International Mother Language Day is celebrated on February 21. Today we greet it in mourning in connection with the death in the Lukashenko prison of the political prisoner Igor Lednik, who, despite his disability and serious illness, was thrown behind bars for speaking out against the anti-Belarusian, anti-people regime. He added to the martyrdom of our heroes. The Belarusian language today is in such a state that it was not in, during the last century. Continuing the course of forced Russification taken after the anti-constitutional so-called referendum of 1995, the Lukashenka regime is liquidating the Belarusian education system. Almost all public initiatives were destroyed, including the Society of the Belarusian Language named after Skoryna.
For a Belarusian word spoken in the presence of Lukashenka’s security forces, people may be subject to repression. Everything is being done to make Belarusians forget their native language and their true history. Consolidation of the Moscow-dependent colonial mentality in the new generations is also aimed at the introduction of history textbooks identical to Russia. In such conditions, every spoken Belarusian word, every Belarusian book and every Belarusian song, play and film increases in value many times over.
This year’s Mother Language Day is timed to the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great Belarusian writer Vasyl Bykov, one of the leaders of the national revival. Let’s recall his last words, spoken in defence of the Belarusian Humanitarian Lyceum named after Yakub Kolas, which was destroyed by the authorities – “We must fight for our native language!”.
