Ihar Kuzminich: More lecturers to experience pressure soon

Euroradio: Why have you quit your job at the university?

Ihar Kuzminich: They talked to me in autumn and asked me to leave. Then my salary dropped to about 2 million roubles. It was cut in half. Any Belarusian citizen should have the right to express their opinion even if the opinion is different. A scientist must do it – scientists must express new, different opinions. I am dissatisfied with the pressure exercised on me and other lecturers.

Euroradio: What exactly didn't the university administration like? 

Ihar Kuzminich: They did not like two of my fairy tales published in my blog: about the origin of the white-red-white flag and the tale about "Pahonya". In fact, those are children's fairy tales. And the other materials I was accused of did not have any hidden political motives in them. For instance, who can be called a Belarusian writer? I expressed my opinion about it.

Euroradio: Historian Andrei Charnyakevich was fired from Hrodna University first, and now you are leaving...

Ihar Kuzminich: The university administration may not be to blame for it. Charnyakevich and I worked there for 20 years. We did not hide our views. We could not say one thing to students and write something else on the Internet later. I lectured in Belarusian. It started all of a sudden. I was on good terms with the university administration at the beginning of spring in 2012. Then the administration summoned me at the end of spring. And they asked me to leave in autumn. The pressure began during the election campaign. I do not think that the university had the courage to do it on its own.

Euroradio: Is the university administration exercising pressure on anyone else?

Ihar Kuzminich: More lecturers are going to experience pressure soon. I have already heard about several cases. By the way, it is not only connected with the publication of the book Hrodna Studies. it is much broader.

 Euroradio: What are you going to do now? Have you received any job offers?

Ihar Kuzminich: There aren't any offers. Maybe this free time has been given to me so that I defended my thesis. I will not be able to defend here anyway. But this is a different problem.

Historian Andrei Charnyakevich, one of the authors of Hrodna Studies printed in Poland, was dismissed from Hrodna University first. Head of Hrodna City Executive Committee Syamyon Shapira confessed later that "he had made the decision personally". A new rector was appointed afterwards –  Karol. And the Council of Hrodna State University did not chose Ph.D. Vyachaslau Shved to work as a professor there on April 1.

Photo by: savaboda.org