Aleh Hruzdzilovich: I wrote about abuse. I went through prison. And I proved that freedom cannot be crushed

This inter­view is part of the col­lec­tion “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion”, a liv­ing tes­ti­mo­ny to the cre­ative and civic pres­ence of those who have not lost their voice even in exile.

Aleh Hruzdzilovich in the Seimas of Lithua­nia. Decem­ber 1, 2022. Pho­to: BAJ

The col­lec­tion tells the sto­ry of the lau­re­ates of the “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion” award, found­ed by the Belaru­sian PEN in part­ner­ship with the Human Rights Cen­ter “Vias­na”, the Belaru­sian Asso­ci­a­tion of Jour­nal­ists, Press Club Belarus and Free Press for East­ern Europe endow­ment fund. The col­lec­tion will be pre­sent­ed on Novem­ber 15, 2025 at 5:00 PM dur­ing a dis­cus­sion with the lau­re­ates of the “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion” award at the Euro­pean Sol­i­dar­i­ty Cen­ter (Europe­jskie Cen­trum Sol­i­darnoś­ci, Gdańsk, pl. Sol­i­darnoś­ci 1).

Brest was the only city in the Russian Empire that was utterly destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up, all because of the fortress

Aleh, do you believe in des­tiny as writ­ten in the stars? Have you ever been inter­est­ed in astrol­o­gy?

In my case, the geog­ra­phy and loca­tion are more sig­nif­i­cant than the geom­e­try of the skies. I don’t know who I would have become if I had lived in Homel or Mahilou. My home­town is Mal­adzech­na, which was once a region­al cen­ter. At that time, the Khrushchev admin­is­tra­tion was in pow­er, and the region was liq­ui­dat­ed. My par­ents faced the choice of mov­ing some­where else because their jobs were gone. My dad even went to Hrod­na to try it out, and he found that every­thing was fine there, except for career prospects. In Brest, he was offered a posi­tion as deputy head of the local indus­try depart­ment. His qual­i­fi­ca­tions were suit­able, and he was also promised a rent-free apart­ment. As you say, the plan­ets aligned. The choice was made, and my fate was sealed.

Were you and your twin broth­er born in the cen­tral­ly locat­ed res­i­dence for gov­ern­ment offi­cials?

Far from it! First, we rent­ed an apart­ment in a wood­en house on the out­skirts of the city. It’s a stereo­type that boss­es in the Sovi­et sys­tem were all stocked. My moth­er didn’t have enough milk for us, but luck­i­ly, a woman who sold goat milk lived near­by. We grew up on it. Much lat­er, my father began receiv­ing nomen­cla­ture gifts twice a year: a bun­dle of fish, a stick of sausage, a pack of buck­wheat, some bis­cuits, and a small tin of instant cof­fee. That was it. The priv­i­leges enjoyed by the local par­ty bureau­cra­cy at that time are essen­tial­ly a myth.

How did liv­ing in Brest, a city on the bor­der, affect your world­view and life?

“Gate­way to Europe” may sound trite, but it cer­tain­ly had an impact. For exam­ple, the Bea­t­les and the Rolling Stones became pop­u­lar in our city when most young peo­ple in the USSR hadn’t even heard of them. It was the oth­er way around with Vysot­sky.[1]

Sec­ond­ly, the city of mil­i­tary glo­ry played a vital role in edu­ca­tion.

The third fac­tor was my father’s suc­cess­ful career. He start­ed as head of the Depart­ment of Local Indus­try. He quick­ly became the deputy chair­man of the City Exec­u­tive Com­mit­tee and, in 1968, the chair­man — a posi­tion akin to present-day may­or. Although “mayor’s offices” are large­ly pow­er­less even now, let alone back then. He was in charge for ten years.

Aleh Hruzdzilovich at work. 1996. Pho­to: from his own archive

The entire coun­try of Belarus expe­ri­enced sig­nif­i­cant socio-eco­nom­ic advance­ment. Indus­try tugged the whole of urban infra­struc­ture along with it. Even a school­child could notice the pace of urban­iza­tion.

The time was real­ly unique. But I observed this not through the fac­to­ries and plants, but through the Brest Fortress, which had just been award­ed the Hero Star. Large-scale recon­struc­tion of the ruins has begun. I wit­nessed con­ver­sa­tions and argu­ments with the leg­endary sculp­tor, Ali­ak­san­dr Kibal­nikau. My father told me about his meet­ings with Sergey Smirnov, a pub­li­cist and the author of a book about the exploits of the citadel’s defend­ers.

Did he men­tion Gen­er­al Krivoshein? He and the Ger­man tank com­man­der, Gud­er­ian, took part in the 1939 parade in Brest.

Yes, I have an inter­est­ing men­tion to share. In the 1980s, Znamya Yunos­ti jour­nal­ists attend­ed a meet­ing of vet­er­ans who vehe­ment­ly dis­agreed with our arti­cle about these events. “It’s lies! A com­mis­sioned pub­li­ca­tion!” I stood up: “My father per­son­al­ly met with Krivoshein, and I saw the pho­to of that parade myself. This is his­to­ry. With all due respect, your per­spec­tives are myths. On Sep­tem­ber 22, 1939, a Sovi­et-Ger­man mil­i­tary parade was held in Brest to cel­e­brate the trans­fer of the city and fortress into our con­trol. The Molo­tov-Ribben­trop Pact in action.”

I sup­pose there wasn’t any applause for that enlight­en­ment.

No, they made a lot of noise and boo­ing. And one offi­cer, wear­ing colonel’s epaulettes, exclaimed: “Ah, well, it’s clear: Hruzdzilovich is a Jew.” By the way, I observed that there were quite a few anti-Semi­tes among the zeal­ous com­mu­nists.

And how did the young man from the nomen­klatu­ra fam­i­ly become inter­est­ed in pro­mot­ing Belaru­sian­ness?

I actu­al­ly stud­ied at an elite spe­cial school. I stud­ied Eng­lish, geog­ra­phy, tech­ni­cal trans­la­tion, and lit­er­a­ture. The teach­ers were high­ly edu­cat­ed. The physics teacher intro­duced us to The Mas­ter and Mar­gari­ta, and the Eng­lish teacher dis­cussed her meet­ings with young peo­ple who spoke Belaru­sian and crit­i­cized the “ren­o­va­tion” of the fortress. They said, “It needs preser­va­tion, not ren­o­va­tion.” In fact, this was the only city in the Russ­ian Empire that was utter­ly destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up — all because of the fortress. Right next to it. The teacher was par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in the young jour­nal­ists who uncov­ered these facts.

Of course, there was an abundance of scientific communism, although I was already a semi-finished product of propaganda

So did the cold show­er, the counter-truth to what had fueled patri­ot­ic fer­vor, unex­pect­ed­ly spark your inter­est in jour­nal­ism?

One could say that. But it start­ed with some­thing else. I grew up with the mind­set of a sin­cere com­mu­nist. I was con­cerned about the spread of social­ism world­wide. I was a school­boy when the Salazar regime was over­thrown in Por­tu­gal, and I was stunned by the news. I began to fol­low the events. More­over, the cen­tral press wrote inter­est­ing­ly and exten­sive­ly about it. This is what inspired my desire to become a jour­nal­ist. I start­ed col­lab­o­rat­ing with the region­al Zarya news­pa­per in the ninth grade, estab­lished con­tacts, and wrote arti­cles.

They prob­a­bly edit­ed your text mer­ci­less­ly. Did the red ink not damp­en your enthu­si­asm? When did a text appear that you could gen­uine­ly be proud of, instead of just anoth­er rou­tine note?

I took edit­ing in stride. I thought it was essen­tial to write an arti­cle about what mod­ern schools lacked. With some help, I attempt­ed to write a real ana­lyt­i­cal arti­cle. An old­er friend of mine, a well-known Brest-based activist, advised me and cleaned up the text. He shared a leg­endary sur­name with Ana­toly Agra­novsky, the star of Sovi­et jour­nal­ism from Moscow. At the time, I didn’t know this, so I wrote in my cre­ative essay: “Agra­novsky was my ide­o­log­i­cal teacher.” The dean of the jour­nal­ism depart­ment, Ryhor Bulats­ki, launched a bar­rage of accu­sa­tions. Like I brazen­ly took cred­it for know­ing the mas­ter! This is how I became inter­est­ed in Ana­toly Agranovsky’s work.

After read­ing his books of essays and reflec­tions on jour­nal­ism, were your teach­ers no longer impres­sive? The depart­ment focused more on forg­ing ide­o­logues than on the essence of the pro­fes­sion.

Of course, there was an abun­dance of sci­en­tif­ic com­mu­nism, although I was already a semi-fin­ished prod­uct of pro­pa­gan­da. But they also taught the craft, includ­ing genre the­o­ry, lay­out, and pho­tog­ra­phy. In gen­er­al, any uni­ver­si­ty edu­ca­tion is broad­er than a pro­fes­sion. Not only what is being taught, but also who is around mat­ters. Peo­ple, con­tacts, and atmos­phere all mat­ter. For instance, we had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to meet with Vasil Bykau[2] in the sec­ond year. I remem­ber how mod­est­ly this famous man behaved and how care­ful­ly he chose his words. Then came the con­trast: a meet­ing with radio jour­nal­ist Nina Chai­ka — just noth­ing burg­er. As the say­ing goes, feel the dif­fer­ence.

Dur­ing Per­e­stroi­ka, Belarus became one of the “mouth­pieces of the Vendée.” As a pro­pa­gan­da school, the jour­nal­ism fac­ul­ty did not lose its case. How­ev­er, edi­to­r­i­al ide­o­logues were typ­i­cal­ly weak pro­fes­sion­als. Have you noticed this?

Yes, edi­tors should avoid slo­gan-based rhetoric because it sti­fles cre­ativ­i­ty. I felt it intu­itive­ly. For exam­ple, after I grad­u­at­ed, the edi­tor-in-chief of Zarya, Piotr Sutko, invit­ed me to join his team, but I refused for ide­o­log­i­cal rea­sons. My father was a boss; they would see me as his shad­ow, try to use me as their agent among the city pow­er fig­ures, to push me into the offi­cial cir­cles. That’s why I chose Inte­gral, a neu­tral, work­ing-class week­ly from Min­sk. A year lat­er, I accept­ed an offer to become an instruc­tor in the pro­pa­gan­da depart­ment of the region­al Kom­so­mol com­mit­tee. I was promised an apart­ment. There was a 20-year wait­ing list for fac­to­ry work­er hous­ing, but I had a fam­i­ly: a wife, a son. I had to find a solu­tion.

It made per­fect sense for you to start in the first roles with­in the pro­pa­gan­da sta­ble and build a career as a par­ty mem­ber. Or could you already feel that it wasn’t your cup of tea?

On the con­trary, it was there that I lost all of my for­mer com­mu­nist illu­sions. I grew clos­er to my peers dur­ing busi­ness trips. In the evenings, after the Kom­so­mol rhetoric end­ed and the music began, anoth­er talk start­ed. “You don’t know life! Every­thing works dif­fer­ent­ly than it does in the­o­ry.” They would then show­er me with facts.

They once sent me to work at the Moscow Youth Fes­ti­val. While the Kom­so­mol lead­ers in Belarus still had some sense of shame, in Rus­sia, it was sheer hor­ror. They filched every­thing they could. The head of our group — a sec­re­tary of the region­al com­mit­tee some­where in Ryazan or Bryan­sk — was a plain thief. He pinched every­thing with­in reach.

I recall work­ing on the rail­road dur­ing my stu­dent days. The fore­man would sneak some­thing in there, too. One day, I saw him stash­ing a rope. “Why do you need it?” I ask. “Well, my dog won’t let me come home unless I bring some­thing,” he replies. A live­ly joke root­ed in real­i­ty. They had the same mind­set: you had to pinch some­thing. Stick­ers, receipts, gas coupons, food stamps — every­thing was tapped into.

Aleh Hruzdzilovich with his chil­dren. Pho­to from per­son­al archive

And you were sent to inves­ti­gate some­thing you no longer believed in?

Let’s say I was going to review the lec­ture groups’ work. It was a com­plete fic­tion. Noth­ing was imple­ment­ed, just on paper. You could crit­i­cize the Kom­so­mol sec­re­tary, but con­sid­er his cir­cum­stances: his child was sick and his life was stuck. And here you came with your par­ty line and the dis­cus­sion of the next con­gress. And you saw it’s all just a per­for­mance. So grad­u­al­ly, I became dis­il­lu­sioned with the sys­tem.

I remem­ber Brezh­nev dying. My task was to “write a telegram of con­do­lences from the region’s youth.” So I wrote, “We deeply grieve,” “May the leader’s mem­o­ry be bright,” and “Great son of the par­ty.” I don’t know why I didn’t throw the draft away. I put it in a draw­er.

A year lat­er, Andropov dies. They call again: “We need a telegram.” I take out the old one, clean it up, and take it to the boss. They are full of admi­ra­tion: “Well done, prompt­ly!” Cher­nenko died a year and a half lat­er. I am being iron­ic, “Wait, just five min­utes!” Every­one laughs as if it’s nor­mal.

The boss arrives: “Well done! This is the Komsomol of the new era!” So I shifted from being a culprit to a hero

The life span of the sys­tem was deter­mined by its con­ven­tion­al­i­ty. Were you ready for per­e­stroi­ka?

I was employed as an exec­u­tive sec­re­tary at Znamya Yunos­ti at the time. The news­pa­per was boom­ing, keep­ing up with the times. It had a free edi­to­r­i­al pol­i­cy and jour­nal­ists who had a way with words. And sud­den­ly, in 1988, Nina Andreye­va sent her arti­cle, “I can’t com­pro­mise my prin­ci­ples.” At that time, Ali­ak­san­dr Sala­makha was the head of the news­pa­per. One evening, before leav­ing, he threw the typed proofs on my table. “Put these in for the Sat­ur­day issue.” I read it and real­ized they’re using us to spread prac­ti­cal­ly Black-Hun­dred-style[3] slan­der — the news­pa­per has the largest cir­cu­la­tion in Belarus, over half a mil­lion.

I gath­ered my col­leagues: Yury Velt­ner, Larysa Sayen­ka, Pavel Uladz­imi­rau, and oth­ers. The dis­cus­sion was intense, but the major­i­ty decid­ed against pub­lish­ing it.

The fol­low­ing Mon­day, there was a debrief­ing. An instruc­tor from the Cen­tral Com­mit­tee, Mr Kruk­ous­ki, rushed into the office, and they began sum­mon­ing peo­ple one by one, press­ing: “Why wasn’t it pub­lished? You’ve vio­lat­ed par­ty dis­ci­pline!” Young jour­nal­ists were threat­ened with dis­missal. They didn’t pres­sure me much. How­ev­er, before leav­ing, Kruk­ous­ki angri­ly whis­pered, “I’ll destroy you!”

How­ev­er, a sur­pris­ing rever­sal took place just two days lat­er. Alek­san­dr Yakovlev, a mem­ber of the Polit­buro, spoke in Moscow, call­ing that arti­cle an “anti-per­e­stroi­ka man­i­festo.” It turned out that Gor­bachev him­self con­sid­ered it a diver­sion. He even said in a com­ment: “There even was a youth edi­to­r­i­al office in Belarus that refused to pub­lish.”

And every­thing changed. Sala­makha came run­ning to the edi­to­r­i­al office, shak­ing hands with every­one: “Well done! This is the Kom­so­mol of the new era!” So I shift­ed from being a cul­prit to a hero.

And what lin­gered in the soul — a sense of change, or con­tin­ued con­fu­sion?

We refused to reprint Andreyeva’s work, but we did not cre­ate an alter­na­tive. We were not yet ready for gen­uine plu­ral­ism. We were just lucky; we got away, but they start­ed look­ing at us more close­ly. We had to make do with the lim­it­ed oppor­tu­ni­ties for free­dom avail­able to us.

Writ­ing about Pop­u­lar Fronts was for­bid­den when they appeared in the Baltic republics. I took a sto­ry about the Eston­ian move­ment and pub­lished it in the “Abroad” sec­tion. They missed it. Then I did the same with Latvia. Again, unno­ticed, I rubbed my hands with joy. But when these tricks were final­ly reg­is­tered, I was called in and scold­ed for a long time.

But there was no stop­ping it. I became a del­e­gate to the Belaru­sian Pop­u­lar Front’s found­ing con­gress in Vil­nius and cre­at­ed its cell in Znamya Yunos­ti. We held a gen­er­al meet­ing at the Press House. The Pop­u­lar Front was youth­ful, free, and brim­ming with opti­mism in those days. It was not the oppo­si­tion, but the renais­sance move­ment.

Then I met Via­chor­ka, Ivashke­vich, and Ales Susha. The guys asked me to write an arti­cle for Naviny BNF about cor­rup­tion among par­ty lead­ers at the Atoli­na urban farm. I did. It was pub­lished, and so I became part of the new jour­nal­ism.

Aleh Hruzdzilovich reports from Inde­pen­dence Square in Min­sk. Pho­to: svaboda.org

Did the new per­son­nel pol­i­cy affect your deci­sion to leave? At that time, a new edi­tor was appoint­ed to Znyamia Yunos­ti.

Right, Mikhail Kat­siushen­ka. The cir­cu­la­tion dropped, and the news­pa­per took on a more gov­ern­men­tal tone. The boss, as it turned out, was a Kebich man — and gen­er­al­ly not the type to push for change. I start­ed work­ing at Nar­o­d­naya Gaze­ta, which Iosif Siaredzich found­ed in the Par­lia­ment. For a year and a half, I worked along­side Mikalai Halko as a par­lia­men­tary cor­re­spon­dent. We cov­ered all the events, and polit­i­cal life explod­ed dai­ly.

By today’s stan­dards, it seems unbe­liev­able: Did free­dom of speech real­ly pre­vail in Par­lia­ment?

The morn­ings would begin with a one-hour ses­sion of remarks: deputies were free to speak their minds and express their posi­tions. Lukashen­ka took full advan­tage of that oppor­tu­ni­ty. He spoke loud­ly, with jokes and slo­gans. Half of it is empti­ness and pop­ulism, but he was lis­tened to. And so he gained pop­u­lar­i­ty.

And then came 1995 — the beat­ing of deputies. I was in the hall where the oppo­si­tion began a hunger strike in protest of the lan­guage ref­er­en­dum. In the evening, we gath­ered and talked for a while. I got home late, and the next morn­ing, I found out that the deputies had been beat­en up! They were tak­en out on bus­es, tor­tured. When I met deputy Her­mi­anchuk, he showed me his bruised back. Ales Shut was also bat­tered. I wrote down all the details of the inci­dent in the report, includ­ing how the doors opened, how the vio­lence began, who the beat­ers were, and who was hurt. I hand­ed it over to the edi­tor. I did not doubt that the mate­r­i­al would be released the next day. How­ev­er, the news­pa­per only pub­lished the first part, which was unim­por­tant: descrip­tion of the begin­ning of that day, and noth­ing about its dra­mat­ic finale.

And why was the arti­cle abridged? Was there a whiff of cen­sor­ship in the air? The sun went down?

Mikalai Halko was already the act­ing edi­tor. My arti­cle, “Lukashen­ka has set his sights on the Krem­lin,” was one of the rea­sons Siaredzich was removed. The page with this text was cen­sored.

In it, I artic­u­lat­ed a sen­ti­ment that no one else has ever expressed ver­bal­ly. I could sense the “young president’s” inten­tions from afar when he accom­pa­nied Yeltsin dur­ing his vis­it to Min­sk Trac­tor Plant. With warmth in his voice and an insin­u­at­ing bow, “our pres­i­dent” would then say to the “dear guest”: “Look! This is your fac­to­ry!”

What about Halko? Weren’t you two work­ing side by side? Did he explain his posi­tion or jus­ti­fy him­self?

He just said the tra­di­tion­al thing for the state media. “You under­stand every­thing, after all!” And I did. We remained on good terms. It was clear he was caught between a rock and a hard place when he agreed to serve as act­ing edi­tor, know­ing he would soon be replaced. That’s what hap­pened. Six months lat­er, anoth­er one was appoint­ed. Mikalai left.

The fol­low­ing day, after they cut my pub­li­ca­tion, I sub­mit­ted my res­ig­na­tion let­ter. As a par­lia­men­tary cor­re­spon­dent, I real­ized that if I could not cov­er the main events of Par­lia­ment, my work would lose its mean­ing. Halko approved it imme­di­ate­ly, with­out argu­ing.

Svaboda is another world: you take on full responsibility. You are accountable for what you wrote. No one will cover for you; there is no higher authority

I quick­ly offered the same cen­sored arti­cle about Lukashenka’s Krem­lin ambi­tions to the deputy and edi­tor of Svabo­da, Ihar Her­mi­anchuk, and he pub­lished it prompt­ly. That’s how my work in this edi­to­r­i­al office began. Vital Tsy­hank­ou, Vik­tar Uladashchuk, and Ales Dashchyn­s­ki were already employed there. Togeth­er, we cre­at­ed a news­pa­per that was lat­er called Naviny, then Nasha Svabo­da. The names changed, but the essence remained.

In what ways did Svabo­da dif­fer from Nar­o­d­naya Gaze­ta?

It was a whole oth­er world. You take on full respon­si­bil­i­ty. You are account­able for what you wrote. No one will cov­er for you; there is no high­er author­i­ty. You were respon­si­ble to both the read­er and the edi­tor if you made a mis­take. Ihar was a jew­el of a man. I didn’t want to dis­ap­point him. It was hard­er, but much more inter­est­ing — a real school of auton­o­my.

Do you remem­ber the moment when it turned into a real ordeal — when your words deter­mined actu­al free­dom, not just edi­to­r­i­al office free­dom?

I sup­pose it began when Pavel Zhuk brought a secret doc­u­ment to the edi­to­r­i­al office. The document’s sub­ject was the opposition’s alleged plans to “seize pow­er” and the mea­sures to be tak­en in response. Name­ly, harsh oper­a­tions, even phys­i­cal destruc­tion, were per­mit­ted against these peo­ple. The arti­cle was pub­lished under my name.

A few days after the pub­li­ca­tion, as I was about to go to work, I noticed a police van parked next to my house. I called Zhan­na Litsv­ina. At the time, she was the head of Radio Lib­er­ty and the chair­per­son of the BAJ. As soon as I stepped out­side, a man wear­ing a rain­coat jumped up. A typ­i­cal KGB agent. He showed me his ID, grabbed my hand, and pushed me into the van. Inside sat a “wit­ness.” It was a young, around 30, guy who wore a strange out­fit: a fringed leather jack­et and big, heeled shoes that almost looked like spurs — like some Indi­an. Then I real­ized that they were being sent out into the streets to mon­i­tor, estab­lish con­tacts, and report back.

Record­ing with Aleh Hruzdzilovich before his arrest in 2021. Pho­to: from the archive of Ali­axan­der Lukashuk

A snitch for all occa­sions?

They recruit­ed from all walks of life. In the KGB’s main build­ing, they bad­gered me for sev­er­al hours straight. They want­ed to know who brought the doc­u­ment, where they got it, how they got it, what it was, and why… But at that moment, I had good legal advice and stuck to it: I would speak only in the pres­ence of a pub­lic rep­re­sen­ta­tive. The KGB offi­cers were con­fused by this, but they did not give up. They resort­ed to threats, black­mail, and psy­cho­log­i­cal pres­sure. Ulti­mate­ly, some­one called my inves­ti­ga­tor. He returned the papers to the fold­er and said:

“Well, at least sign to con­firm that you have been here.” “I won’t. I won’t even do that.” A few months lat­er, Karpen­ka died sud­den­ly. Then Zakha­ran­ka, Han­char, and Kra­sous­ki[4] dis­ap­peared. We all real­ized it wasn’t a game any­more.

Many times after­wards, I thought: They could have done the same to me. How­ev­er, in 1998, there was still some lin­ger­ing influ­ence from per­e­stroi­ka, and a mod­est degree of free­dom. That may be why they didn’t take the risk. A year lat­er, their meth­ods changed: they became qui­et and secre­tive, con­duct­ing their work with­out tri­als or inves­ti­ga­tions.

And most impor­tant­ly, that doc­u­ment was authen­tic. It pre­dict­ed every­thing that hap­pened. This sug­gests that there were still indi­vid­u­als with­in those agen­cies with a strong moral com­pass — those who want­ed to pre­vent crime.

It was a mirror of time in which faith, despair, blood, and the indelible truth were reflected

I began work­ing at Radio Lib­er­ty in 2000. I still work there today, except for the time I spent in prison.

Dur­ing this time, you saw many of the era’s polit­i­cal fig­ures: Gor­bachev, Yeltsin, and even Clin­ton. You were hav­ing a meet­ing with him, right?

But for the most part, though, I watched Lukashen­ka ever since his time as a deputy. Back when he was still pre­tend­ing to be a demo­c­rat. Once, while tak­ing his com­ment on the land act, I heard: “The peas­ants need to be giv­en the land — it will change every­thing for the com­mon good.” I hadn’t yet turned off the recorder when Lukashen­ka start­ed giv­ing his com­ment to the cor­re­spon­dent of the com­mu­nist news­pa­per Tovar­ishch: “You can’t give the land away — they’ll ruin every­thing, start sell­ing it off, and oli­garchs will emerge.” That’s when I real­ized that this per­son would say what­ev­er was con­ve­nient for him.

Or take the first steps of his pres­i­den­cy. The meet­ing with a group of jour­nal­ists after the “blank pages” sto­ry was sig­nif­i­cant. Then, Siarhei Antonchyk’s alter­na­tive anti-cor­rup­tion report was cen­sored from news­pa­pers. He arrived with a men­ac­ing guard, and Lukashen­ka him­self appeared gloomy and strict. But he smiled and shook hands.

My senior col­leagues encour­aged me to speak up. I said, “What you are destroy­ing is a mir­ror that allows you to see what is real­ly going on in the coun­try. A free press is not an ene­my; it’s a tool. With­out it, you’ll lose your bear­ings.”

He lis­tened in silence. Then he tossed in some stock phras­es about dis­ci­pline and state inter­ests. He was flat-eyed. It dawned on me that he won’t hear. He didn’t come to lis­ten; he came to act on his role.

Basi­cal­ly, the mono­logue before Lukashen­ka was a bold attempt to defend free­dom of speech. If you think about it, you have spent all these years at Radio Lib­er­ty engaged in human rights jour­nal­ism.

I remem­ber the first process that opened this path for me. It was 1996. They tried Slavamir Adamovic in court, who was the first polit­i­cal pris­on­er of the new Belarus. He wrote the poem “To Kill the Pres­i­dent” and got a real prison sen­tence.

Then came the dis­per­sal of the Chornobyl March, fol­lowed by arrests and con­vic­tions. Polit­i­cal activists and lead­ers were force­ful­ly dis­ap­peared. I talked to their fam­i­lies. Zavadski’s moth­er and Zakharanka’s daugh­ter. Those were con­ver­sa­tions that are impos­si­ble to for­get. Grief, help­less­ness, and yet hope. Pain that does not go away.

Which of the many reports is the most mem­o­rable?

Prob­a­bly when I was detained, but they didn’t notice my cam­era. It was 2011, the so-called silent protest. Peo­ple took to the streets and just clapped. No slo­gans. A silent protest against cri­sis and fear.

I was near the Nation­al Library. There were only a dozen or two peo­ple. The riot police showed up and start­ed grab­bing every­one. I end­ed up in a police wag­on, too. But they didn’t notice my cam­era.

We’re sit­ting in the van, and I could see the road and the policemen’s faces through an open­ing in the door. I took out my cam­era and start­ed inter­view­ing oth­er arrestees. To keep the flash dri­ve from being seized, I put it in my sock.

They took me to the police sta­tion, where they iden­ti­fied me. Then, some­thing unex­pect­ed hap­pened: they let me go. As it turns out, Ali­ak­san­dr Las­tous­ki, the police spokesper­son, inter­fered. He was influ­en­tial back then and actu­al­ly pro­tect­ed many peo­ple. What a peri­od of con­trasts! I imme­di­ate­ly ran to the edi­to­r­i­al office, and an hour lat­er, the report from the pad­dy wag­on was already post­ed on the web­site.

The next day, the video was shown on Russia’s RTR: “In Belarus, a Radio Lib­er­ty jour­nal­ist filmed video from inside a police van.” A rare stroke of pro­fes­sion­al luck.

Some reports bring good luck. But are there any that leave you unable to sleep?

Decem­ber 19, 2010. Post-elec­tion protest dis­per­sal. In the midst of the chaos, I cap­tured footage of Ali­ak­san­dr Klask­ous­ki Jr, the son of my jour­nal­ist friend. He was wear­ing a uni­form, and blood was on his face. I didn’t know it was Ali­ak­san­dr at the time. At first, I thought it was a police­man who had switched sides. He lat­er men­tioned that he used to work at the traf­fic police. I called him late at night after the vio­lent dis­per­sal. He could only say, “They’re already at my door.” Ali­ak­san­dr recent­ly passed away, and that image is still in my head — like a mir­ror of time in which faith, despair, blood, and the indeli­ble truth were reflect­ed.

A typical Belarusian prison sentence is spent thinking about how to live from morning to night and from night to morning

Regard­ing your impris­on­ment, was there a sit­u­a­tion that revealed the inner work­ings of the sys­tem? Not as a jour­nal­ist observ­ing from the out­side, but as some­one who became part of it?

Absolute­ly. I expe­ri­enced three stages of such dis­cov­ery.

The first one was autumn 2020. I was detained for the first time and spent 15 days at the Baranavichy Deten­tion Cen­ter. It is a local admin­is­tra­tive prison, pre­pared in advance for mass dis­per­sals. Before that time, the for­mer bar­racks were not actu­al­ly used. Some said the tsarist troops were sta­tioned there, while oth­ers said they were a sta­ble built under Pol­ish rule. It was quick­ly con­vert­ed into an iso­la­tion facil­i­ty. There were no sub­stan­tial repairs. We saw tarps, dilap­i­dat­ed walls, and mold. Some of the cells had already been new­ly plas­tered, though. As a jour­nal­ist, I was thrown into one of the decent cells. Then, I was moved to anoth­er one with inscrip­tions on the walls dat­ing back to the eight­ies.

I caught COVID there and bare­ly sur­vived. I could hard­ly stand when I was being released. Prison is char­ac­ter­ized by mun­dane suf­fer­ing, humil­i­a­tion, and arti­fi­cial cru­el­ty.

There were nine of us in the cell. We heard how the new­com­ers were brought in: dogs bark­ing, shout­ing, and swear­ing; peo­ple run­ning down the cor­ri­dor; and beat­ings and forced floor-gaz­ing. But at the same time, we thought, “We will get out and see how momen­tum for free­dom is build­ing…”

Prison pic­ture of a jour­nal­ist Aleh Hruzdzilovich

In real­i­ty, the protest was drowned out by the repres­sion. Were they tar­get­ing spe­cif­ic peo­ple? The ones who kept the fire burn­ing?

The sec­ond stage began in July 2021. Mass arrests of jour­nal­ists start­ed. A case has been opened against Radio Lib­er­ty employ­ees. They arrest­ed me, Dashchyn­s­ki, and Ina Studzin­skaya. The day before, the teams from Nasha Niva, Vias­na, and TUT.by had already been detained.

The real­i­ty was stark and unfor­giv­ing. Dashchyn­s­ki and I shared a cell at the Min­sk Remand Cen­ter. I saw our rel­a­tives through the win­dow who came with care pack­ages for us, but we didn’t receive any­thing. The guards didn’t give us any­thing: no sheets, no food. I lat­er added a draw­ing of that scene to my book.

There was one crim­i­nal in the cell, detained for drug pos­ses­sion. He taught us how to behave in the cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ty. He explained what to say to avoid being mis­tak­en for “gay,” how to han­dle things, and what could be picked up off the floor and what couldn’t — a sur­vival edu­ca­tion pro­gram.

Atti­tude toward pol­i­tics changed rad­i­cal­ly. In 2020, one thought of it as “evil that is mechan­i­cal­ly and unin­ten­tion­al­ly repro­duced,” but by 2021, one per­ceived evil as a sys­tem.

Aleh Hruzdzilovich on the first day after the unex­pect­ed lib­er­a­tion. Vil­nius, 2022. Pho­to: svaboda.org

The third arrest, six months lat­er, prob­a­bly revealed the sys­tem with no masks or coin­ci­dences.

When I arrived at the quar­an­tine unit, I heard: “Are you a polit­i­cal? Expect the pun­ish­ment cell right away.”

And I indeed end­ed up there. They came up with the rea­son. Alleged­ly, there was an incon­sis­ten­cy in the list of my per­son­al belong­ings. Like, some­thing was miss­ing. Under the guise of a legit­i­mate pun­ish­ment, I was sent to a pun­ish­ment cell.

The whole process looks pret­ty tech­ni­cal. First, they write the report. Then, there’s the com­mis­sion meet­ing, which sup­pos­ed­ly decides your fate. How­ev­er, every­thing has already been agreed in advance.

I was brought to the prison warden’s office, where sev­er­al oth­er offi­cers were present. He looked at the reports, saw “Radio Lib­er­ty,” and became angry. “Did you come here to spread lib­er­ty?” he asked.

He shout­ed, inter­rupt­ed, and threat­ened. When I tried to answer in Belaru­sian, he almost com­plete­ly lost it and ordered, “Deal with him. Put him in the SHU or send him to the ‘untouch­ables’ unit.”

As you walk down the hall, you can’t tell whether it’s just a threat or the ver­dict has already been passed. You know that words can car­ry real dan­ger. And then they take you to the pun­ish­ment cell. They beat you there — from behind, with­out a word. Then they leave you alone in soli­tary, and that’s it. The first evening is like sink­ing into the abyss for the first time. The night is the hard­est: sleep eludes you, time stands still, and you feel as if you no longer exist. In the morn­ing, you only think about mak­ing it to the evening. And in the evening, you think about mak­ing it to morn­ing.

That’s what life in a Belaru­sian prison is like.

Aleh Hruzdzilovich in the Seimas of Lithua­nia, where he was award­ed the “Hope for Free­dom” award. Decem­ber 1, 2022. Pho­to: BAJ

After all of this — Svabo­da and prison — is there a sense of gen­er­a­tional defeat? Or your per­son­al?

I don’t feel defeat­ed.

But I can smell resent­ment. I feel it from many. From peo­ple I grew up with, worked with, and who stayed on the side­lines. I didn’t see them at the ral­lies, in the crowds. Some of my class­mates, col­leagues, and rel­a­tives sim­ply soothed their con­sciences with the mantra, “Every­thing is calm. Every­thing is fine.” Even now, they still don’t want to change their world­view. Offi­cial cre­den­tials, posi­tions, and con­stant fear pro­tect them.

How­ev­er, oth­ers “over­ran their banks.” I saw them in a human chain that stretched from Kas­trych­nit­skaya Square to the Red Church. Yes­ter­day, they vot­ed for Lukashen­ka, but today they said: “We are dis­ap­point­ed. If noth­ing changes now, we are quit­ting.”

This is Belarus. It’s not black-and-white; it’s live­ly, com­plex, and diverse. Most impor­tant­ly, it is capa­ble of awak­en­ing.

But why did some catch the wind of the age, while oth­ers didn’t think of any sails and didn’t set off any­where, con­tent with “being well-fed”?

There is no uni­ver­sal answer. After all, every­one has a dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ence and respon­si­bil­i­ty lev­el. In the broad­est sense, the Sovi­et school sys­tem taught peo­ple to keep their heads down, avoid risks, and not ask ques­tions. It was inject­ed into our blood. And it’s not easy to get rid of it.

I recall one col­league in par­tic­u­lar, whom I won’t iden­ti­fy, although his name is quite famil­iar to many. He worked for a state news­pa­per his whole life. He’s a good jour­nal­ist, and once boast­ed to me that he’d nev­er been abroad. Not even to Poland. It’s a vicious cir­cle: a per­son has nev­er seen how things could be dif­fer­ent and doesn’t seek to do so.

What opened your win­dow to anoth­er world?

This is not just one or two events… Here is one exam­ple. On my father’s table once lay the poem A New Land by Yakub Kolas, writ­ten while he was in prison. It wasn’t part of the school read­ing list, but it helped me. But some­one did not have that oppor­tu­ni­ty. Instead of hunt­ing for cool books, they learned how to catch gud­geons.

There were enough top-class job jock­eys in the orbit of Lukashenka’s pow­er ver­ti­cal. But there were also peo­ple like Piotr Vasi­uchen­ka, who was a mod­el of nation­al con­scious­ness: a remark­able cre­ator and sci­en­tist, a gen­uine Belaru­sian.

He raised and struck a spark out of so many peo­ple! And not only in sci­ence.

Thanks to peo­ple like Piotr and oth­ers whom I did not have time to men­tion, a new gen­er­a­tion has emerged imper­cep­ti­bly. To be hon­est, I didn’t expect 2020 to be so mas­sive. Before 2020, when I watched columns of activists num­ber­ing just a few hun­dred in a two-mil­lion-strong Min­sk, I thought that, at best, the 2010 elec­tion sce­nario would repeat itself. But I wit­nessed a pow­er­ful rev­o­lu­tion!

Aleh Hruzdzilovich at the con­fer­ence “Belaru­sian Jour­nal­ism: Where Tomor­row Begins”. Vil­nius, Sep­tem­ber 16, 2025. Pho­to: BAJ

So what sup­ports my faith?

It is Radio Lib­er­ty, to which I ded­i­cat­ed half of my cre­ative and civic life. A prison guard thought it was Amer­i­can, just as pro­pa­gan­dists often claimed. I’ve seen it count­less times: for every­day Belaru­sians, radio served as a mir­ror, offer­ing a gen­uine reflec­tion of them­selves and their coun­try. Togeth­er, we are fight­ing for the Belaru­sian lan­guage, dig­ni­ty, and the right to call a spade a spade.

I recall one inci­dent at Min­sk Remand Cen­ter. An old­er man who was detained for his com­ments rec­og­nized my name and remem­bered my arti­cles from the Znamya Yunos­ti times. It’s impos­si­ble to ignore the fact that my work and the lives of my sub­jects were not in vain.

If peo­ple in prison remem­ber our truth, then we lived with dig­ni­ty.

The project “Voice of the Free­dom Gen­er­a­tion” is co-financed by the Pol­ish Coop­er­a­tion for Devel­op­ment Pro­gram of the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs of the Repub­lic of Poland. The pub­li­ca­tion reflects exclu­sive­ly the author’s views and can­not be equat­ed with the offi­cial posi­tion of the Min­istry of For­eign Affairs of the Repub­lic of Poland.

[1] Vladimir Vysot­sky was a Sovi­et singer-song­writer, poet, and actor who had an immense and endur­ing effect on Sovi­et cul­ture. He became wide­ly known for his unique singing style and for his lyrics, which fea­tured social and polit­i­cal com­men­tary in often-humor­ous street jar­gon.

[2] Vasil Bykau was a promi­nent Belaru­sian dis­si­dent and author of nov­els and novel­las about World War II.

[3] The Black Hun­dreds were reac­tionary, monar­chist, and ultra-nation­al­ist groups in Rus­sia in the ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry. They were staunch sup­port­ers of the House of Romanov, and opposed any retreat from the autoc­ra­cy of the reign­ing monarch. Their name arose from the medieval con­cept of “black”, or com­mon (non-noble) peo­ple, orga­nized into mili­tias.

[4] Oppo­si­tion leader Henadz Karpenka’s death and the dis­ap­pear­ances of for­mer Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Yury Zakha­ran­ka, oppo­si­tion leader Vik­tar Han­char, busi­ness­man Ana­tol Kra­sous­ki, and lat­er jour­nal­ist Dzmit­ry Zavad­s­ki were blamed on Lukashen­ka and his secu­ri­ty boss­es. These crimed have not been inves­ti­gat­ed until now.