Ivonka Survila: We Are Awakened, Ready To Defend Our Homeland Till Victory

On April 11, Ivonka Survila, Chairperson of the Council of the Belarusian People's Republic, turns 85.

Ivonka Survila was born in Stoubtsy, spent the first years of her life in Zasullie, then moved to Baranavichy with her parents. Then there was East Prussia, Denmark, then - Paris, Madrid, Ottawa ...

Ivonka Survila studied at the Graduate School of Art in Paris, graduated from the linguistics department of the Sorbonne University. She prepared Belarusian programs on Spanish radio in Madrid, worked in the Translation Bureau of the Federal Government of Canada.

She was a co-founder and chair of the Canadian Foundation for Chernobyl Victims in Belarus. Since 1997 Ivonka Survila has been the Chairperson of the BPR Council.

In 2008, the Library of Freedom published a book of memoirs of Ivonka Survila “The Road”, in 2019, the 100th anniversary of the independence of the BPR, published a second edition, which contains 100 answers to questions from Radio Liberty.

Radio Liberty congratulated Ivonka Survila on her anniversary, and asked her to answer a few questions.

- In August 2020, many had hopes for a quick departure of Lukashenka. The reason was the appearance on the streets of hundreds of thousands of people - this has never happened before in the history of Belarus. However, this did not happen. Why, in your opinion?

- If the events after the vote on August 9 did not take place in Belarus, but in Romania or Libya, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya would have become president in some eight months.

The same would be true in every civilized European state, where people live by human laws, where human rights are not empty words, and where the law is written not by a junta of corrupt Soviet-era nurslings, but by a legal society.

In Belarus, there was a struggle of honest people who believed in their truth, and took to the streets to defend it, against a gang of criminals led by a mentally unstable impostor who imagined that the Belarusian land is his property. And we all know that when the struggle is between good people and all sorts of terrorists, it is not good people who win, but terrorists.

This is what happened in Belarus.

On the one hand, tolerant, kind and sincere people took to the streets, convinced that they would save their people from captivity, and defeat lies with their bare hands, because the truth was on their side.

And on the other - organized crime. Without any sense of belonging to the Fatherland, but on the contrary - seized by weapons, which were given to them with an unlimited right to use it against their people.

And whatever the endurance and courage of good people, they were not able and were not going to start a war on their native land. They retreated not because they succumbed to force, but because their love for their people and the tolerance by which the people endured all the injustices, predestined to them by history, kept them from armed action.

- As a result of repression in the recent months, a new wave of political emigration occurred. How do you think it differs from the previous ones?

- The new wave of political emigration strongly reminds me of our post-war wave, which lasted until the restoration of independence of Belarus and contributed a lot to the century-old liberation movement.

In my opinion, the new wave of political emigration will continue the struggle for a democratic and Belarusian Belarus, and will return to the homeland as soon as possible to rebuild their independent state. And in the meantime, they will try to prove to the world that it's time to help our Belarusian people get back on their feet.

- The year before the 85th anniversary was very difficult for you not only because of political events: you lost your daughter Paulina. What helped you survive this tragedy?

- Yes, this year was very difficult for me. Every mother who has suffered the misfortune of losing a child would understand this.

People from Belarus helped me a lot to survive these 11 months. I, like Belarusians around the world, did not move away from the media. Everyone wanted to know, to see everything. I shared information with people around me, they - with me. The world has never talked so much about Belarus as this year. If someone did not know where Belarus was in early 2020, then everyone knew in August 2020.

People admired the behavior of our youth on the streets of Minsk. They admired the young people taking off their shoes before standing on the bench, or collecting garbage after the demonstrations. Admired the sea of white-red-white flags. Imagine what a delight it was for my heart!

However, I often thought how happy Paulinka would be if she saw all this. Sometimes there was a feeling that she could not help seeing this. That she also waves a flag somewhere in the streets of Minsk. For her, this is a familiar, “own” city. She lived there for almost a year in 1993, when she was working on her doctoral thesis.

I do not know how I would have survived without this heroic rise of our people.

At the same time, the Belarusians abroad also have never been so united, close to each other, full of patriotism. They held concerts, demonstrations, world congresses, gave lectures, recorded songs, wrote poems in support of fighters in Belarus.

I knew and loved many of our younger Belarusians here in Ottawa. During this year they became my closest friends.

- Have Belarusians changed in the last year, in your opinion? And if they have - how?

- Recently I had the opportunity to speak at an international conference on Belarusian identity. In my opinion, its foundation is the deep love of our people for their land. We do not realize how deep this love is, until there is a need to defend Belarus from some serious trouble. Then this love turns into a powerful weapon. And so it seems to me that it happened in 2020. We did not change, but woke up. We are ready to defend our land till victory.