Беларускія фэстывалі й выстаўкі ў Нью Джэрзі
Янка Запруднік
Выдавец: Беларускі Інстытут Навукі й Мастацтва
Памер: 219с.
Нью Йорк 2013
Concert finale.
try knowing they come from a nation that can openly look into the eyes of anyone, that never abused anybody and was always with God, that went through bottomless depth of suffering and preserved unshakable faith in overcoming all adversities, that has behind it glorious past and great culture. These are our new Eaglets!".
Advertisement of'Festival and jfybibitions
We all realized the great importance of the advertisement of festi
vals on a professional level. In search of a volunteer, the organizational committee contacted Irene Rahalewicz, a New Jersey resident who has proven to be a talented painter and graphic artist. Irene readily agreed to lend a hand. Thanks to her, all advertisement — posters, brochures, stage decorations, leaflets, illustrations, etc. — were professionally and esthetically rendered, adding to the general elegance of the entire enterprise. She was also one of the program coordinators and the production coordinator. All of her tasks Irene
Fron Belastok region
About 40 years old
About 40 years old Hand wovwn by Nina Zgireki
Exhibit tags naming owner, item and provenance.
Rahalewicz (later Dutko) fulfilled pro bono.
Group shot of the participants in costumes from different regions.
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THE SECOND HERITAGE FESTIVAL
Garden State Arts Center May 21, 1977
The Second Festival, even more than the first one, was a resounding feast of Belarusian arts and culture. It resonated far and wide among the diaspora in the West and demonstrated our ability to attract attention to the national cause on a highly effective level.
The program of the festival included the following:
♦ A two-hour concert of colorful folk dances; a rich selection of folk and composed songs executed by choirs, ensembles and soloists.
♦ A display of artifacts by folk masters from America and Belarus: authentic bed spreads and tablecloths, utensils for spinning and weaving, embroidery, articles made from straw, flax, and wood. A traditional Belarusian house comer was erected where the weaving of belts and spinning was demonstrated by Nina Zgirski and Nadja Kudasow.
♦ An exhibition of photographs by Alex Silwanowicz depicted episodes of Belarusian life in America.
♦ Paintings and sculptures by Belarusian-American artists (organized by Luda Machniuk).
♦ "Find out Your Ethnic Roots" exhibition (designed by George Stankevich) enabled visitors to locate their place of origin on a map of Belarus, and mark it with a pin. Information on the "Old Country" was provided to those seeking it.
♦ Various organizations and groups had their own stands with a variety of items on sale: embroidered objects and ornaments (by Jula Andrusyshyn), decorated ceramic items (by Valentina Rahalewicz), pendants from silver and amber modeled after old traditional designs, music records, icons, even live com flowers (cultivated by Apalonja Savionak).
♦ Under a spacious tent visitors could replenish their energy with tasty traditional foods prepared by ladies from the three Christian Orthodox churches those in Highland Park, South River, NJ, and Richmond Hill, NY.
♦ Continuous Belarusian folk and composed music, provided by Alex Martynovich, enriched the atmosphere of the Festival.
The Bielarus newspaper reporting about the event aptly noted that a festival is not merely singing and dancing, although the latter comprise the primary entertainment of the event. The paper emphasized that the core significance of a festival, is the spread of information about the activity of the Belarusian community and Belarus itself. In connection with the Second Festival, for example, 14,000 pieces of information were distributed. A huge billboard along the Garden State Parkway near the Garden State Arts Center advertised the event. The advertising alone introduced the idea of Belarus to an uninitiated audience. Also numerous newspapers wrote about it.
The impact of the two festivals was summed up by the editor of Bielarus, Stanislau Stankevich.13
Belarusian festivals in New Jersey, he wrote, go far beyond their local borders. First of all, they serve the all-Belarusian purpose not only in the cultural sphere, but also in civic and even political areas.
Second Festival poster.
Governor Brendan Byrne signing Proclamation of the Belarusian Heritage Day in 1977. With him are, Dr. Vitaut Kipel, left, and Joseph Carragher, the Executive Director of the New Jersey Highway Autlhority.
Moreover, they provide a strong impulse for similar activities in other Belarusian communities in the Free World outside America. To a large degree, under their influence and in their footsteps everywhere else people began to see the importance of the Belarusian folk art, and also professional art wherever available, in popularizing the name of Belarus and the national liberation movement.
/4 Hr * 4 34/
Belarusian festivals play a particularly outstanding role in the life of our youth. By their enthusiastic participation in the artistic part of concerts and their fascination with folk costumes, young people cultivate in themselves a sense of Belarusian patriotism and love for things ethnic.
Especially important, if not the most essential, is the political aspect of the festivals, wrote the commentator. The success of both festivals was secured by the fact that both of them were prepared and conducted on a solid civic basis, with full cooperation and support by a wide strata of society. Thanks to these circumstances, our compatriots in other countries took our festivals as examples for themselves. The Third Belarusian Festival is being prepared on a similar ground. And this is solid proof of our civic and political maturity.
The editor of Bielarus pointed to the political aspect of the event by quoting the festival Master of Ceremonies, Jan Zaprudnik: "Let us devote this program that you are about to enjoy to the struggle of the Belarusian people in the Soviet Union against Russification and for preservation of their national language and culture." Stankevich noted that it was not by accident that some American newspapers carried on the speaker's words. The festival activities, indeed, resulted not only in an increased awareness among American politicians about Belarus and its liberation struggle, but also in a reaction to them by Soviet authorities. The newspaper Bielarus reported about the latter occurrence in a report, "Belarusian Festivals Attract Attention in Miensk”:14
"We have learned from various people who recently visited Belarus that the two Belarusian Festivals, one held last year and one a year before, had evoked a great interest not only among common people, who learned about them through personal contacts or from foreign radio broadcasts, but not a lesser interest (and certain worries) among official authorities of Soviet Belarus. This information was corroborated by some sources at the United Nations in New York. The Belarusian Mission at the UN in New York was ordered to inform the official in Miensk about specific details of the first two Belarusian Festivals and to report systematically about further similar activities of the Belarusian emigrants in America. Some people in Belarus were especially interested in and encouraged by the participation in those festivals of young Belarusian-Americans as an indication of national cultural continuity among the Belarusian emigration, and the official circles see it as a domestic factor to be considered in government's cultural policies."
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THE THIRD HEKITAGE FESTVIAL
Garden State Arts Center Holmdel, New Jersey May 19, 1979
After a year of respite,15 Vitaut Kipel, the chairman of the Festival Organizational Committee, in his appeal for support, published in the newspaper Bielarus, reminded the readers of the importance of Belarusian festivals at the Garden State Arts Center. He pointed out that:
♦ The Festival is a unique opportunity to popularize the name of Belarus in America on a new and elevated level.
♦ The Festival is an event that most effectively attracts the young generation.
♦ The Festival is a show of Belarusian culture in America that unites the new and older, and pre-war generations of BelarusianAmericans into one large family.
♦ The Festival provides an occasion for displaying Belarusian art, songs, dances and folk costumes free of any russifying elements that are imposed in Soviet Belarus.
♦ The Festival is a day when, after hard work and worries, we, the Belarusians, enjoy a feeling of deep pride and moral satisfaction.
In a letter of invitation to President Jimmy Carter dated April 23, 1979, the Festival Organizational Committee compared the cultural freedom Belarusians enjoy in America with that of their compatriots in the Soviet Union. The letter said:
The Belarusian Folk Festival stands in stark contrast to the inability’ of the two million Belarusians living in the Soviet Union outside their own republic to have any cultural organizations or cultural life of their own. Events similar to the Belarusian Heritage Festival at Holmdel, New Jersey, are unthinkable for Belarusians in the Soviet Union outside the Belarusian SSR. The Soviet principle of territorial autonomy allows the non-Russian nationalities a certain degree of cultural freedom only within the administrative territorial borders of those nations. Non-Russian peoples who live outside their territorial units are condemned to a forced Russification by the ethnocidal policy of the Soviet Government.
This makes the Belarusian Heritage Festival at the Garden State
Third Heritage Festival poster.
Arts Center very special and meaningful not only for the BelarusianAmericans, but also for the Belarusians in the Soviet Union as well as in the rest of the world. These Festivals make America proud of her mixed heritage. They demonstrate our freedom and security which includes the rights of an ethnic group to cultivate its spiritual and cultural traditions. In today's world of growing nationalism and cultural awareness, it is important, we believe, to point out this distinct feature of the American way of life.
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