Description

“The Invisible: Voices of the Wives of Belarusian Political Prisoners”
Author: Volha Vialička

Illustrator: Sviatan Ptach

This is the second book by psychologist Volha Vialička. This time, the interviewees are women whose husbands have been imprisoned for their beliefs. Some of the women appear under their real names, such as Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, while others use pseudonyms. However, a sense of protest is evident in all the texts—against the circumstances that left them with no choice.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Aleś Bialacki:

Belarusian Madonnas

Introduction

1. Women’s Stories

Sviatłana Cichanoŭskaja:
I was sustained by the image of the man I loved and could not hold in my arms

Alesia Rak:
Thank you for getting through this with me and staying together

Volha Ivašyna:
I think they’ll release my husband when I no longer have the strength to wait

Aryna:
I can’t control my dreams—it’s not like bookkeeping, after all

Halina:
I was afraid to believe that my husband would be released

Alaksandra:
What saved me was that I saved him

Vieranika:
I hate a cold bed

Kataryna:
I was thinking about getting a divorce, but then 2020 came along

Hanna:
My strength is running out

Vieranika:
For a long time, I lived with the label of “unhappy.”

Raisa:
My husband’s imprisonment became a liberation for me.

Łarysa:
I don’t want to be a monument to the wife of a political prisoner.

Natalia:
The conflicts began a week after my husband’s release

Valeryja:
I lived through the rose-colored glasses of faith

Nastaśsia:
I bit down on the comforter so my child wouldn’t hear my screams

2. A psychologist’s analysis

3. Opinions about the book expressed by former political prisoners
Uladzimir Labkovich:
I couldn’t even imagine what my family had gone through

Mikalai Dziadok:
The suffering of the wives of political prisoners is an invisible dimension of repression

Pavieł Mažejka:
It feels as if I were watching a chronicle of human hell

Afterword