Zianon Stanisłavavič Pazniak (born 24 April 1944) is a Belarusian nationalist politician,Зянон Пазняк: “Нацыяналізм і дэмакратыя – сынонімы” archaeologist, and pro-democracy activist. He was a founding figure of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) and served as the chairman of its parliamentary fraction in the Supreme Council of Belarus from 1990 to 1995. He rose to prominence in politics in 1988 after revealing the NKVD's mass executions during the Great Purge in Kurapaty, which galvanized the Belarusian independence movement and anti-Soviet sentiment. He was a candidate in the 1994 election, the first presidential election of Belarus following its independence, in which Pazniak placed fourth. Since then, he has remained a vocal critic of President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian influence in Belarus, and after the BPF's split in 1999 became Chairman of the Conservative Christian Party – BPF.
Before entering politics, Pazniak graduated from the Belarusian State Academy of Arts and worked on preserving Minsk's historical architecture in the Trinity Suburb and Nyamiha (or Nemiga). Eventually, he became an archaeologist at the History Institute of the Belarusian Science Academy. During his time there, in 1988, he made public his research on the NKVD's executions in the forest of Kurapaty alongside colleague Yauhen Shmygalev, which he called a genocide. This led to independence sentiments, and so he founded the BPF in response and became a part of the Supreme Soviet. As a parliamentarian, he led efforts to restore Belarusian national symbols and declare independence from the USSR. He was a prominent critic of the 1995 Belarusian referendum, which brought forth the proposal to grant the Russian language an equal status alongside the Belarusian language and reintroduced Soviet-era symbols, so he started a hunger strike. After the start of Minsk Spring in 1996, Pazniak stated he was being hunted by security forces, but returned for Chernobyl Way where he stated he had to escape from special forces trying to capture him. Following this, he fled Belarus and claimed political asylum in the United States.
Since his time in exile, he continued to lead the BPF before it splintered due to internal factions in 1999. He then founded the Conservative Christian Party – BPF. He has continued to advocate for Belarusian sovereignty and democracy, and has been a prominent critic of what he states is Russian imperialism. He has criticized both the current Belarusian government and many members of the Belarusian opposition for being "agents" of Russia. He has also led a boycott of every presidential election since 1996 with his party, which he states is because by participating, it only legitimizes Lukashenko. However, due to this, he has been controversial, with some stating that he has only hurt the opposition since the 2000s. Critics accuse him of isolating himself ideologically by refusing to cooperate with broader coalitions, which they state weakens the opposition's unity against Lukashenko's regime. His repeated calls for election boycotts and denouncing many members of the opposition have made some analysts argue that he has only fragmented dissent.
Early life and education
Zianon Stanislavavich Pazniak was born on 24 April 1944 in the village of Subotniki, in what was then the Baranavichy Region in the Byelorussian SSR. At the time of Pazniak's birth, the area was under German occupation during the midst of World War II. He was born into a Catholic family, and natively spoke the Belarusian language. His mother, Hanna Jaŭchimaŭna Pazniak, was a native of Subotniki and lived there almost her entire lifetime. Through his mother, he was the grandson of Jan Pazniak, who was a publicist and politician active in the Belarusian Christian educational movement and the Christian Democratic Union during its founding. He was eventually arrested by the NKVD in Vilna (Vilnius) during 1939, and according to one version, was held in a prison in Staraja Vilejka near Maladziechna until 1941, but the circumstances of his death are unknown.
Soon after Zianon's birth, his father, Stanisłaŭ Janavič Pazniak, was drafted into the Red Army. In December 1944, when Stanisłaŭ served on Eastern Front during World War II, he was killed, which left Zianon to be raised by his mother. Later on Pazniak said that his life was not different with the loss of his father, as his mother insisted on imitating what she thought Stanisłaŭ would do when raising him. When he was six, he stated that there was an influx of Russian settlers due to collective farms; the cultural friction and lack of mutual understanding contributed to an anti-Soviet atmosphere in the village. At the age of 14, he began training in photography under the local master in the area, a habit he would continue to do during the next few decades, where he photographed the city of Minsk. For his secondary schooling, he attended the local grammar school in his hometown of Subotniki. When he was in the 10th grade, he was forced to join the Komsomol. He initially resisted on the basis of his dislike of communism and foreign ideology, but he would otherwise not receive his certificate of maturity (the secondary school leaving certificate), so he formally joined.
After finishing his secondary education, he moved to Moscow at the age of eighteen in order to study astronomy at Moscow State University. He stated that he was not definite on his choice of career: he had switched between wanting to do history, photography, and theater at the All-Russian State University of Cinematography and the Russian Institute of Theater Arts. However, he returned to Belarus by train through Smolensk as he stated he disliked the city upon arriving. He also stated he was told that he would fail by a vice-rector at Maly Theatere for not speaking Russian, and that it would be better for him to go to the theater institute in Belarus for acting when he decided to pursue it.
He then started studying at the Belarusian State Institute of Theatre and Arts in acting (briefly he entered journalism but switched out). During his second year, he was expelled from the institute for being "politically unreliable" by the party committee. During the winter after his expulsion, he slept at his friends' place while working as a stagehand at an opera house and as a photographer. He was later reinstated on the persuasion of Maxim Tank, but chose to enter the Faculty of Arts instead. He was expelled a second time shortly before his final exams in philosophy, which would've earned him a red diploma (honors degree), for allegedly tearing down a newspaper on the wall of the school written in Russian. However, he was allowed to graduate from the institute in 1968 and defend his diploma after it was made public that he was expelled on the orders of the KGB.
In 1969, a year after graduating, he entered the graduate school of the Institute of Ethnography and History of Art and Folklore of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR. He became notable during the year he entered for his publishing of the article "Caring for the Future" in the newspaper Pravda, which focused on the river Nyamiha (or Nemiga) in Minsk. In opposition to Pyotr Masherov's plan to destroy it, he attempted to collect signatures to send to Masherov against it, but eventually went to the newspaper, where it was approved by Mikhail Zimyanin for publication. Masherov decided not to go through with destroying the Nemiga outwards, until at least 1972. He completed his studies at the institute in 1972.
Archaeological career In 1972 he started dedicating himself full-time to preserving the old section of Minsk and its conservation efforts by collecting signatures in the Trinity Suburb. Upon completion of his university studies, Pazniak worked as an arts researcher. He also started creating samizdat by using a typewriter purchased from a commission shop, specifically writing about the destruction of the culture of Belarus, while also working on a dissertation about repressed individuals associated with Belarusian nationalism like Vatslaw Lastowski. After a wave of Soviet political-administrative repressions in 1974, he lost his job at the Arts Institute on the basis of staff cuts. Through Alexander Kuzmin, a secretary for ideology of the Central Committee, he was able to be reinstated, but was advised not to return to the arts, so he chose history. Pazniak worked as an archaeologist at the Archaeological Division of the History Institute of the Belarusian Science Academy. His specialisation was the Late Middle Ages in Belarus. He was heavily involved in efforts to preserve the remaining section of the historic centre of Minsk, which was considerably damaged by the redevelopment efforts undertaken by the Soviet administration after the end of the Second World War. He also became more involved in the literary movement in the late 1980s, writing books on the history of Belarus and poems. In 1981 Pazniak successfully defended a doctoral dissertation on the history of the theatre.
On 3 June 1988, Zianon Pazniak made public his research on NKVD mass executions in the forest of Kurapaty near Minsk, which he did alongside Yauhen Shmygalev. He published the article in the newspaper Litaratura i Mastactwa (Literature and Art) under the title "Kurapaty - the road to death", where it was specifically published because the newspaper was relatively small, so it would be missed by Soviet censorship. Vasil Bykaŭ wrote the preface to the article. He, for the first time in Soviet Belarus, used the term genocide to define the events at Kurapaty, which became known as "genozid". He stated that the events at Kurapaty were a symbol of "Stalinist genocide" to make a method of changing demographics. He later used these terms against Lukashenko, who he stated led a regime of "cultural genocide" to eliminate Belarusian culture. According to the book "Kurapaty: The Investigation Continues", which was published soon after in 1990, three boys in Zeleny Lug made the discovery of 23 of the graves on 1 May 1988, but Pazniak himself did not actually do the excavation part and only arrived after to document it and do an examination of the graves. The article was broadcast on central television and republished in newspapers, prompting the Prosecutor of the BSSR, Georgy Tarnavsky, to open a criminal case into Kurapaty. The commission for the case was headed by Yazep Brolišs. This quickly evoked a response in Belarusian society that was anti-Soviet due to the executions and also ignited independence sentiments. In-depth excavations of the tract were conducted starting on 6 July, which Pazniak participated in, which eventually concluded that more than 100 thousand people were buried at Kurapaty.
Political career Founding of the BPF