On 23 March, the book (Not) Erased: Belarusian Theatre 2015–2025. Selected Pages by Nastassia Pankratava was published. A work that documents and restores an important part of Belarusian theatre history to the public sphere. The publication might not have come to life due to a loss of funding, but was made possible thanks to a grant under Track 3 of ArtPower Belarus.
The book brings together selected articles previously published in both state and independent media. It reconstructs events, names, and processes that have shaped the Belarusian theatre scene in recent years, including those that became inaccessible or were lost after 2020.
This is not only a collection of texts, but also an attempt to preserve the memory of a community that continues to exist despite pressure and the breakdown of professional connections.
“It is unbearably painful for me to see the growing blank spots in the history of Belarusian theatre. Over the past five years, entire theatre companies as well as individual figures who once shaped the direction of national art, have been erased from the map. You will not find their names on the websites of the theatres to which they devoted their lives. I see a new generation of creators emerging, who know little about their predecessors, and audiences who have never heard the names of those who laid the foundations of the very companies whose performances they cannot get tickets to today,” says the author, Nastassia Pankratava.
The book helps restore these lost fragments, both of individual biographies and of broader cultural processes, becoming an important testimony of its time.
