DOCUMENTS '
WRITING IN BYELORUSSIA
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE:
Translation of a speech which Vasil'
Bykov gave at a closed session of the
1966
Fifth Congress OIf Byelorus–
sian Writers at Minsk. That may sound like far away
~nd
long ago;
b~t
to the best of our knowledge, after carefully checking its authenticity
and provenance, we believe it has not been published before, and ' the
things that Bykov. says are as
Tel~vant
today as when he said them.
Vasil' Bykov is a very courageous and uncompromising writer,
rather of the Solzhe.nitsyn stamp. He has had two novels published; he
writes in Byelorussian and translates his 'own work into an extremely
good, muscular Russian. The two novels (or strictly speaking, novellas)
were both published in
Novy
Mir.
The first appeared in
1966.
Called
The Dead Feel No Pain,
it is a cOiol
and
disillusioned iook at war, very
far removed from the usual Soviet heroic jingoism, and he was roundly
attacked by Soviet ge,nerals for slandering the glorious Soviet Army. The
second was published in
Novy
Mir
No.5 of 1970. This is an even more
remarkable work, entitled
Sotnikov.
It is published by Dutton in New
York and
by
The Bodley Head in London entitled
The Ordeal.
There is much that can be said about the successful progress
of Byelorussian literature if one looks .at it from the viewpQint of cer–
tain
of yesterday'S speakers, ·but this Fifth Writers' Congress is not
s~ply an occasion for self-congratulation, and
therefor~
I believe we
should
be
discussing other matters as well.
Unfortunately I cannot share the optimistic assumptions of yester–
day's speakers about the excellence of our literary achievements....
For two years running the Lenin Prize Committee has not
award~d
any prizes for literature. Literature is not only forfeiting the respect of
the leadership, but is even failing
to
compete .for the attention of the
readers, who are deserting us in hundreds of thousands to fill the stadia
with armies of rabid sports fans -:- a
uniqu~,
not .to say shamef1,l1 re–
flection on an age which calls itself civilized. Whatever anybody else
may feel, these facts provoke me to certain rather depressing .reflections.
How has it come about that our literature, which
has
enriched man–
kind with works of genius; should have reached a point where for two
