Kalesnikava: The war Russia started is not just against Ukraine. It is a war against European values

Maria Kalesnikava was a guest at the prestigious Beethoven Music Festival in Bonn, where she delivered a keynote speech on October 2, writes the German publication Deutsche Welle. She spoke about how music helped her survive in solitary confinement and explained why authoritarian regimes are in a panic fear of independent art.

"A person's external freedom can be taken away, sometimes almost entirely. Their freedom of movement, contacts with other people, and access to information can be limited. But it is much harder to control what has already become part of their memory, imagination, and inner experience. And it is precisely in this that I find the explanation for why culture is so important for a free society and why authoritarian systems so often view it with distrust," Kalesnikava stated.

Speaking about regimes' attitudes towards art, she added: "All dictators in the world, Stalin and Hitler, Putin and Lukashenka, hated independent culture, even if it had no direct political subtext."

Kalesnikava confessed that art became a means of survival, and in prison, she did not feel like a victim because she carried her experience within herself.

"I spent a lot of time in complete silence. But this silence was almost never empty, because music constantly played in my head. We musicians know this state very well: sometimes a melody or a musical phrase gets so stuck in your head that it's simply impossible to get rid of it. In normal life, this can even be annoying. In prison, I realized for the first time that this could be a great happiness," the former political prisoner said.

During a panel discussion, Maria spoke about Russian aggression. She mentioned that the realization of the scale of the tragedy came to her immediately when news of the invasion reached the prison in February 2022:

"The question often arises: what are we defending in Ukraine? Why do we need so much money and ever new weapons? For me, it is completely clear: the war Russia started is not just against Ukraine. It is a war against European values and European culture. It is a war against our civilization."

Today, Kalesnikava sees her mission as reminding the world about the fate of more than 800 political prisoners who remain in Belarusian prisons, as well as defending the freedom of artistic expression.

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