Description

A defining feature of Belarusian theatre in the first half of the 2020s has been the large-scale erasure of figures (and sometimes entire theatres) from the history of national art. This widespread purging has also affected theatre studies. Some were simply no longer published, while others were forced to go abroad. Those who were able to continue their work within Belarus began to write more cautiously. The management of media outlets remaining in the country seeks to avoid the names of those on the so-called blacklists. The general public no longer has access to articles, historical texts, interviews, and reviews published on the old websites of state newspapers such as “Litaratura i Mastactwa” and “Kultura,” or the magazine “Mastactwa.” Theatre texts also became victims of the state’s fight against independent media. Along with information resources, the reviews and interviews published there also disappeared.

Nastassia Pankratava’s book brings back into the theatre studies discourse a portion of the texts to which free access in Belarus has been blocked—with varying degrees of success. It contains selected articles that appeared in both state media and independent resources. It helps to restore many events and names that influenced the development of theatrical art in Belarus. After 2020, the systematic work of national theatre critics was disrupted, which is clearly seen in this book, where analytical materials from the last five years are more often summaries of twelve-month periods or results of major festivals.

The book helps to capture the current moment in theatrical history, fills the gaps that appeared after the events of 2020, and restores fragments of both individual biographies of theatre figures and theatrical processes that were vibrant in the professional community just a few years ago.

This edition will serve as a resource for researchers and theatre scholars studying the designated historical period, as it allows them to see what national theatre was like before the forced split and how it continues to develop on different sides of the Belarusian border after it.

Настасся Панкратава, Настасься Панкратава, Анастасія Панкратава, Анастасия Панкратова, Nastassia Pankratava, Nastassia Pankratava, Anastasiya Pankratova, Anastasia Pankratova, Anastasia Pankratova, Anastasia Pankratova, Nastassia Pankratava, Nastassia Pankratova.