Zhyve Belarus, the rallying cry uniting protesters in Belarus and those in Lithuania, has recently emerged as an undisputed slogan of the country’s opposition. Never once uttered by the country's long-time leader Alexander Lukashenko, where does the saying come from?
In Vilnius, Belarusians have protested outside the country’s embassy ever since the rigged August 9 presidential election. Marielle Vitureau, a reporter for Radio France Internationale (RFI), asked those on the street what the saying meant for them.
“It means independence, freedom to express my opinion, freedom to be what I am here in Vilnius” and not being detained for it, said Hanna, a Belarusian living in Vilnius.
Tatiana Chulitskaya, a Belarusian university teacher and an activist, said she heard the saying for the first time in 1996 during a protest after a rock concert was cancelled by the Belarusian government.
“This was the period when the government started to ban concerts” after Lukashenko came into power in 1994, she said.
Read more: ‘Zhyve Belarus’. Lithuanian president joins human chain event to show solidarity
“The slogan ‘Zhyve Belarus!’ was initially a phrase from the verse by Janka Kupala,” according to Chulitskaya. It Is a Cry that Belarus Is Alive (in Belarusian: Гэта крык, што жыве Беларусь / Heta kryk, shto zhyve Bielarus) was written 1905-1907, she said.
The slogan, however, returned during the independence movement after the fall of the Soviet Union, she added.
Belarus’ opposition activists also seized on the expression.
Read more: Belarusian embassy in Lithuania pelted with potatoes
“Lukashenko never ever pronounced these words Zhyve Belarus, they are far too linked to the opposition,” said Tatiana Shchittsova, a professor at the European Humanities University (EHU), the exiled Belarusian university in Vilnius.
Other symbols, such as the white-red-white flag of the short-lived People’s Republic of Belarus, have also linked up with the Zhyve Belarus slogan to solidify cultural opposition against Lukashenko’s regime.
Along with the Belarusian language, they have “become political symbols and people use them as markers to show their disapproval of the current system”, said Tchuliskaia.
Now, the slogan Zhyve Belarus has been adopted by everyone. “Before it was the intellectuals who knew” about it, said Hanna. “Now we see that many people are interested in history, culture, they are interested in the Belarusian language.”
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
