About Pavel Zhuk And His First Independent Newspapers

The Titans are leaving.

Paval Zhuk, the famous Belarusian publisher, died on the morning of February 15.

Paval Zhuk was born in 1956, in 1989 he was a member of the publishing group of the Literature magazine, founded by Siarhei Dubavets and Ales Bialiatski. Then he took part in the publication of News of the BPF (the Belarusian Popular Front), Nasha Niva, the publication of the first independent television company MM4. In March 1990, together with Dubavets and Ales Gurkou, he published Dzien Voli-90, timed to coincide with the 72nd anniversary of the BPR, the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) reports.

Dzien Voli became the prologue of the legendary newspaper Svoboda, the first issue of which was published in April 1990.

Zhuk had been publishing the newspaper Svoboda until November 1997, it was closed later on after repeated warnings for publishing articles critical of Lukashenka's policy. In January 1998, the newspaper was revived under the name Izvestia, Zhuk went back to being the publisher.

Paval Zhuk - the publisher of the first independent newspapers

Siarhei Dubavets mentions the beginning of Paval Zhuk's activities as an independent publisher:

“1990, the USSR still exists. The non-state press is still illegal. Couriers from all over the Union go to Vilnius, where the Institute of Physics of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences has a risograph, and, most importantly, large circulations of independent illegal newspapers are published. It's already possible here. Not for free, of course, because this is a business. Paval Zhuk from Belarus is standing in the multinational queue. Soon he will load the circulations of Belarusian publications into his Zaporozhets and go to Minsk, where the newspapers will instantly fall apart. At that time it was the only alternative to official propaganda other than Western radio stations.

The cause developed rapidly. And the first issues of the Svoboda newspaper were published not on a risograph, but in large print in the Latvian city of Limbazi, 18 km from the Baltic Sea. There was still a monument to Lenin (only a huge head), but national flags were already hanging on the houses. Zhuk rented a small local printing house for the night. We arrived in the same Zaporozhets, and in the morning 45 000 copies on the trucks left for Minsk.

Paval managed to find printing houses and organize the whole process in the most unfavourable times and under the most incredible circumstances. The first issue of Nasha Niva came out in their native Baranovichi, which was just celebrating City Day, and the issue of Svoboda came out in Mogilev during the days of the August coup.

After numerous bans, newspapers began to be published in Lithuania and out there. It is hard to even imagine the scope of a publication of 100,000 copies. One person - the publisher Paval Zhuk, organized the whole process.