“It’s a shame that Europe and the United States wasted so much time at the beginning and did not provide Ukraine with tanks and weaponry for a more adequate response, which allowed [Russian President, Vladimir] Putin to go so far,” expressed writer Svetlana Alexievich today at the International Literary Festival of Óbidos.
The Belarusian Nobel laureate in Literature from 2015 spoke about her country’s reality, admitting “shame” over Minsk’s minimal support for Ukraine, justifying this impotence as “essentially, Belarus is also a country occupied by Russia.”
According to Alexievich, her country “lost the battle with the past” because it was not prepared for reform after the fall of the Soviet Union.
“We knew change was necessary, but we didn’t know how to achieve it,” she stated, recalling how the Belarusian people “thought freedom was a kind of celebration” that would begin once communism was gone.
“Only now do we realize that freedom is a long path,” emphasized the writer, noting that in 2020 the Belarusian population “tried to rid themselves of the dictator [Alexander Lukashenko],” who “was supported by Putin, who couldn’t accept that Ukraine and Belarus might be free.”
Regretting that “over five million people had to leave the country” in the past five years due to persecution by the regime, the writer warned, “We are all at war; Ukraine is fighting for all of us.”
The Russian military offensive in Ukraine, launched on February 24, 2022, has plunged Europe into what is considered the most severe security crisis since World War II (1939-1945).
As “democracies are losing to populisms,” the Nobel laureate in Literature warned of the need for people not to be swayed by romantic notions and to fight against totalitarian regimes.
She urged the Portuguese, “You who will soon have elections, don’t let populists win, don’t let them steal your country.”
Svetlana Alexievich spoke at the fifth panel of Fólio Authors, part of the International Literary Festival, where she headlined one of the most attended sessions, with the room’s capacity (180 seats) nearly doubled as people sat on the floor to listen to the writer.
The festival, running in Óbidos until October 19, under the theme Boundaries, also features two other Nobel Literature laureates: South African J. M. Coetzee and Hungarian László Krasznahorkai.
With around 800 authors and artists participating in over 460 initiatives centered on literature, Fólio is organized by the municipality of Óbidos in partnership with the municipal company Óbidos Criativa, Ler Devagar, and the Inatel Foundation, taking place since 2015 in the village designated as a Creative City of Literature by UNESCO.
