Ah, your own, alien ...

The award of Svetlana Aleksievich Nobel Prize in literature gave rise to a predictable discussion in the East Slavic triangle. In Belarus, Aleksievich is considered their own, and she herself connects herself with this country. But the writer writes in Russian - which makes it possible to include her in the list of Russian -speaking laureates. And she was born in Ivano-Frankivsk and sincerely worries about the country of her mother. Maybe Ukrainians have the right to consider her their compatriot?

All this dispute is from our inability to push the cultural boundaries. Svetlana Aleksievich, without a doubt, the Belarusian writer. The Belarusian to the same extent in which Joyce and Yates are Irish writers, Mark Twain and Hemingway - American, Marquez - Colombian, Lessa - Peruvian. In the modern world, the writer's belonging is determined not by the language, but by a civilizational choice. The Russian writer Aleksievich can only be in the world of Russian swagger, but in this meager world of the Prokhanovs, Prilepin and other Shargunovs there is no place at all. Therefore, instead of proud of a new achievement of Russian culture, it is better to be just honestly rejoice at Belarus and Aleksievich.

The Nobel Prize Aleksievich will remind the world of the "bloody lands" to the west of Russia and the people who live their lives in scarcity and sorrows - so habitual that they themselves do not notice this scarcity and sorrow. And, by the way, the theme of this endless story Aleksiyevich about the exhausted fate could predetermine the choice of language.

They may ask - and some Belarusian -language commentators already ask: why does the Belarusian writer not write in Belarusian what will happen to this language, even if the Nobel Committee agrees that the best in Belarusian culture is in another language? I assure you that everything will be in order with the Belarusian language and culture, we are already approaching the moment when the empire will finally loosen its terrible tentacles and leave Belarus alone. And in the fact that this will be so, in many ways, Svetlana’s merit, because her language is the language of honesty, but only with the help of such weapons you can fight with a polyphonic dragon - and write so that he understands.

Belarusian literature has always been a rooted literature, it was literature about the country, and not about the empire, because its main task was to preserve Belarus in conditions when the main goal of the empire was to destroy Belarus, to deprive this beautiful country of its own attitude, culture, and Movia. And Aleksievich decided to challenge this empire - a real challenge, the strength of which can be felt only with the help of the language that the empire itself uses. Could Aleksievich do this in Belarusian? Of course, but only he would have heard her only “his” reader, who, by the way, - since he still continues to read in Belorussian when this language is expelled from everyday life, she hides and is perceived as a rural dialect, and so excellently understands the difference between good and evil. Aleksievich turned to those who do not notice or distort this difference. She always wrote about the empire as a crime against the usual, "small" and offended by the state and public indifference of man. And how else to write, if not in the language of this resentment - especially if you look at her from Belarus? After all, even about the Belarusian language - about the history of his survival, destruction and humiliation - today it is best to write in Russian. So that everyone knows what meanness is.

That is why Svetlana Aleksievich is by no means the sixth Russian Nobel laureate in literature. Enough of the Russians of four stunned, dedicated and expelled and Sholokhov in addition. Svetlana Aleksievich - the first Nobel laureate from Belarus. Living and reverent proof that Belarus exists - and wins.