"Dear ones, have fun, play, and frolic. May you have a store of good experiences in old age." Sviatlana Kurs's last year — in her posts

On July 20, 2026, Belarusian writer Sviatlana Kurs, also known by her literary pseudonym Eva Viežnaviec, passed away. She had been living with an oncological disease for over a year. Sviatlana shared her diagnosis, treatment, fear, pain, and the unexpected joy of each lived day on Facebook.

She named her cancer Jessamy, took "chemotherapy instead of champagne," underwent a nine-hour operation, re-learned to walk, and found joy in white lilac, rain, the cry of swifts, kind people, and the very possibility of being "present" — fully participating in life.

We have compiled a chronology of this last year – from the moment Sviatlana learned about her illness to her last posts.

Павялічыць

"After despair came balance"

Sviatlana Kurs learned about her diagnosis in the spring of 2025. The stage was terminal. She would later write that doctors gave her a maximum of a year to live, "more likely 6-9 months."

The first reaction was despair. But almost immediately after it came another feeling:

"After despair came balance, I do everything in my power — lightning fast. Such trials befall a person, and it is a person's business to meet them calmly and humbly. No mysticism, no black despair — sober normality, peace, joy from people and life. It's May and June, nothing will dim its brilliance. The sun will help us."

At this time, a fundraiser was opened for her treatment. Sviatlana thanked people for money, help, and advice. And she herself, even when lying "like a dead rag," continued to follow the war. The news of the Ukrainian operation on Russian airfields instantly restored her strength:

"I was lying there like a dead rag, but I read about the GUR operation on the orc airfields. And I sprang to life like a rocket! Glory to Ukraine! I voted, listened to the swifts. Greeted the wildflowers and the gorgeous, big, fluffy jasmine."

Sviatlana wrote about her nostalgia:

"My nostalgia for Belarus is so deep that I don't feel or notice it until I fall asleep. And in reality, it manifests when I read comments on NN. The way Belarusians joke and quarrel, no one else knows how, and that's normal — I love Poles because they are Poles, and Germans because they are Germans. I miss life in Belarus, nature, travels, feasts, meetings, and even trasianka (Surzhyk, mixed language). 'Nothing can replace Belarus,' thank you for it."

At the same time, she clearly felt her place in Europe:

"I want to live, identify, and die in Europe. With its irony, sophistication, age, tenderness, wounds, with its learned lessons. My place is here."

Павялічыць

"Now it's in the hands of medicine, the Lord, and my vital forces"

Before starting treatment, Sviatlana called what awaited her a battle:

"This will be a battle for several months, a year. Specialists were recommended to me, and I found some privately myself. With a clear conscience, I can say that I am in the best possible conditions and hands. I am grateful to every person for money, time, help with contacts, for information, specific informed advice. You helped a lot, friends, I lack nothing. Now it's in the hands of medicine, the Lord, and my vital forces."

On her page, Sviatlana intended to leave not notes about treatment, but other memories:

"Here I will write all sorts of trifles dear to my heart. My world has now become very small, like that of a 5-year-old child, but also huge - like that of a five-year-old child. I ask to be treated as such."

This world indeed simultaneously narrowed and became boundless. In it, the rain outside the window, the rustling of leaves, the smell of wet earth, the style of a skirt, a stranger's smile, the ability to walk to the shower oneself acquired significance.

Павялічыць

"If I survive — wonderful. But if they help make the transition — that's not bad either"

Sviatlana reflected on possible death calmly, almost routinely:

"Any option will satisfy me. If I survive — wonderful, if they prolong my life — wonderful, but if they help me make a smooth and painless transition — that's not bad either.

I had a wonderful shared life with all of you in a wonderfully beautiful, though formidable and ruthless, place. This is the most terrible and enchanting fairy tale I was ever told, set against the backdrop of sky, trees, birds, the change of seasons — this change of seasons is a brilliant invention! — among beautiful cities and the most abandoned 'ruin'. Among small, dusty localities-backwaters all over the world. Among gray houses and modest little front gardens with forgotten flowers.

I apologize for the pathos, I wasn't ashamed of it when I was healthy, poured it generously, and even less so will I be ashamed now. A lot has become permissible for me."

The illness brought a few "Pyrrhic gifts" as well:

"The first gift of cancer is that Belarusian and Ukrainian news no longer rip out my guts. I already have the main news.

The second gift is that I can behave like a complete introvert and antisocial bastard — without feeling guilty.

Thirdly, I now have two pets — a cat and cancer. And generally, fucked-up situations free you. But I wouldn't wish such Pyrrhic gifts on anyone."

Cancer named Jessamy

Sviatlana named her cancer Jessamy. She talked to it and offered a kind of agreement:

"I told him that by killing me so quickly, as in the first months, he was also killing himself. We can have a kind of cooperation. 'You don't rush, you consume me slowly, you disappear, you hide somewhere as a small cell, and then you return. This way, Jessamy, we can stretch out some meaningful time.' I named him Jessamy because it's a nice name and a fitting occasion to use it."

After chemotherapy, she would have two "honey days" — a time of relative independence when she could walk around the summer city and somewhat tidy up her neglected world. Then the body was covered by a "cottony heaviness":

"Consciousness dozes, and the pain is small, but unpredictable and spreads wherever it wants, along all the rivers and roads of the human body. This lasts for 3-7 days, and then the person wakes up, as if their consciousness has been washed clean.

You'll probably think I'm a little out of my mind because of the illness. But that's not true. I've always been like this."

Павялічыць

Survive for the sake of a blue skirt

On days when her condition allowed, Sviatlana listened to the night rain and ran from the window to the gallery. She was preoccupied with the question of why people had invented so few ways to celebrate rain.

Just recently in the hospital, she had only seen an elm branch outside the window, swaying back and forth like a pendulum. Then she intensely desired a white gauze skirt down to her ankles — light, with many ruffles — and white sneakers.

"I literally wanted to survive for such a skirt. And I bought it. Blue, actually. The asphalt smells of mint now."

The desire to live long enough for a skirt was no trifle. Life now consisted of such things — not of grand plans, but of the chance to go out on a summer evening.

"Just two months ago, I thought I would never see or experience summer again. And here it is! People are walking at night in white festive clothes, tanned, laughing, carefree. Oh, what happiness, what joy."

"Drip-drip, healing poison"

Sviatlana called chemotherapy a healing poison:

"Drip-drip, healing poison. Chemistry destroys cancer and me. Everything in the world is ambivalent, logical, and everything has a price. No one leaves life unscathed and without losses."

She tried not to escape reality, even with painkillers:

"For some reason, I like everything and everything satisfies me. The best way to live is in sobriety and awareness. To be 'present,' to participate fully."

Павялічыць

Initially, her condition was so severe that she wasn't suitable for any treatment. Then the doctor said that Sviatlana was a "good stayer": her results were improving, and she could now be considered for an operation. But along with hope came confusion:

"I didn't die, but I got confused. What should I do with myself now at this crossroads? Should I buy a travel pass for the next three months? What if I don't live that long, it'd be a shame to waste money. Should I buy a coat? Or return to work and public activity?

At the same time, I don't want to know my timelines — what's the point? I have no big dreams or desires, I don't want to drastically change my lifestyle, because I liked my life. There's something amusing, adventurous, full of magic and adventure in this. A person from nowhere, a person nowhere. A person after the end of their story and their ideas about themselves."

"Without hair, eyebrows, and teeth, I'm in a cheerful mood"

The illness changed her body. Sviatlana didn't hide this and didn't shy away from humor. She admitted that she had a particular fear — of losing her front teeth. Chemotherapy severely affected her gums.

"It feels like fate decided to drag me through all my horrors and terrors. Without hair, eyebrows, and teeth, I somehow remain in quite a lively mood. People have it worse, they suffer silently, while I boast, even if lisping."

She asked acquaintances not to be alarmed if they met her on the street. She regretted that she would now kiss no one — "not even theoretically." And she was surprised: it was during this period that passersby particularly often asked her for directions.

A white hat betrayed her as a cancer patient. Strangers told their stories, cried, wished her health.

"People look at us, cancer patients, with relief that it's not them, with horror and pity. They don't give up their seats, mostly so as not to offend. 'Are you afraid? I was afraid of us myself!' — one wants to tell them."

And yet, life was still perceived as a gift:

"The life of a smeared, imperfect, weak person has its bitter joys. For example, no one makes demands or expectations of them. Nor do they make any of themselves. This turned out to be no small relief."

After the sixth chemotherapy, she first "died completely," and then began to revive in parts:

"It was as if living water seeped into me and revived me. It's a feeling impossible to convey. 'Like Persephone, I rise and come to life,' I whispered to myself. Human life is a mystery, a mystique, and an eternal return."

"Hunger for Beautiful Belarus"

Even at this time, Sviatlana continued to think about what Belarus could be. In Warsaw, she saw people waiting for a special "Chopin" tram. Two elderly men joked: "Chopin died long ago, but these still wait!"

Sviatlana envied the Poles:

"I wish we could live such a life at home too. Kupala tram, Medieval tram, Piesniary tram, Tram of Michał Aniempadystau and his Christmas Hares. And festivals, festivals — singing, dancing, culinary... My great hunger for Beautiful Belarus."

For her, Belarus was not a slogan or an abstraction. It was an opportunity for talented compatriots to serve their own country, rather than realizing themselves in foreign paradigms.

She wrote about national identity as something deeply personal. She observed how a familiar merchant from Kaunas "lit up with joy" when he heard the Lithuanian "ačiū," and concluded:

"Even more so, I do not understand foolish and hostile attacks on foreign identity and I hate empires."

During another period of turbulence, she held onto what she considered most enduring:

"I always grasp onto my home, my nation, my family, my history. And I stop trembling. A nation is the unity of the living, the dead, and the unborn. These are very enduring things, they cannot be torn away by anything."

"Why I hate everything Russian"

The hatred for Russia in her posts was not a casual emotional reaction. Sviatlana worked with documents of Soviet repressive organs and saw how the state machine destroyed people. She spoke about a declassified SBU case: after the arrival of Soviet troops in the town of Zlochev, the NKVD arrested 19-20-year-old children of Polish officials and policemen, accused them of "counter-revolution," and shot them.

"Seemingly nothing new, but there are 183 pages of a developing case, and I know there will be no happy ending for the children. And on some page, I see their tormented photos. The accusation begins: 'Being patriots of the former Polish state...' That's why I hate everything Russian. It is incompatible with anything human."

In the NKVD execution and torture documents, she saw yet another form of contempt: the names of victims, geographical names, and dates were written haphazardly. 18-year-old Aliaksandr Damaracki was shot under four different surnames, 17-year-old Stakh Viečarak under three.

"These are legally worthless documents, according to which people were killed. Terrible contempt. Russian world."

Recalling the Holodomor, Sviatlana spoke about her grandmother's words — about Ukrainians who died on Belarusian roads and doorsteps:

"Emaciated skeletons who could no longer digest food. We and Ukrainians have heavy accounts with Russia; such accounts will drag it by the neck into the swamp. Eternal memory to the dead; may eternal memory sting the living, no matter how much 'Russification' and its vile servants try to erase it."

And at the same time, she understood how strong and dangerous a feeling hatred is:

"Hatred is a very important feeling, and it must be handled sparingly, like a priceless ambergris. Hatred is a very potent substance; if you use it indiscriminately, it will curdle the protein in your blood."

"Taking chemotherapy instead of champagne"

On her birthday, January 9, when others might have given her something personal, Sviatlana was receiving chemotherapy:

"Taking chemotherapy instead of champagne. Next to me is dear Ms. Hanna, a colleague in illness, a Facebook friend. Reading some philosopher I forgot. Thank you all for the greetings, kissing everyone, the mood is champagne-like and even playful."

Instead of gifts, she asked for money to be transferred to those defending Ukraine:

"To all who want — and can! — give me a gift, I ask you to send a donation to the men and women who are defending us in Ukraine. Glory to Ukraine!"

For her, the war was not news that existed separately from her own illness. She wrote that the life of "small ordinary people" is only possible in a healthy democracy, with the preservation of law and legality.

"This is what they want to take away from us — life itself in freedom, well-being, justice. Against us are those who face no threat, and for them our lives are worth a pittance.

In the Bible, there's a wonderful story about David and Goliath. A sling features there. That is, a drone. And we can provide the AFU with drones."

Nine hours of surgery

Before a serious operation, Sviatlana wrote that Jessamy had "generously spread his claws." She lay down on the operating table "with fear, hope, and gratitude."

"An elderly nurse told me: 'I've never seen anyone look so [composed] in the case of a lady. Perhaps someone exceptional is praying for the lady.' And I know who. You, my miracle-workers."

The operation lasted nine hours. The head of treatment called it "heroic." Ten days later, the pain subsided, and Sviatlana wrote with the mood of an "enchanted wanderer":

"I like everything, especially my body, crossed lengthwise by a thin line, like Harlequin's. With gratitude, I said goodbye to my womb — the cradle of my only wonderful child. The womb reminds me of a bagpipe or a duda, this instrument creates the music of Life itself."

After this, Sviatlana wondered if, along with the organ, her ability to admire men had disappeared. The answer came on a bus, where a man "beautiful as love itself" entered — over fifty, weathered by life and women, but lively and spry, in a beautiful scarf.

"My heart soared like a rocket, and I realized that everything was in place, and it had even gotten better, because cancer took away from me what was superfluous — constant fear and anxiety about trifles and about things that did not depend on me."

My future is still very uncertain. But now, with impatience, trust, and joy, I am recovering and going out to live."

Павялічыць

"We're, you could say, in the same bed"

Before Christmas, Sviatlana met a homeless man in the vestibule of a store. He asked for a bun "and something with the bun." She bought bread and a lot of sausage: she thought that if she were homeless herself, she would want "a slice of 'Podwawelska'" (a type of sausage).

— "I'm homeless," the man said.

— "And I have cancer."

— "Tell me your name, and I'll pray for you in the evening."

— "Sveta. I am Belarusian. And yours? Because I can pray too."

— "Marek. We're, you could say, in the same bed."

— "Yes!" Sviatlana laughed.

Then she wrote:

"In our state, Marek and I, no one shows off or says anything superfluous anymore. And it is there that the simplest and most important things begin."

At the end of the year, she summarized what she had understood during her illness. During the operation, her heart stopped, and now Sviatlana asserted:

"There is no death or non-existence. There is waiting, like before a closed curtain in a theater. Trusting silence, full of unspoken, restrained good."

She called classical literature "God's shadow on earth." Romantic love — greatly overrated, because another kind exists. She urged people not to humiliate:

"People should be treated respectfully, non-violently, and carefully. All people, even the worst. There is nothing worse than fear, falsehood, and lies. Magic and joy are necessary; without them, you won't survive."

She went for a walk, eavesdropped on people's conversations in dark courtyards, and suddenly felt:

"I feel healthy for the first time in a very long time. And I wouldn't change anything. I want to live a simple life among simple people. This, it turns out, is a privilege and happiness."

"Somewhere in my core, I remain a girl"

During her illness, Sviatlana never stopped observing people. Women held a special place in her posts — young and old, strong and vulnerable, funny, beautiful, imperfect.

Watching videos that stylized middle-aged women, she resented the discomfort: pointed-toe high heels, wide suits, many necklaces, belts, scarves, and a small handbag.

"And that's it, walk like that, making sure all this machinery lies nicely. I just cringe from the discomfort. It's better to live for oneself than to create a feast for others' eyes. But I'm very curious. And I also love to see what treasures people snatched in the second-hand shop."

But she did not romanticize old age:

"Old age is a nasty thing for both the sensible and the mad. But the sensible ones can somehow adapt to it. Find meaning."

She herself compared herself to an old tree:

"I am like an old tree, with rings and a core within me; somewhere in that core, I remain a girl, a young woman. I am drawn to young women, I look at them with love, pride, and hope."

"Ordinary life is poetry"

In 2026, her page was again filled with urban scenes. Sviatlana went to the clinic, gossiped in line, listened to others' complaints, made "micro-purchases" in small shops, fed sparrows with sunflower seeds.

"Now I am that very elderly woman who monitors the queues at the polyclinic! This came suddenly. And what can I tell you? It's wonderful. Your correspondent from the world of illness and aging."

She fought for the attention of tits and sparrows — and eventually won: they loved her seeds and lard.

With joy, she noticed city bikes on the streets — "roughly like the arrival of storks." She examined maple seeds and the trampled shadows of last year's leaves.

"So what if it's gray, so what if it's cold, so what if there's war and exile. Spring. Spring! My spring, I lived to see it and I rejoice."

In the warm rain, she listened to starlings and baked an almond roll:

"A warm, heavy rain is falling; it smells of fresh earth, grass, sprinkled dust. Newly arrived starlings are whistling. I baked an almond roll.

Ordinary life is poetry. It's a great pity that there are so many villains and rogues in the world who try to take it away from people."

In Kampinos Forest, she and her son discussed how he would live after her death, where they would start repairs, and whether they would be bored in paradise. Sviatlana admitted that eternity frightened her — what if it was an eternal trap? Her son replied that boredom is inherent to the mortal human psyche, and "afterwards," the psyche would be different.

— "Look," she said, "what our main problem is!"

"Private, intimate meetings and relationships give me the greatest strength, faith, and happiness. Belarus lives in every person and in the commonwealth of small communities, where the most important, indestructible things happen. My dear friend writes to me from Bolivia and Peru, sends photos as if from another world, my friend went with me to buy flowers and panettone, and in the evening in a small red-brick colony, I sat in a deep soft armchair, immersed in it up to my ears, by a tiled stove and listened as gentlemen and ladies from the Belarusian theater studio, sitting in a circle, read a play by roles.

How much joy there is in this."

Павялічыць

"Silence, solitude, overcoming, and struggle"

The prolonged illness still cut her off from normal life. Sviatlana canceled most meetings and events, as she was heavily dependent on her condition. She couldn't talk much or engage emotionally as she used to.

"I even got used to the word 'struggle,' although it seemed too demanding and inapplicable to everyday life. But that's exactly what it is: silence, solitude, overcoming, and struggle, because no one can accompany me on this bold and risky adventure. I'm interested."

Nevertheless, she continued to work. With enthusiasm, she received archival documents in which people, realities, and landscapes of the past came to life. She received the medal "For fruitful work for the benefit of Belarus" and immediately downplayed her own merits:

"I haven't worked nearly enough and gathered only two frog-fulls of fruit, besides, everything for Belarus is not work, but pleasure and a call of blood."

"I survived, I stood up"

In April, a year after her diagnosis, Sviatlana's health again deteriorated. Her stomach and heart failed. For weeks, she couldn't eat; she vomited several times a day. Blood couldn't be drawn on the fourth, sometimes sixth attempt. She could walk five to fifty meters. But then "some high, bright wave" rose in her heart:

"I listened to loved ones, doctors, but I knew that I could only get up myself."

She listed everything that lifted her: "qi energy" from Yulia, pickled tomatoes from Maryna, flowers from Vika, her son's support, Freddie Mercury, Leonard Cohen, Johnny Cash, Boris Grebenshchikov, the night singing of birds, IV drips, "basic trust in the world." And dried beef:

"I somehow instinctively guessed that jerky was my salvation."

On one of these terrible days, she held a meeting at the "Bookinistka" bookstore. Because she really wanted to. She took tramadol and went.

And then came the day when her body didn't reject food for the first time, and she walked to the shower herself.

"How happy I am about everything! I went out onto the balcony, to a small chair, with tea and a pinch of dark chocolate. Alive again, smiling again at the sun, and the greenery, and the 'far niente', the white lilac, the people walking below in light, bright attire."

She ordered carbon poles and hoped to start walking again.

"I survived, I got up, I don't know for the how manyeth time, I don't know if for long, but joy simply bursts from me. And I need to completely change my wardrobe."

She lost a lot of weight and called herself a "greenish cheerful skeleton" dancing the danse macabre. She remembered her grandmother, who sat on the porch, squinted at the sun, and said: "I'm probably fucked!" — and that made Sviatlana cheerful.

At the end of her post, she left one short sentence:

"I believe so much that I am not afraid."

"My message is — love May"

Soon she was back in the hospital. In the ward next to her lay her peer Sviatlana from Zaporizhzhia and 83-year-old Pani Božena with short white curls and gold-rimmed glasses. Sviatlana and Pani Božena spoke Polish, the Ukrainian woman understood everything and replied in Ukrainian.

"We found a common language, necessary, sufficient, without chatter. Nothing superfluous, gloomy, obligatory. The staff was the same, Polish-Ukrainian-Belarusian."

From the hospital ward window, she continued to observe life. She saw how an elderly woman, who was afraid of injections, quietly died in the morning on the bed near the window, in the sunlight.

"Relatives came, a quiet weeping stirred and subsided, they hung a beautiful pale azure shroud. Everything was beautiful and dignified."

Upon returning home, Sviatlana managed to say goodbye to her cat Lyola, who had lived for almost 18 years.

"I'm home. I arrived just in time to say goodbye to Lyola, who died a samurai's death. Blind, semi-paralyzed, she first beat up a few crows on the gallery, then a few veterinarians, and rested proudly and peacefully in her 18th year of life, held by a heroic gray paw. She was a small gray lion with an untamed and wild heart."

Павялічыць

Sviatlana herself was alive, but very tired. Her "time-space" had become her apartment and her loved ones. She thanked people for the financial "safety cushion" on which she could now rest. And conveyed the main message:

"My message is — love May, the world has not seen such a beautiful May as this year. A leisurely, wide, panoramic spring.

I also want to note that what pleases me most is the music of Yann Tiersen and the wonderfully beautiful symphonic fire shows of the AFU."

"Thank God I'm in the garden"

In her last posts, the illness no longer hid behind jokes. Chemotherapy, surgery, and strong medications brought Sviatlana to a semi-lying state. In the hospital, they restored her water and acid-base balance. She asked not to call or write without urgent need. But she continued to look at other people's stories:

"I look at your loved ones, families, children, dogs, cats, gardens, flowers, hobbies and travels, achievements with pleasure. I myself am now doing gymnastics again, walking, reading, scrolling."

"Some things in me cannot be scraped away with a grater. I've aged, become repulsive, turned green like a goutweed, and I'm threatened with cachexia, but how terribly glad I am that I've lost 28-30 kg and my proud weight is now 62 kg. Even a rabbit must have joy."

She still saw politics even in how the city treated plants:

"Warsaw's dendrological and floral policy is very cool. New varieties of plants are being introduced, not typical for our latitudes, newly bred, newly discovered. The city is blooming, the aromas are stunning. Everywhere, for example, wisterias, magnolias, new types of ornamental junipers that smell of oceanic musk, animalistically pungent and fresh. Like in a Botanical Garden. Today I walked from Świętokrzyska metro station and was very, very pleased.

In democracies, trees and flowers are cherished; in dictatorships, they are destroyed, straightened, and maimed. There is a simple explanation for this. Everything must resemble a prison or military parade ground, from which one cannot escape even in thought.

Thank God I'm in the garden.

A tree is a symbol of life and freedom, as well as private human comfort. How many loves have blossomed under the lush, merciful, protective canopies of trees! Under tanks and Illyiches (statues of Lenin) — not a single one."

Sviatlana wrote about death without unnecessary tragedy, and called upon others to live as she herself lived: to have fun, play, and frolic, accumulating good experiences.

"Dear ones, have fun, play, and frolic. May you have a store of good experiences in old age and the light of your optimism, which will shine even when your youth and vitality wave goodbye.

Fear nothing. Illness and death grant the mercy of taking away the joy of life and the desire for it. You will only want to sleep, and besides your bed, nothing will interest you — neither love, nor spring, nor food, nor news. And only loved ones become a pity — why this happens to them. Whoever has lived long will surely die; why do we need unnecessary tragedy.

"Where others managed, you will too. Anyway, it was a free gift, and you don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

She called life a free gift that would one day have to be returned. However, until the very end, she never stopped noticing that this gift consisted of white lilac, light attire, bird calls, funny old women, kind girls, books, Belarus, rain, dried beef, and the chance to rise again.

"I survived, I got up, I don't know for the how manyeth time, I don't know if for long, but joy simply bursts from me."

• 8
• 1
• 0
• 1
• 0
• 22
• 0
• 14