Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: “On this day 33 years ago, Belarusian became the state language. It happened even before the collapse of the Soviet empire and became a significant step toward our independence. All laws, codes, and state documents were written in Belarusian. At schools, not only the history of Belarus, but also mathematics, physics, and chemistry were taught in it. And more than 85% of the population named Belarusian as their native language. But that didn’t last long.
After Lukashenka’s first amendments to the Constitution in 1995, our language lost its status as the only state language. And the next census showed the number of people who use it and call it their native language dropped by a third. Today we see that even despite being enshrined in the Constitution, bilingualism does not work. Today, a local official is unlikely to address or answer you in Belarusian. Today, for reasons unknown to us, even the history of Belarus is taught in Russian at schools. Books by our writers are banned, and even prisons punish inmates for speaking their native language.
All this is part of the regime's policy of destroying our national identity. But I see Belarusians doing everything to remember their roots. Every day more and more people understand the value of their native language and start speaking it to their friends. Even with mistakes at first. But step by step, we move toward our freedom and independence, understanding that they are impossible unless we have our national consciousness.
As long as we speak Belarusian, it remains alive, as does free Belarus. Remember how many works of the Belarusan classics we have, which come from equally hard times! Vasil Bykau, our national hero, even bypassed Soviet censorship because the censors didn't understand Belarusian and only corrected the Russian translations. This demonstrates that our language is our weapon. And I'm sure that we can defend it and ourselves, and give Belarus the freedom and independence that we and our prominent ancestors dreamt so much of”.
