Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
Zianon Pazniak
Belarusian politician and pro-democracy activist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Remove ads
Zianon Stanislavavich Pazniak[a] (born 24 April 1944) is a Belarusian nationalist[1] politician, one of the founders of the Belarusian Popular Front, leader of the Conservative Christian Party – BPF and one of the most prominent opposition leaders. He was the Belarusian Popular Front nominee for President of Belarus in the 1994 election.
Zianon Pazniak has lived in the United States since 1996.
Remove ads
Early life and education
Summarize
Perspective
Zianon Stanislavavich Pazniak was born on 24 April 1944 in the village of Subotniki, in what was then the Baranavichy Region in the Byelorussian SSR.[2] At the time of Pazniak's birth, the village was occupied by the Germans due to World War II. He was born into a Catholic family, and natively spoke the Belarusian language.[3][4] His mother, Hanna Jaŭchimaŭna Pazniak, was a native of Subotniki and lived there almost her entire lifetime. Through his mother, he was the grandson of Jan Pazniak, who was a publicist and politician active in the Belarusian Christian educational movement and the Christian Democratic Union during its founding.[2] He was eventually arrested by the NKVD in Vilna during 1939, and according to one version, was held in a prison in Staraja Vilejka near Maladziechna until 1941, but the circumstances of his death are unknown.
Soon after Zianon's birth, his father, Stanisłaŭ Janavič Pazniak, was drafted into the Red Army.[4] In December 1944, when Stanisłaŭ served on Eastern Front during World War II, he was killed, which left Zianon to be raised by his mother.[5] Later on Pazniak said that his life was not different with the loss of his father, as his mother insisted on imitating what she thought Stanisłaŭ would do when raising him.[5] When he was six, he stated that Russians starting populating the area due to collective farms, and stated that they were not understood leading to an anti-Soviet atmosphere in the village.[4] At the age of 14, he began training in photography under the local master in the area, a habit he would continue to do during the next few decades where he photographed the city of Minsk.[6] For his secondary schooling, he attended the local grammar school in his hometown of Subotniki.[7] When he was in the 10th grade, he was forced to join the Komsomol.[5] He initially resisted on the basis of his dislike of communism and foreign ideology, but he would otherwise not receive his certificate of maturity, so he formally joined.[5]
After finishing his secondary education, he moved to Moscow at the age of eighteen in order to study astronomy at Moscow State University.[5] He stated that he was not definite on his choice of career: he had switched between wanting to do history, photography, and theater at the All-Russian State University of Cinematography and the Russian Institute of Theater Arts.[4] However, he returned to Belarus by train through Smolensk as he stated he disliked the city upon arriving.[5] He also stated he was told that he would fail by a vice-rector at Maly Theatere for not speaking Russian, and that it would be better for him to go to the theater institute in Belarus for acting when he decided to pursue it.[4]
He then started studying at the Belarusian State Institute of Theatre and Arts in acting (briefly he entered journalism but switched out).[5] During his second year, he was expelled from the institute for being "politically unreliable" by the party committee.[5] During the winter after his expulsion, he slept at his friends' place while working as a stagehand at an opera house and as a photographer.[5] He was later reinstated on the persuasion of Maxim Tank, but chose to enter the Faculty of Arts instead.[5] He was expelled a second time before his final exams in philosophy to get a red diploma for allegedly tearing down a newspaper on the wall of the school written in Russian.[3] However, he was allowed to graduate from the institute in 1968 and defend his diploma after it was made public that he was expelled on the orders of the KGB.[8]
In 1969, a year after graduating, he entered the graduate school of the Institute of Ethnography and History of Art and Folklore of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR.[9] He became notable during the year he entered for his publishing of the article "Caring for the Future" in the newspaper Pravda, which focused on the river Nyamiha (or Nemiga) in Minsk.[10] In opposition to Pyotr Masherov's plan to destroy it, he attempted to collect signatures to send to Masherov against it, but eventually went to the newspaper, where it was approved by Mikhail Zimyanin for publication.[10] Masherov decided not to go through with destroying the Nemiga outwards, until at least 1972.[10] He completed his studies at the institute in 1972.[7]
Remove ads
Archaeological career
Summarize
Perspective
In 1972 he started dedicating himself full-time to preserving the old section of Minsk and its conservation efforts by collecting signatures in the Trinity Suburb.[10] Upon completion of his university studies, Pazniak worked as an arts researcher.[7] He also started creating samizdat by using a typewriter he got from a commission shop about the destruction of the culture of Belarus, while also working on a dissertation about repressed individuals associated with Belarusian nationalism like Vatslaw Lastowski.[11] After a wave of Soviet political-administrative repressions in 1974, he lost his job at the Arts Institute on the basis of staff cuts.[11] Through Alexander Kuzmin, a secretary for ideology of the Central Committee, he was able to be reinstated, but was advised not to return to the arts, so he chose history.[11] Pazniak worked as an archaeologist at the Archaeological Division of the History Institute of the Belarusian Science Academy.[7] His specialisation was the Late Middle Ages in Belarus.[7] He was heavily involved in efforts to preserve the remaining section of the historic centre of Minsk, which was considerably damaged by the redevelopment efforts undertaken by the Soviet administration after the end of the Second World War.[7] He also became more involved in the literary movement in the late 1980s, writing books on the history of Belarus and poems.[11] In 1981 Pazniak successfully defended a doctoral dissertation on the history of the theatre.
On 3 June 1988, Zianon Pazniak made public his research on NKVD mass executions in the forest of Kurapaty near Minsk, which he did alongside Yauhen Shmygalev.[12] He published the article in the newspaper Litaratura i Mastactwa (Literature and Art) under the title "Kurapaty - the road to death", where it was specifically published because the newspaper was relatively small, so it would be missed by Soviet censorship.[12] Vasil Bykaŭ wrote the preface to the article.[12] According to the book "Kurapaty: The Investigation Continues", which was published soon after in 1990, three boys in Zeleny Lug made the discovery of 23 of the graves on 1 May 1988, but Pazniak himself did not actually do the excavation part and only arrived after to document it and do an examination of the graves.[12] The article was broadcast on central television and republished in newspapers, and so the prosecutor of the BSSR, Georgy Tarnavsky, opened a criminal case into Kurapaty, which led to a commission being formed headed by Yazep Brolišs.[13] This quickly evoked a response in Belarusian society that was anti-Soviet due to the executions and also ignited independence sentiments.[14] In-depth excavations of the tract were conducted starting on 6 July, which Pazniak participated in, which eventually concluded that more than 100 thousand people were buried at Kurapaty.[13]
Remove ads
Political career
Summarize
Perspective
Founding of the BPF
On 19 October 1988, Pazniak led a meeting with other nationalists at the Minsk House of Cinema (now the Red Church) to create an organizing committee of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) and also the movement "Martyrology of Belarus" to document repressions in the USSR.[15] The BPF was modeled after similar fronts that were under indirect government control in the Baltics.[16] Soon after this, thousands of people in Minsk marched to Kurapaty when the committee revealed its investigations into it, in what came to be known as Dziady-88.[15] During the events of Dziady-88, Pazniak proposed the idea of a cross procession with a requiem being performed for the victims, which was implemented.[17] The rally ended with preventive arrests and tear gas, but Pazniak read off the Front's declaration despite him being detained. The founding congress of the BPF took place in Vilnius from 24 June to 25 June 1989, as it was not permitted in Minsk, which was attended by about 400 delegates.[18] BPF was the first party in the modern history of Belarus following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.[19] It quickly became popular as there was no other opposition movement, which also led to Alexander Lukashenko briefly supporting the movement and also giving a speech at a rally alongside Pazniak in Mogilev.[19]
Parliamentary activities
During the 1990 Byelorussian Supreme Soviet election for the 12th Supreme Soviet on an alternative basis, Pazniak led the BPF in the elections to receiving 30 direct members in the Supreme Soviet, which also indirectly included 30 others who supported the BPF.[19] Pazniak was one of the members elected in the 1990 election during the first round, and quickly advocated for a clear separation of the democratic fraction.[2][20] However, he received resistance as the authorities refused to register him as a candidate and the Central Election Commission invalidated nominations from the BPF, but under pressure, the members were re-registered.[21] One of his only actions during the time the parliament was the Supreme Soviet was to return national symbols as state symbols.[19] In March 1991, he led the BPF fraction to attempting to achieve Belarusian independence, thus also creating Belarusian citizenship and its own congress called the All-Belarusian Constitutent Congress.[2] These attempts were blocked by the Communist majority in the Supreme Soviet who instead supported President Mikhail Gorbachev's idea of creating a Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics, which Belarus intended to sign on 20 August 1991.[2] This led to security services wanting to form the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP), which Pazniak led the BPF to reject on the basis of the coup being an "unconstitutional seizure of power".[2] On 22 August, when the coup failed, a session of the Supreme Soviet was convened, which led to the BPF deputies drafting a package of bills and forcing Anatoly Malofeyev (the leader of the Communist fraction in the BSSR) off the podium.[2] On 25 August the declaration of independence was announced and Belarus became de jure independent.[2]
Before the first session of an independent Belarusian congress, Pazniak led the BPF deputies into drafting 31 bills on matters of state, including a denunciation of the 1922 treaty creating the USSR.[2] All of these bills were later implemented during the session, except for private land ownership.[2] During subsequent negotiations in October 1990 with Polish diplomats about shaping mutual relations and the border, Pazniak opposed the Białystok Voivodeship being part of Poland, calling it "ethnically Belarusian" and thus supposed to be Belarusian land.[22] He also advocated for a special status for Belarusians in Białystok, and stated there was "anti-Belarusian terror" in Poland.[22] He remained a member until 1996.
.png)
Remove ads
1994 presidential election
In 1994, he participated in the 1994 election as the Belarusian Popular Front nominee, gaining 13.1 percent of the vote. Pazniak’s candidacy was supported by the famous Belarusian writer Vasil Bykaŭ and a number of representatives of the Belarusian scientific community.
Exile
Summarize
Perspective
In 1996, Zianon Pazniak fled Belarus, citing a potential arrest by the forces of the Belarusian president Aliaksandar Lukashenka. He was granted political asylum in the United States.
On June 19, 1997, Belarus's prosecutor's office opened a criminal case against Pazniak accusing him of incitement to ethnic hatred against Russian people.[23]
Following emigration, Zianon Pazniak is still active in leading the CCP-BPF (Christian Conservative Party of the BPF). His endeavour to participate in the presidential elections of 2006 was set back when he refused to forward the requisite number of signatures gathered for his candidacy. Pazniak and the Conservative Christian Party – BPF refused to join elections in the oppositional coalition led by Aliaksandar Milinkevich in 2006 election.
He is a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism.[24] In 2018, Pazniak received the Belarusian Democratic Republic 100th Jubilee Medal from the Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic in Exile.
In the summer of 2020, Pazniak founded the association "Free Belarus", which, according to its own statements, "advocates the protection, development and representation of the Belarusian nation, the Republic of Belarus and Belarusians around the world".[25]
During the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 Pazniak called to support the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment.[26] In January 2023, during the Battle of Bakhmut, he visited the Belarusian fighters of the Kastuś Kalinoŭski Regiment on the front line.[27]
Remove ads
Family
His wife is Halina Pazniak (Vaščanka). She was a deputy of the Minsk City Council of Deputies. They have been married since 1995. She lives in Warsaw.[28]
See also
Notes
- Belarusian: Зянон Станіслававіч Пазняк, romanized: Zyanon Stanislavavich Paznyak
References
External links
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads