"Belarus has become a full-fledged participant of the invasion of the neighboring independent country. This aggravates the already difficult situation of Belarusians, because today the attitude towards them in Europe has changed dramatically. That is, if before Belarusian refugees were helped, they were perceived as heroes, fighting against the regime, now they are often perceived as citizens of the aggressor country, who are responsible for the invasion of Ukraine and share responsibility. And it is important for me to convey my position that Belarusians in 2020 confronted both dictatorships and did not win because if we had confronted only Lukashenko, we would have won. But we could not defeat the Russian regime unarmed, which now armed Ukraine cannot defeat - because it is a very scary opponent. What is important to distinguish is between the Belarusian regime and Belarusian civil society. If the Belarusian civil society is supported, there will be more forces to oppose dictatorships".
Translated by DeepL
"I was kidnapped on a street in Minsk. On October 21, not during the march, just early in the morning we went to the bank with my wife, paid for the phone. We were returning home, Anya went into the store, I was walking home in the yard. A masked guy came up in front of me, hit me in the chest. He said: "Militia." The other one hit me in the back. They boxed me in. A minibus came with doors that opened on the fly. They took me in, put me between two big men, handcuffed me and put a bag over my head. One of them leaned over and asked: "How's your heart?" They took me to the central office of the KGB. There I was interrogated, there I was charged, there I was shown a photograph, or rather a still frame from a video that had been shot by law enforcement officers. I was in a crowd of people on a march. They said that this was grounds for detention. But later my lawyer said that I was taken by the KGB special brigade - for a person who was simply detained because he participated in a mass unauthorized event it is too much, it is a higher structure. Most likely, of course, I was detained because of my activity, because of my publications.
Translated by DeepL
"Two young men from Vitsebsk were arrested very quickly. Without waiting for the investigation Lukashenka declared them scoundrels. And it was clear that these people were appointed executors in order to hide the real reason, the real executors. During a year the whole society watched how lawlessness was being committed in front of their eyes, everyone understood that these people were being tortured, forced to testify against themselves. The mother of one of these young people was amazing. And there was a beauty - a sacrificial beauty. And on the other side of it, an absolutely rubbery, horrible, unfolding killing machine. I spent all this time in portentousness. I was writing poetry, I was formulating my testimony. And for me, as an artist, as a poet, it was a very important time when I was able to say a great deal. When the death sentence was announced to these young people, I wrote an open letter to Lukashenka, it got a very big response - about a million responses".
Translated by DeepL
Giving memory a long breath
Dmitry Yulievich Strotsev was born on April 12, 1963 in Minsk, then USSR in a family of computer engineers. In 1984 he graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the Belarusian Polytechnic Institute. He was a member of the entourage of the Belarusian philosopher and dissident Kim Khadeev. In 1985-88 he was engaged in author’s songwriting, wrote a socio-political novel in verse “Extra 24 hours”. In 1988, he participated in a march and protest anti-Soviet rally in Kuropaty, and at his concerts of author’s song he gave the stage to poet and politician Zenon Pozdnyak. At the beginning of perestroika he established contacts with the artistic milieu and clergy of Georgia, Russia, Ukraine and Europe. In 1999 he founded the publishing house of non-comformist poetry and spiritual literature “Vinograd”. He joined the 2006 Dissenters’ March on Victory Square in Minsk and began writing poetic testimonies about social and political events. In 2007 he was awarded the Russian Prize for his collection of poems “850 lines”. In 2008, he responded with poems to Russia’s invasion of Georgia and the seizure of regions of Ukraine. In 2010 he published an open letter to G. Lukashenko, which was signed by about one million people. Twice visited Kiev on Euromaidan, poems about it were included in the collection “Step”. Since 2014, his poems were no longer published in the Russian Federation. Participated in protests against election fraud in 2020 in Belarus. On October 21, 2020, he was kidnapped on the streets of Minsk and was imprisoned for 13 days. Received support from independent media and European literary awards: the Vaclav Havel Library, the Norwegian Writers’ Union and the Kurt Tucholsky Prize of the Swedish PEN Club. In 2022 he left with his wife Anna for emigration, lives in Germany, founded the publishing house Hochroth Minsk. Their three children Alexandra, Andrei and Maria remain in Minsk.
Translated by DeepL
