Euroradio 2022c). The band members were previously arrested in September 2020 for singing protest songs (“Razbury Turmy Mury” and “Peremen”). Despite the ongoing arrests of street musicians, there was no official list of banned songs. When Yulia Shabanava, Elizaveta Pakietava, and Aliaksej Zhuraulevich were detained in April 2021 in an underpass in the center of Minsk (Voice of Belarus 2021), Shabanava claimed at the trial that they had an official permit to perform there. She was also surprised by the reasons for their arrest, as she didn’t know where one could check for a list of “forbidden songs” (Reform 2021).
Street musicians playing “Hraj” by BRUTTO at underpasses in Minsk, July and December 2021.
A street musician playing “Kupailnka” at an underpass in Minsk, May 2021
Belarusian music – especially rock and folk – was crucial for building a national identity since the 1980s, especially during the years of continued Russification and strict regulation of the cultural sphere (Survilla 2002). In 1994 Lukashenka posed himself in “opposition” to the old establishment and promised not to censor the media if he would win. But already after the first months of his rule, censorship became increasingly tighter. Along with limiting free speech in media, public life, science, and education, the state used various mechanisms of regulating and censoring the cultural and music scenes. These measures included ever-shifting regulations for organizing concerts, unofficial “black lists” for performances and broadcasts, and tacit and overt censorship in the form of commissions assessing “artistic value” of music and lyrics. “Touring certificates” – official permits for concerts or festivals – were introduced by a president’s Decree in 2008, then canceled in 2010, and again re-introduced in 2013 (Niakhayeu 2014). These contradictory decisions were explained with the same argumentation – as “a step to optimize the market and to support culture and young talents.” While the official goal was preventing “fake” concerts organized by dishonest promoters, the real intention was an ideological and economic filtering (Kryzhanouski 2022a, 2022b).
After the presidential decree on “social parasitism” was introduced in 2015 (Viasna 2017), musicians and other artists who wanted to obtain a certificate as a “creative worker” that would exempt them from the “parasite tax”, needed to pass a state commission assessing their professional competences (Euroradio 2015). The amendments to the Code of Culture adopted in the summer of 2022 (BelTA 2022a) introduced the State Register of cultural and music event organizers. This made organizing concerts and festivals practically impossible for many actors of music scenes. Individual entrepreneurs or companies who worked within the independent music scene and who had a history of conflicts with the authorities or were persecuted by the state, would not be accepted into this Register, rendering their work and events illegal.
In order to function, the big live music operators had to prove their loyalty to the state. Some, like “Atom Entertainment”, formerly known as Korporatsiya Razvlecheniy (Entertainment Corporation), voiced their pro-regime views in an open and arrogant way. In 2013, the company’s director, Andrey Alexeyev, accused a pro-opposition media, Charter ‘97, of attempting to sabotage a Depeche Mode concert organized by his company. He also claimed that Charter ‘97 was financed by the West and guilty of provoking the economic crisis of 2011. “I would act stricter with these comrades,” he concluded (Karpov 2013). On 8 August 2020, “Atom Entertainment” planned a series of pre-election concerts in Minsk and regional cities with local, Russian, and international artists. But the audience thwarted these propagandist concerts; people swarmed the artists’ social media pages, explaining that participating in these events directly supported Lukashenka’s regime (Naša Niva 2020a; The Village – Belarus 2020). The US-based NGO Human Rights Foundation directly addressed the popular rapper Tyga asking him to cancel his gig.
This performance, scheduled for the day before Belarus’ elections, is no coincidence. It is an excuse to cancel the opposition’s final electoral rally, and prevent ordinary Belarusians from showing their support for freedom and democracy. [...] It is also a deliberate attempt to turn attention away from the massive electoral fraud that is already taking place across the country. (Human Rights Foundation 2020)
It is not surprising that Atom Entertainment and its subsidiaries were among the first companies accepted to the newly created State Register. But even they have a much smaller market now. First the pandemic and then the political crisis and the war (hence, sanctions and an air-travel blockade) made it impossible or unreasonable for foreign artists to come to Belarus. Russian musicians and performers, who were the mainstay of the big live music sector, cannot tour in Belarus either – some for political reasons, others, such as younger rappers, because of the “partial mobilization” launched in Russia in September 2022.
Despite everything, independent music scenes survive – both in emigration, and in Belarus. On the day of yet another police raid on street musicians in Minsk, I was at an event that seemed totally surreal: the forest opera “Northern Athens” that merged classical operatic and Belarusian folk singing. Written by Aleś Łoś, a folk-musician, instrument maker, and researcher, it was staged at a small DIY open-air theater at his homestead, and attracted more than a hundred people. When the soloists and the choir went quieter, one could hear Psy-Trance thumping at a rave somewhere in the forest. Not only electronic parties happen in the underground. Rock concerts and folk music continues to support people while being in a more risky situation due to the regime’s suspicion of “Belarusian nationalism.”
I have already mentioned healing and soothing among the functions of sound and music – and here I don’t refer to theories or experimental research (Landis-Shack 2017), but to a practical experience of Belarusian psychologists and musicians. There are hidden places where activists who still remain in Belarus, can recover, at least temporarily. Here they also learn to recover – or discover – their voices by singing old songs of Belarus, Ukraine, and Paleśsie, a region linking both countries. Poisoned by the nuclear fall-out from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and infiltrated by the Russian army and Belarusian security services, this region has rich cultural traditions and a unique language that forms a dialect continuum with Belarusian and Ukrainian languages. Its songs tell stories of war, longing for forbidden love and lost homes that are more relevant than ever.
The therapeutic force of singing and folk dances is also used abroad by émigré musicians like Siarhej Doŭhušaŭ, Nasta Chmiel, Maryna Shukiurava or Jaŭhien Baryšnikaŭ, who organize singing and dance classes for the Belarusians abroad (Soŭś 2022). These sessions help former political prisoners and forced migrants to overcome their traumas and to find a supportive community in their new homes.
Fragment of a concert of Jury Stylski from the Daj Darohu band in a EU city, Spring 2023. The song “Extremist” is mocking the state practice of listing as extremists random people who liked a post on social media, walked with white and red flowers, etc.
The uprooted music scenes now function translocally, and you can find Belarusian musicians and DJs playing in the main diaspora hubs all over Europe and on other continents almost every weekend. Musicians in Belarus and abroad continue to record and release new music, supporting their listeners in these dark times.[44]
Posters of Belarusian musicians concerts in Vilnius, Lithuania (1-2) and a Belarusian festival in Kraków, Poland (3-4), 2023. Photo: P. Niakhayeu.
