"If I were an investigator for the KGB, I would highlight the very same thing." Fiaduta on the hidden meanings of "The Ears of Rye Beneath Your Sickle," the security forces' attention to his manuscript, and the enigma of the third part of Karatkevich's novel

Aliaksandr Fiaduta is a literary scholar, political scientist, journalist, and former political prisoner. In 2022, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in a case about a "conspiracy to seize state power." On December 13, 2025, Fiaduta was released along with a group of Belarusian political prisoners and taken to Ukraine. He now lives in Poland.

On October 2, Fiaduta spoke in Vilnius, presenting his book "Lexicon of 'The Ears of Rye Beneath Your Sickle'". This is a literary commentary on Karatkevich's novel, which the author began writing in 2021 in the KGB pre-trial detention center.

"For the first time in my life, I had a lot of free time"

As Fiaduta recounts, "The Ears of Rye Beneath Your Sickle" was the first big book he read in Belarusian after school. Long before his imprisonment, the literary scholar believed that Karatkevich's novel needed a separate, thorough commentary and tried to encourage younger colleagues to undertake such work. But in the end, he took it on himself after his arrest in 2021.

"And then it turned out that for the first time in my life, I had a lot of free time. Because in life, free time is something you always lack. But when you are in a pre-trial detention center, you have nothing to do with your time."

Fiaduta recounts that in the KGB pre-trial detention center, prisoners could get the necessary books. Once a week, a special officer went to the Central Bookstore in Minsk with a list of books approved by the detention center's management. Fiaduta asked him to buy him "The Ears of Rye Beneath Your Sickle" by Uladzimir Karatkevich.

The literary scholar wrote his commentaries by hand in notebooks.

The investigator read the manuscript and left pencil marks

The first reader of the manuscript was the investigator.

"In one of the notebooks, there are his pencil marks. And you know, when people say that these people understand nothing — they understand everything perfectly well," Fiaduta asserts.

The investigator highlighted precisely those places where parallels between the novel and the Belarusian events of 2020 were most clearly readable.

"When I got these notebooks back with his marks and looked at them, I suddenly thought that if I were an investigator for the KGB, I would have marked exactly these phrases, these words."

The investigator asked Fiaduta to explain some parts of the manuscript:

"I wrote that the historical Kastuś Kalinoŭski is not the novel's Kastuś Kalinoŭski. But we will always perceive Kalinoŭski as Karatkevich wrote about him. Because in the struggle between a historian and a writer, a poet, the poet wins."

It was this phrase, according to the former political prisoner, that the investigator underlined with a pencil. And then he asked whom he meant by "historian."

"And then I realized that one of the well-known figures has a history diploma from the Mogilev Pedagogical Institute! And I said: 'Hienadź Vasilevich Kisialioŭ'," Fiaduta recounts with irony.

The investigator considered using what the political prisoner had written for a new criminal case. Fiaduta himself insisted that the manuscripts be given to his wife.

"He understood that if the manuscripts didn't come back to me, I would die. That's the only thing... I said: 'I won't take my medicine.' And after some time, the management of Valadarka, where all this was happening (Fiaduta had by that time been transferred to pre-trial detention center No. 1. - NN), and the Prosecutor General's Office forced him to return these manuscripts," the former political prisoner recalls and adds:

"You have to fight. The only thing I had was my life, and I had to fight.

I fought. My wife told me I was a fool. I said: 'Well, yes, what else to do?' A smart person wouldn't have done this at all."

Павялічыць

"Karatkevich's most important book. But not the best."

"'The Ears of Rye Beneath Your Sickle' is Karatkevich's most important book. Not the best, I'll say right away. Not the book that would be my favorite. My favorite Karatkevich book is 'The Boat of Despair'," the literary scholar admits.

Fiaduta connects the importance of "The Ears of Rye" primarily with the fact that Karatkevich virtually created the Belarusian tradition of the historical novel. Before him, there were isolated attempts at historical prose, but a full-fledged tradition, comparable to European literatures, had not been established.

And for Fiaduta, this is not just a question of literary genre.

Historical prose, he argues, is especially important for young readers. It is through it that a person first begins to perceive the past of their country not as a set of dates, but as their own history.

One of Karatkevich's most radical decisions, Fiaduta believes, is the very choice of the main character. In Soviet Belarusian literature, where the national past was often shown primarily through the peasant world, Karatkevich makes a prince the central figure.

However, Ales Zagorski is not just from the aristocracy. The entire novel, according to Fiaduta, tells about the hero's gradual acquisition of Belarusian identity.

For this, Karatkevich even invented the custom of "dzialkadvanne": a young prince is given up for upbringing in the large peasant family of the Kahuts. There, the boy forgets French, begins to speak Belarusian, gets used to simple food and the life of peasants.

"Further, Karatkevich's novel is a novel about how a young boy from a princely family, who at first started speaking French, and only later switched to the common, Belarusian language, how he becomes a Belarusian."

"Today's feminists would probably curse him"

At the same time, according to Fiaduta, "Karatkevich is far from an angel in his novel. The novel is thoroughly masculine. It is written from a man's point of view."

"Today's feminists, if they thought about what Karatkevich wrote about, they would probably curse him," the literary scholar remarked.

Nevertheless, he does not consider the female characters secondary. In Fiaduta's view, there is a scene in the novel unparalleled in prose. This is a conversation between two women who love Ales — Helena Karytskaya and Mayka Raŭbič. Ales, as the literary scholar retells, is torn between them, and Helena comes to his fiancée to announce her decision: "I've left. So that he would be happy."

Therefore, "The Ears of Rye," Fiaduta argues, should also be read as a novel about love.

"Women are victims. They are victims of their love. They sacrifice themselves for love," the literary scholar argues.

In the discussion from the audience, however, a suggestion was made to look at the heroines of the novel differently: their actions are not necessarily to be considered sacrificial if the women themselves make their choice. Fiaduta agreed with this clarification.

"All the women who surrounded the main character, it is precisely high self-sacrifice. It's not something that can be called humiliation," he summarized.

In his reflections on the role of women, Fiaduta went beyond Karatkevich's text itself. In his opinion, "the women of Belarus, and not only Belarusian women, but Polish and Ukrainian women too, are very strong people."

He noted that even 19th-century Russian literature depicted women from these lands as an active force, though often demonizing them, including attributing to them the role of instigators of rebellion.

Fiaduta also provided a historical example. He is currently working with the memoirs of Mikhail Muravyov's era official Alexander Masolov. In such sources, as the literary scholar argues, one can see the significant role that Vilnius women played on the eve and during the uprising of 1863-1864.

"About two hundred women from our region were exiled to Siberia. That's a lot. Even fewer priests were exiled than women," said Fiaduta.

The death of Kroer and the death of Stalin

Another parallel that Fiaduta finds in "The Ears of Rye" extends far beyond the era of the 1863 uprising.

The novel features the landowner Konstantin Kroer — a relative of Ales's mother. He wants to gather the Zagorskis at his place, but realizes that they won't respond to a normal invitation. So Kroer resorts to deception: he informs them of his own death to force them to come.

But later, "Karatkevich punishes him. When he is actually dying, none of the serfs will approach him or help him."

Fiaduta sees a parallel here with the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953.

"This death of Kroer personally reminded me of another death — that of '53 [...] When Stalin was dying at his dacha near Moscow, and no one came to him. They let him die. Because evil must be punished. It must be punished with loneliness and it must be punished with death," Fiaduta notes.

Did the KGB steal the third part of "The Ears of Rye"?

During the conversation, the version about the existence of a continuation of the novel was also touched upon. According to it, Karatkevich allegedly managed to write the third part directly about the 1863-1864 uprising, but the manuscript fell into the hands of the KGB.

"I can say that from my point of view, this is impossible," Fiaduta noted.

In the literary scholar's opinion, the structure of the novel itself suggests why it ends before the uprising. "The Ears of Rye" is a book about "the eve of spring," about the awakening of society before a great explosion. But a continuation would require a completely different conversation.

"The uprising of 1863-64 [...] was bloody, and there indeed both the rebels and the executioners led by Muravyov understood that it was war. Some hanged and shot, others also hanged and shot," says Fiaduta.

As the literary scholar explains, if Karatkevich had written a continuation, he would have had to show not only the repression of the imperial power but also the violence of the rebels.

"And Karatkevich did not write about that," Fiaduta is convinced.

According to Fiaduta, he shared his thoughts on the likelihood of the continuation of "The Ears of Rye" existing with literary scholar Siarhiej Shapran, writing him a letter from Valadarka.

"He sent me a letter where he said: 'Yes. I spoke with Ryhor Ivanavich Baradulin.' And Baradulin and Karatkevich were friends. Baradulin said that there was no third part in reality," Fiaduta recalls.

Павялічыць

According to him, after some time, Shapran shared with him the content of a transcript of a discussion of Karatkevich's manuscript in the Union of Writers of Belarus, which he found in the archives.

"Karatkevich says that there is a difference between a historian and a writer. And he says: 'I am not Kisialioŭ. I cannot write about what happened to Kalinoŭski afterward. Because to write about it means to write the whole truth.' Thus, the novel is finished, there will be no third part."

During the discussion from the audience, one listener noted that Karatkevich's novella "The Weapon" could be considered a kind of prototype for a possible continuation.

Павялічыць

"An encyclopedia of Belarus's political life"

For Fiaduta, "The Ears of Rye" is also important because Karatkevich shows different paths of resistance and different answers to the question of where the line of what is permissible lies.

"There are several directions of struggle [...] And among them are conspiracy, and what can be called an Italian strike, and uprising — all of this is there."

Therefore, the literary scholar suggests looking at the novel not only as a historical reconstruction of the 19th century.

"In this sense, Karatkevich is an encyclopedia of Belarus's political life," Fiaduta argues.

He says that he originally wrote his "Lexicon" as a guide for school teachers. But after his release, the literary scholar learned that "The Ears of Rye Beneath Your Sickle" is no longer in the Belarusian school curriculum. Therefore, he now calls his book not a guide for teachers, but a book for parents.

Aliaksandr Fiaduta's book "Lexicon of 'The Ears of Rye Beneath Your Sickle'" can be purchased via this link.

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