Introduction to Vasil Bykau's Alpine Ballad
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Introduction. Vasil Bykov, 1924 to 2003, Vasil Bykov was undoubtedly the most significant Belarusian prose writer of the 20th century who earned a wide international reputation through translations of his works into Russian English and other languages. In 1980 he became a people's writer of Belarus despite having had his works considerably censored in the preceding decade. It was however a great disappointment to his friends in Belarus and abroad that he was not awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001. Despite the support of such luminaries as Joseph Brodsky, Chela Milosh, both themselves Laureates and the distinguished writer and politician, Vaclav Havel. It may be added that Biko himself, a modest man seemed least concerned by this event. The fact that in 1978 he was elected a people's deputy of the BSS R and in 1989 a people's deputy of the USSR witnesses to the high esteem in which he was held. Nothing however was as powerful as an open letter in 1988 from the students of Nova Polotsk who described him as the conscience of the Belarusian nation born into a peasant family in the Vitebsk region of Northeast Belarus. After his school days, he studied sculpture at the celebrated Vitebsk art school whose distinguished alumni included Marchal and Haim Sutin, but was unable to continue for financial reasons. During World War II, he served in an engineering battalion and from 1943 held the rank of a junior officer and was twice wounded. It is precisely from the point of view of morally strong junior officers that most of his works are written. Recalled to the army after the war. Bekoff began writing stories in 1951 and his first notable work was Zale Kriek, The Cry of the Crane 1959 which is set in 1941 and depicts a small group of soldiers faced by a virtually impossible mission. Much of the novel's point of view is that of a young boy experiencing war for the first time. Already, Biko's concern with psychology and the behavior of people in life threatening situations is evident in later works. The themes of treachery often by stalinist officers and the traces of the ruthless and cynical past in present-day, Belarus also become prominent in his prose. Indeed, most of Bao's intensely realistic work is based on his own experiences of the war and has little in common with most heroic panoramic Soviet war literature. Instead, many of his works analyze the wartime choices and tough moral decisions of young officers dealing with existential crises usually in tight spaces and over short intense periods, the decisions demanded are based on humanity and realism. Often in contrast to the immoral behavior of cynical commanding officers, as well as to cowardice and treachery in all ranks after an illustrious career as a highly respected Soviet writer, some of whose works were too outspoken to be published in his own country. Bykov emigrated in 1998 4 years after the accession of Belarus's current leader, first to Helsinki, then Frankfurt and finally to Prague returning to Minsk shortly before his death in 2003, after the collapse of the Soviet ***** and particularly during his period of exile, Bako extended considerably the thematic range of his works whilst retaining his strong interest in the stalinist past and its present day heritage of harshness and immorality. His prose written abroad became even more outspoken and some of his later works took the symbolic rather than realistic form of parables which illustrated obliquely his frequently bleak view of Belarus and Belarusians. Although his concern for his countryman's weakness and mistakes never obscures his deep love for his native land evident throughout his works. Before turning to Alpine ballad. Originally Alka Bala, it is worth mentioning, three outstanding works already published in English translation. The first Sotnikova 1970. The ordeal 1972 is a powerful depiction of bravery and cowardice. But without overt moral judgment in which Bykov cleverly shows the strong temptation of self preservation as well as the difficulty of living morally under Stalin, narrated by each of the two partisans, a particularly difficult assignment in occupied Belarus. The ordeal is extreme and the mission doomed from the start despite their being sheltered by some peasants, one of whom is the village headman allowing further discussion of how to behave under an occupation. As cruel as pre war peace time had been the double point of view of the narration enables Bykov to achieve the high level of objectivity for which he was famous. Another prominent novel, probably the most autobiographical of Biko's works. Mtm Nibali, The Dead Feel No Pain first appeared in a journal in 1964 but was subsequently banned for 17 years and only in 2009 appeared in full uncensored form. Although it had been published abroad far earlier, its English translation came out in 2010, Bekoff was persecuted by the highest political and literary authorities as well as the KGB for daring to write about individuals rather than epic struggles. The story is of a young officer who detailed to ****** some German prisoners in 1944 is severely punished because they escape entirely through circumstances beyond his control, his disgust after the war at seeming to find one of his tormentors enjoying Postwar life underlines not only the rigidity of Soviet views on World War II, but the longevity of stalinist ideas and behavior finally should be mentioned, a novel thought by many to be Biko's best Zak Bia 1982. The sign of misfortune 1990 in this work set at the beginning of the war, there are no Soviet soldiers or partisans only intermittently brutal, occupying German soldiers and their willing Belarusian collaborators. The Poliza on a desolate farmstead, an old couple face a particularly bleak future. The old man feels that only an accommodating attitude can save them whilst his wife remains determined to take revenge. Particularly interesting are the extended flashbacks to the fanatical and ruthless dispossession of the Kula rich peasants at the end of the 19 twenties, witnessed by the old woman in her youth. For it is the bitter Children of the dispossessed peasants who naturally joined the Germans local helpers. Any of the three novels mentioned above may be recommended to readers enthused by the novel now presented to the public Alpine ballad first published in 1964 is in some respects untypical of Bao's writing, having elements of lyricism and intimate feelings not found elsewhere in his work. It is moreover, not set in Belarus but in a foreign land with finely detailed nature descriptions and contains far more dialogue than this writer's characteristic terse exchanges and interior monologues. Following its appearance in Russian, Bykov, always translated his own works from Belarusian into Russian. The novel became popular and was soon turned into a film. The Russian version incidentally was considerably censored and Biko's original text modified, for instance, by watering down Ivan's criticism of the collective farms to Julia, his naive Italian friend, as well as completely removing parallels between the fascist and Soviet systems. Ivan frequently attempts to disabuse his companion of her idealized preconceptions, preferring honesty to beautiful lies and clearly remembering Stalin's appalling purges in the years leading up to the war. But toward the end of the book, he recants and praises his homeland in order to console Julia, the publication of Russian versions of Biko's works often gave the censors always suspicious of this uncompromising and relentlessly honest writer of all the major writers of his generation, Bykov never joined the Communist Party a second chance to change and remove anything that did not follow the Soviet version of the Great Patriotic War. Their name for World War Two, which for them, following the Molotov Ribbon Trap Pact lasted from 1941 to 1945. Although Alpine ballad is more romantic than most of Biko's works. His qualities of taught realistic narration, honesty of principles and a strong sense of Belarusian patriotism are also evident here in this, the only one of his works to give a major role to a foreigner moral and other questions are mostly raised through dialogue rather than reflected in internal monologues. Ivan is almost the only character in Biko's works to feel intimate emotions. Also notable are the writers experiments with a rather comic though ostensibly realistic depiction of Julia's speech. Biko was known to his friends as a mild, modest man with a good sense of humor. Although his prose is generally too severe and taught to allow any levity. Alpine ballad was a new departure, allowing him through the words of a foreign communist to show an idealized and completely unrealistic picture of the Soviet *****. It was Ivan's modest, though not unpatriotic attempts to modify the Italian extremely optimistic views that among other things fell foul of the censor. This new translation of alpine ballad into English provides a welcome introduction to an early work of a major Belarusian writer acclaimed throughout the Slavic lands and beyond. Arnold mcmillan, emeritus Professor of Russian Literature in the School of Slavonic and East European Studies University College London.