"Why should we somehow restrict ourselves?". RTBD director explained why she staged a play based on Pushkin in one of the last theaters in the country that worked in Belarusian

Svetlana Naumenko, director of the Republican Theater of Belarusian Drama, was a guest of the latest episode of the program hosted by Minister of Culture Marat Markov.

During the conversation, Markov inquired about the director's attitude to the criticism of the staging of the play "Little Tragedies" based on Alexander Pushkin in Russian.

"It's a bit unusual for the Republican Theater of Belarusian Drama. So, what will this experiment give to the theater?" Markov asked.

"First, the undeniable facts. This is not my innovation. [...] At least five plays were staged in the Theater of Belarusian Drama in Russian, they were successful, they had successful tours both in distant and nearby foreign countries. And most importantly, viewers came to our home hall and also watched. That is, it's not some kind of 'what is it that you are doing?'" Naumenko answered.

Naumenko's arguments did not end there. She pointed out that the very name of the theater — Republican Theater of Belarusian Drama — does not mean that all works by Belarusian authors were originally written in Belarusian.

According to the director, the theater has a Center for Dramaturgy, where authors send their plays. At the same time, she claims, the vast majority of them are written in Russian, although the authors are Belarusians.

"They are Belarusian authors, but they write in Russian. Often, for performances or readings, we translate into Belarusian," she explained.

"It's not about the language, but about it being in Russian"

The director separately focused on the critics. She noted that some people express complaints about the play being in Russian, but they themselves write comments in Russian.

"We see where the comments are written from, who and from where. And imagine if we were now doing Pushkin, or anyone else, it doesn't matter, only in Polish or Lithuanian. Would we have these complaints? No. This means it's not about the language, but about it being in Russian. But this is a double standard," the director stated.

Naumenko argued that she has the right to decide independently in which language to work, as she has dedicated decades of her life to Belarusian theater.

"I have been working in Belarusian-language theaters for more than forty years. I speak Belarusian much better than those who write these lampoons to me. I love the Belarusian language. I am a citizen of Belarus. This language is also mine, like everyone else's. But why should we somehow restrict ourselves?" the director stated, switching to Belarusian during the conversation.

"People who got carried away also considered themselves patriots"

The conversation naturally moved to ideology and patriotism. Markov recalled that patriotic plays have always been in the repertoire, but in 2020, some cultural figures "got very carried away," and asked why the very concept of "patriot" turned out to be so blurred.

The director suggested that those who joined the protests might have done so out of conviction:

"Perhaps, the people who got carried away also considered themselves patriots. [...] There were many such positions where a person sincerely considered themselves a patriot at that moment."

After that, she added that such people were "controlled" by someone.

The Republican Theater of Belarusian Drama was established in 1990. It became one of the few state theater venues in Belarus where plays were staged in Belarusian.

In autumn 2020, actors Mikalai Stonka and Andrei Novik left the RTBD. In May 2021, Illia Yasinsky had to leave the country, fleeing. At the end of the same year, artistic director Aliaksandr Hartsuyeu, who headed the creative part of RTBD since 2012, was dismissed. In March-early April 2022, four more actors resigned or were dismissed from the theater.

Svetlana Naumenko became the director of the theater in summer 2024, replacing Svetlana Karukina. In the autumn of the same year, prominent actors Maksim Brahinets, Zmitser Davidovich, and Artsiom Kuren were detained, and then dismissed. After this, some of the most popular plays disappeared from the repertoire.

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