Left In The Square
- 19.12.2025, 13:01
Heroes don't die as long as they are remembered.
15 years ago Belarusians went to the Square - for freedom, for the country, for themselves, for their loved ones. 15 years ago Lukashenko was scared to death, and the crackdown corresponded to the level of his fear. 15 years ago political prisoners became a mass phenomenon, not individual enemies of Lukashenko. 15 years ago Belarusian solidarity was formed definitively and by 2020 it became irreversible as contempt for the regime.
But I don't want to remember December 19 today. Everyone already remembers, and those who were not adults at the time will be told by their parents. But I want to remember who from that wave of political prisoners is no longer with us. Those who went to prison for the sake of free Belarus, but did not live to see this freedom.
The first to leave us was Artem Gribkov. A loader from "Hippo", an ordinary young man, who was not a member of any parties or movements, came to the Square to defend the right of Belarusians to choose and to freedom of assembly. He was sentenced to four years of imprisonment. In his last word Artem asked forgiveness not from the regime - he asked forgiveness from the presidential candidates for possibly having brought them under a grave article by his actions. In August 2011, he was released on pardon (at that time, seven political prisoners were released at once). And in December 2012, Artem died in a car accident. He was 23. Six months later, his wife Svetlana gave birth to a baby boy.
Slightly after Gribkov's release, in September 2011, Oleh Hnedchik, an activist of the "Maladoga Front", who had undergone several administrative arrests before the Square, including for the defense of Kuropat and for the 2006 protests, was released from the colony with another batch of pardoned Oleh Hnedchik. He was sentenced to three and a half years in a penal colony and sent to Shklou. Later Nikolai Statkevich wrote from the colony that Hnedchik was "pressed" seriously and was not released from the punishment cell. Oleg nevertheless did not sign any papers. "Not once did I regret that I went to the Square on December 19," Oleg said after his release. He died in June 2025. Oleg had lived 38 years.
In the same June, Alexander Klaskovsky died. It was he, a former militiaman, who came to the Square on December 19 in uniform and tried to speak to the law enforcers in their language. He was severely beaten - the uniform was an additional trigger - and after his arrest, he was chained to a radiator and left until morning. Klaskovsky was interrogated without a lawyer. The court sentenced him to five years in a penal colony. In his last word he said: "On December 19th on the Square there was not a crowd, but the Belarusian nation. I consider it an honor to have been there with these people." Then Alexander, a father of many children, left with his family to the United States. In June, the 46-year-old former political prisoner's heart stopped.
In 2014, when the war in Ukraine began, three heroes immediately went to defend the neighboring country on December 19. More precisely, first went Vasily Parfenkov and Alexander Molchanov, who had already been released. A year later, Eduard Lobov, who had served time in the colony, also arrived. All three joined volunteer battalions. Only Molchanov survived. Lobov and Parfenkov were killed.
Vasily Parfenkov served two sentences for Ploshchad-2010: after his release, he was jailed again for failure to comply with the conditions of preventive supervision. Further - Ukraine, battalion OUN (then there was no Kalinovsky regiment), acquaintance with a volunteer Elena before being sent to the front, love, two children. And death in June 2022 near Lisichansk. Vasily had no funeral: the body was never found. Now his widow is fighting. Instead of daddy's grave, Vasily's children have a wall of photos. There daddy is forever 38.
Eduard Lobov has a grave: in Warsaw at the military cemetery. He served a full five-year sentence and left to defend Ukraine immediately after his release, in 2015. Eduard died near Ugledar in January 2023. Lobov was buried first in Kiev, then in Warsaw, where his family lives. He was 35 years old.
I am not writing about these people for the sake of terrible statistics, although they are really terrible: five of the 30 people sentenced to real terms after Square 2010 are already dead, and all of them were young, and they left monstrously early, unfairly quickly, before they reached freedom. But today, on the fifteenth anniversary of the Square, I remember these remarkable people for another reason. Heroes do not die - it sounds beautiful. But this statement becomes true only with an explanation: heroes do not die as long as they are remembered. Oblivion is the real death.
So let us remember our heroes - the murdered, the dead, the kidnapped, the heroes of protests and the underground, the warriors and partisans, the brave and the knights. We will not forget. And we will not forgive them, of course - that goes without saying.
Irina Khalip, especially for Charter97.org.