Under pressure from feminists, Furmanau canceled a presentation involving Dziadok

Psychologist Volha Vialichka collected the stories of 15 Belarusian women in the book «Invisible: Voices of Belarusian Political Prisoners' Wives». Among those who shared their suffering while waiting for their loved ones and their attempts to support them is Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

On November 13, the presentation of that book was supposed to take place at the «Kropka» space in Vilnius. Journalist Nastassia Zanko was invited to host, and among the participants, in addition to the author, were to be two of the four authors of the book's forewords — former political prisoners Ulad Labkovich and Mikalai Dziadok.

But that presentation at «Kropka» will not happen.

A community of feminists published an open letter protesting Mikalai Dziadok's participation in the presentation. Among the signatories were Volha Novik, Volha Shparaha, Alana Hiebremaryiam, and others. In total, more than 20 signatures were collected, including from people with pseudonyms such as «Grandfather's Mouse».

The authors of the letter wrote about the scandalous relationship between Dziadok and Yana Stasialovich. That relationship began when Dziadok was 29 years old and Yana was 16. According to Stasialovich, she experienced psychological and sexual abuse in the relationship.

The authors of the letter called on the presentation organizers to exclude Mikalai from the list of participants.

They also appealed to «Kropka»: if Dziadok was still invited to the presentation, the venue, in the opinion of the letter's authors, should refuse the organizers permission to hold the event.

It appears they achieved their goal. The organizers received a message from Zmitser Furmanau, a former political prisoner and head of «Kropka». According to him, «Kropka» is denying the organizers permission to hold the event with Dziadok's participation. 

Zmitser Furmanau refused to speak with «Nasha Niva» about the cancellation of the presentation. But Mikalai Dziadok provided his comment:

«Volha Vialichka raised a very important topic — invisible violence in Belarusian families traumatized by repression. I sincerely hope that her book will be successful and attract as many people as possible to the presentation.

As for all sorts of letters: I would very much like their signatories, both male and female, to fight against Lukashenka as energetically as they fight against me'».

According to Volha Vialichka, the author of the book, a conflict between feminists and a feminist arose:

«This book contains a lot of women's pain, domestic suffering, and domestic violence. I was very worried that male political prisoners would criticize me — thinking I had twisted something — and I would ask feminists for help. But life knows how to surprise, and the opposite happened.

Feminism has long been one of my values. But I don't understand how the absence of dialogue and the exclusion of people contribute to balancing the rights of women and men. The idea of publishing a letter before contacting me directly is alien to me; I don't understand it. And it's unclear to me why this is called feminism'».

The author explains that her book is primarily intended for men who could read in it the state in which the wives of political prisoners found themselves. That is why Volha chose only men as reviewers: in addition to Dziadok and Labkovich, forewords were also written by Ales Bialiatski and Pavel Mazheika. All of them are former political prisoners whose wives waited for them while they were imprisoned, and Volha considers it important to speak publicly about how they perceived the experiences of their loved ones.

«This is precisely the promotion of feminist ideas, because this book is feminist. If we don't draw men's attention to the problem [of the fates of political prisoners' wives], we, women, won't solve it. Here, we shouldn't be waging wars, but negotiating.

I didn't see that open letter; no one contacted me [until] they published this letter. This doesn't look like a dialogue. It looks like a demand to do as they wish, without understanding what the book is about and why Dziadok and men in general would be there. These distortions are strange. It's strange and wild that someone would dictate to the author whom to invite and whom not to'».

Volha believes that being denied a venue for an event two days beforehand looks unreliable. The author of the book is grateful that another venue quickly agreed to host the presentation, and the event will still take place.

The date and time remain the same — November 13 at 7 PM — but guests are invited to a different location — the Belarusian Orthodox Parish of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, located at Bokšto g. 4. Mikalai Dziadok will also be among the participants.

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