Project based on the pieces by Belarusian composers and documentary evidence of the tragedy and heroism of the Belarusian people during the Great Patriotic War 

The project was implemented with the support of the Foundation of the President of the Republic of Belarus for the Support of Culture and Arts

 

Music by Evgeny Tikotsky, Nikolai Aladov, Nikolai Churkin, Anatoly Bogatyrev, Heinrich Wagner, Lev Abeliovich, Isaac Luban, Vladimir Olovnikov, Igor Luchenok, Eugene Glebov, Dmitry Smolsky, Oleg Khodosko 

 

Texts by Vadim Shefner, Adam Rusak, Ryhor Baradulin, Arkady Kuleshov, Anatoly Grechannikov, Nil Hilevich, Uladzimir Karatkevich, diary entries, memoirs and materials by N.P. Loban, A.A. Yushkevich, A.I. Rudkovskaya, P.I. Volkodaev, M.I. Brudner, D.L. Aisenstadt, N.I. Efremenkova, U.P. Marinkina, P.S. Gilevich, V.S. Luparev, Y. Radkevich, A.A. Volkov, A.S. Azonchik, S.I. Savinskaya, I.I. Lobach, P.N. Golovach, R.A. Govorushko, M.I. Osyanina, A.A. Belko, V.S. Garbuk

 

Concept and libretto: Anna Motornaya 

Musical arragement: Oleg Khodosko 

Selection of documentary materials: Yuliana Shirmo

Director: recipient of the Francysk Skaryna Medal Anna Motornaya

Musical director: People’s Artist of the Republic of Bashkortostan Artem Makarov

Choreography and staging: Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation Igor Kolb

Chorus master: People’s Artist of Belarus, laureate of the State Prize of the Republic of Belarus Nina Lomanovich

Designer: Lyubov Sidelnikova

Costume designer: Lidia Malashenko

Computer graphics: Lilia Shkarupa

Lighting designer: Evgenii Lisitsyn

Conductors: Vilati Hryshchanka, Vladimir Ovodok

Assistant director: Yuliana Shirmo

Premiere: 22 and 27 September 2024

 

Современник – Владислав Зозулько
Марыся – Мария Галкина
Родина-мать – Оксана Якушевич
Сват – Андрей Селютин
Сваха – Татьяна Петрова
Жених – Иван Березин
Невеста – Анастасия Храпицкая
Дружка – Андрей Клипо
Апанас – Денис Янцевич
Партизан Пайкин – Андрей Селютин
Левчук – Андрей Клипо
Партизанки – Дарья Горожанко, Марина Лихошерст, Анастасия Храпицкая
Партизан Тихонов – Иван Березин
Клава – Елена Золова
Голос памяти – Мария Галкина
Узник – Андрей Матюшонок

PROLOGUE

 

Human MEMORY is selective, and every time we ask ourselves what allows us to remember past events, thoughts, feelings, or the relationship between them? We see life in different ways, and most often, we see only what we expect to see. 

 

But do we, the children of our fathers and mothers, born under the peaceful sunny sky of our native land, we, the hope and future of our country, have the right to forget? No! Today it is our duty to remember! 

 

To REMEMBER every third one. To remember the names of the heroes. To save in the memory of generations the tears of women and the old, the fear, pain and horror of children of the bloodiest and most brutal war. 

 

REMEMBER our great predecessors, those who wanted to live, love, build and create. 

 

May our soul not harden! May our bright Belarusian music sound, the lights of our theatres shine, happy people sing and dance. 

 

 

HEROES ARE NOT BORN HEROES

 

It is the year 1939. This page of our Pathétique Memory Book reflects the time of the opening of the grandiose building of the State Opera and Ballet Theatre on Trinity Hill, which became a symbol of the Belarusian academic cultural tradition. Like the one today, the artistic council considers creative applications, expresses its wishes and recommendations, selecting the best of the best. Ballet and opera companies present stage fragments of different nature and visual solutions, which will become part of a large programme for the decade of Belarusian art in Moscow. High spirits, thirst for creativity, anticipation of remarkable events and joyful meetings reign. 

 

We remember them: our creators, artists and directors, designers and conductors, musicians and choreographers. We remember our history, carefully preserve the unique world of creativity and love for national art. 

 

 

AT DAWN 

 

Let us turn over the page of our memory. Now it is the year 1941. 

 

How important it is to preserve a peaceful sky and protect life, love, and the native land! Unfortunately, we realize this when we lose everything we have. 

 

How wonderful it is to see the sunrise, to live and love, and have ahead a long and happy future, the birth of children, a creative impulse and a cloudless sky!

 

“It was a cold June day. The sun came out, and then hid behind white clouds again. Crowded trams were heading out of city. Minsk residents were going to the park with their whole families. The forest rustled in the cold northeast wind and resounded with the songs of the youth.” 

Mikola Loban, Belarusian writer and front-line soldier

 

All this could have remained in the life of our people, if not for the treacherous attack of Nazi Germany. The June dawn of 1941, at 4 a.m., was a dawn that divided life into “before” and “after”. 

 

 

BREST HERO FORTRESS 

 

“There were intermediate barracks about two kilometers from Rechitsa near Fort No. 8. In September 1942 I saw the Germans transporting women, children, and old people in a vehicle, and later my wife went to see those who had been shot – large graves were filled to the brim with corpses and blood protruded through a shallow layer of the ground along with the swamp liquid.” 

Ivan Nazaruk 

 

The motherland mourns the innocent victims and the irreparable tragedy, sons and daughters, all those whose name became part of history or those who became an unknown hero of that terrible war, whose blood washed the Belarusian land.

 

Yesterday's boys and girls, civilians and valiant soldiers guarding the borders of our motherland, within a moment became heroes of the Brest Fortress, and the unbroken fortress became a symbol of honour and dignity, a monument of courage. 

 

 

EVERY THIRD ONE 

 

“My house was located next to the fortress. The Nazis set fire to the barracks with the prisoners. During the fire, many people tried to jump through the windows from the 2nd and 3rd floors. They were met with machine gun fire. The prisoners burned for a whole week. The survivors said that about 22 thousand people had died.” 

Anna Rudkovskaya 

 

Occupation. Mercilessly and cold-bloodedly, the Nazi invaders marched across our land, turning cities and towns into ruins, villages into ashes, and the entire nation into unknowns. 

 

Millions of innocent victims of the war – children, mothers, old people… 

 

Thousands of burned villages and towns, letters and diaries drenched in blood, millions of personal stories and documents that will forever remain silent evidence of crimes against humanity. 

 

Public shootings and executions in town squares, thousands of punitive operations and acts of violent death… 

 

Jews or Belarusians? Adults, children or old people? Soldiers, prisoners, the underground or partisans? They are people! 

 

The Nazis killed about 3,000,000 residents of Belarus. 

 

Every third one.

 

 

PARTISAN BALLADE

 

“I didn't sleep all night. I got up very early. I thought of writing, but nothing went well again. An idea and a plot for a short story crossed my mind. So I had better start. The plot about the partisans became the plot of a whole story.” 

Mikola Loban, Belarusian writer and front-line soldier

 

"Planes flew in, started firing and throwing small-caliber bombs. The wife of the commander of Shestakov’s detachment was pregnant. She gave birth right in the open air on a sleigh. It was impossible to stay on the road, so they grabbed the baby, wrapped it in a fur coat and ran with this newborn for six kilometers through the swamp. Born to get immediately to hell..." 

Pyotr Volkodaev, Belarusian writer and partisan

 

 

BLOODY SHORE 

 

Concentration camps became a brutal machine of genocide in Belarus. 

 

In September 1941, when the entire Belarusian territory was occupied by the Nazi troops, about 7.5 million people were in captivity. 

 

Executions, gallows, gas chambers and burning, hunger and cold, the spread of epidemics, unbearable physical labour, the massacre of man by man...

 

 

ESCAPE 

 

“I decided to escape. The German convoy spotted two fleeing men and me. They were killed, and I survived.” 

(from the testimony of witness S.I. Savvinskaya) 

 

Hundreds of thousands of mutilated bodies, the fear and horror of tortured souls cry out to us from the past to remember… To cherish our peaceful and bright tomorrow… We are against the crimes of Nazism! We will never forget! WE REMEMBER!

 

 

KHATYN 

 

The bell of Khatyn rhythmically pulses to the beat of the heart of everyone who remembers this throbbing wound of Belarus. The land over which the wind rages: it ruffles the grass, sways the crowns of trees, howls bitterly and lulls the prematurely departed souls who never knew what life was like after the war. This is our land! Khatyn, Dalva, Shunevka, Azartsy, Zolotukhi, Perevesye… 

 

More than 300 villages were razed to the ground. More than 12,000 settlements were burned by the enemy. More than 9.5 million lives were ruined. The names of over 2 million slaughtered are unknown. Somewhere there are no memorable inscriptions – only the wind sings them a lullaby. The song that our voices turn into a requiem today. 

 

SO THAT THEY ARE REMEMBERED. 

 

We got the freedom of our native land at too high a price, and therefore the mournful ringing of the bells of Khatyn will sound at all times. 

 

 

EPILOGUE 

 

The memory of the fallen is sacred to us today, and the fire of eternal glory will not go out at the obelisks and monuments. We will not forget how hard it was after the war for our people to rebuild cities and towns, raise children and sow grain. We will always remember the pain of our fathers and mothers, we will remember brotherhood and the unpaid debt, we will erect new monuments, we will always speak and sing about the feat of our people. 

 

We, living contemporaries, will preserve proudly and reverently the legacy of the great victory and will not allow the destruction of our sacred memory and historical truth about the Great Patriotic War. 

 

REMEMBER! 

 

Wars cannot have a statute of limitations. There is eternity behind every second, and we stand in front of this eternity. The Great Patriotic War is a part of our history and a terrible testimony to the crimes of Nazism.

 

“... I received enlightenment, I received the worldview of a cosmopolitan, I know how and what to fight for, I know where the path of development of society lies, the best ideas of humanity have been instilled in me since childhood, and, my dear motherland, I proudly feel myself a successor and bearer of the culture of mankind...” 

Vissarion Harbuk, Belarusian writer and front-line soldier

 

.