Ryhor Baradulin (also: Rygor Borodulin) (Рыгор Іванавіч Барадулін) (contemporary poet and translator; born: February 24, 1935) Photo Credit: Belaruskaya Mova: Entziklapediya, edited by Mikhevich, A. Ya., et. al. (1994); page 73.

Note: The Lacinka and Cyrillic Belarusian on this page is in Unicode (UTF-8) font encoding.

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Vilnia in Our Souls

by Ryhor Baradulin

Freely sighed eternity, having glanced at the morning triumph of beauty; and fulfilled and embodied beauty to warm its chilly soul.

Winds – the shepherds of wild times – received Communion of a smile, exhaling a vertiginous name – Vilnia.

Vilnia – the summit of the soul of a sower, warrior, and architect – has ordered living stones to congeal for a moment and consider whether they rose from the earth or fell down like stars.

Vilnia is the depth of the Kriviches’ soul, fathomless like sky and mysterious like life.

Vilnia is a cloud where the swallows of spring weave their nests when they come to rejuvenate and hearten antiquity, to chirp like grandchildren to granddad Cosmos about the forgotten.

When Napoleon saw St. Anna’s Cathedral he said, amazed, “If I could, I would carry it on my palm to Paris…”

Every Krivich, every Belarusian carries Vilnia in his soul. And whatever lives in your soul doesn’t grow old, doesn’t decay, it even withstands the merciless time.

…I remember staying once at Gevorg Emin’s, one of the Armenia’s favourite poets. The windows of his cosy house had a good view of Ararat, the sacred mountain of the Armenian people. Like a living being. It seems as if you could fall down before its foot and feel the freedom of winds and the cold of snows. But you only can caress with your eyes the summit, pure and radiant… How many sorrowed generations have been caressing Ararat with their eyes, reviving their souls with remembrance and hope…

And I immediately recalled Vilnia, the navel-string of our inmost nature, the cradle of the Belarusian statehood, the homeland of the Belarusian printed word, the mountain that raises us in Europe.

Vilnia is heard by our ears, Vilnia is beheld by our memory, Vilnia is the beating of the Kriviches’ heart.

State borders do not exist for love. Nobody has managed to take Vilnia away from us, nobody has managed to separate us from Vilnia for it lives in us.

And the Lithuanians have recognized our Vilnia as their own. For one ought to know when one is well off. Our consolation is that Lithuanians are proud of our Vilnia, calling it in their own way – Vilnius. There is enough Vilnia for everybody!

On love and worship rest the sacred places in the Universe.

And while Vilnia exists, the Belarusian people will have something to remember, something to dream of.

Let’s live in hope!

1 March 2001

(Note: This writing originally appeared on the Belarusian PEN Centre Web site in 2001, but apparently is no longer there.)