President Of Lithuania Meets With Svetlana Alexievich

Gitanas Nauseda discussed with the Nobel Prize winner for literature the issue of the Belarusian nuclear power plant.

On March 5, President of Lithuania Gitanas Nauseda met with Belarusian writer, Nobel Prize laureate for literature Svetlana Alexievich. The press service of the Lithuanian head of state informed about it.

The conversation focused on the exceptional works of the writer, including those related to the Chernobyl tragedy.

"Are we able to assess the painful experience and learn the right lessons from it? The construction of a modern "Chernobyl" - the Belarusian nuclear power plant in Astravets - is underway in Belarus, next to Lithuania. This is a threat not only to Lithuania, but the European Union as a whole. The book by Svetlana Alexievich "Chernobyl Prayer," staged in Lithuania and Belarus, is an alarm signal to states that underestimate the threat of the Belarusian NPP. We should work to ensure that no one had to write the chronicle "Astravets Prayer," - President of Lithuania said.

Also Nauseda and Alexievich discussed the priorities of cultural diplomacy in Eastern Europe, the importance of preserving historical memory and the threat of rewriting history.

They discussed the initiative to declare 2022 the year of Belarusian educator and publisher Frantsysk Skaryna. The President of Lithuania supported the initiative of Svetlana Alexievich to open a publishing house for women authors.

On March 5-6, the writer takes part in the international conference "Non-Healing Wounds of the Past: Consequences and Ways of Overcoming" organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania together with the Andrei Sakharov Centre for the Development of Democracy and the Institute of Psychology of Vilnius University.