Belorussian students get a taste of normal learning

By Eva Krafczyk Jul 10, 2005, 16:38 GMT

Warsaw - For more than two years 15-year-old Maks has been studying "underground" after his high school in Minsk was outlawed and closed by Belorussian authorities. In the next two months, Maks will get to enjoy a taste of normality in proper classrooms in a school building. Together with about 100 other students aged 13 to 17, he plans to spend his summer holiday in neighbouring Poland hitting the books.

Maks had only started his education at the Minsk school, acclaimed due to its modern education programmes in the Belorussian language. Intellectuals, but also members of the state administration, considered the school as the right place for their children to get a good education.

The school's foundation dates back to a Sunday school during the late stages of perestroika, school director Ulazdimir Kolas recalls. In the early 90s, as the Soviet Union collapsed, it was converted to a regular school.

"It was almost an education revolution," Kolas smiles. "Teachers, students and parents stormed the school buildings of the Communist Party. This was how we got our school building."

Located in the centre of Minsk, the school with seven branches in other Belorussian cities soon became a cultural centre as well as a place of education. Exhibitions, concerts and lectures in Belorussian went beyond the school curriculum.

"We did not only want to lecture in Belorussian: our goal was de- sovietization, an education for democracy," Kolas stresses. These values and goals were viewed favourably when Belorussian president Alexander Lukashenko was elected in 1994. After a long series of conflicts the school was shut down in 2003.

The resolve of the students and teachers was tested when they were told they were to be scattered around Minsk, attending other schools, with classes taught in Russian. Instead parents rented apartments and bought tables and chairs. "We lost our building, but we still had our school," Kolas says.

Today the school is illegal, yet not completely secret. As "externs" the students pass exams at a regular state school, quite often achieving top grades according to Kolas.

But the outlawed school faces a number of problems, starting with police harassment and the repression of parents who even risk losing their jobs. "My friends at normal schools envy me nonetheless," 15- year-old Jauhien says. "They can only dream about such lessons. Very often they do not even know the names of the great authors we read in our classes."

The closure of the school was certainly not the first repression by Lukashenko's authorities of uncooperative Belorussians, recalls Lavon Barsceuski, president of the Belorussian PEN-Centre. Barsceuski remembers strikes against independent journalists and the media. "But the school was a symbol. You can't start a war against children. Even many Russians in Minsk were outraged," Barsceuski said.

"This is not just about the fate of these kids and teachers. The school is setting an example and stands as a symbol that you can do something."

The school no longer feels isolated. Polish organizations are supporting the school with money and materials. The Polish Ministry of Education announced funds for students who passed their exams to study in Polish universities from the autumn. Germany acknowledges the school's certificates.

Diplomatic relations between Poland and Belarus have been tense since the two-way extradition of several diplomats and efforts by Belorussian authorities to take control of the Polish minority in the country.

The students from Minsk, however, are enjoying the full extent of Polish hospitality. Two schools in and around Warsaw offered their classrooms, laboratories and sports facilities for the students' summer school, and film directors Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof Zanussi are meeting with them, as are former dissidents like Bronislaw Geremek and Tadeusz Mazowiecki who 25 years ago advised the striking workers in the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk in their negotiations with Communist government.

"We know only too well what learning in secret means," Piotr Cywinski from the Club of Catholic Intellectuals says, explaining the support for the Belorussian students. "What kind of future will Belarus have in 20 years or so when the young people can't even speak their native language?"

"Secret lessons" have a long standing tradition in Poland, starting from Tsarist rule. Under German occupation during World War II thousands of Polish students attended classes in underground schools. The "flying universities" during communism continued this tradition, filling in the censored parts of history texts or reading "forbidden" authors.

Kolas is convinced that his school is educating the future elite of a democratic, post-Lukashenko era. For now, however, his students don't see their future in Belarus.

"It has never been so bad in Belarus because for the first time the dictator is ours," Jauhien sighs.

"Maybe things will change in Belarus over the next ten years," Maks hopes. "But I know until then I can only go abroad if I want to study."