On December 10, 2023 our attention was drawn to a Facebook post made by musician and human rights activist Sergei Melyanets back on Dec. 13, 2021. Melyanets was one of the protesters in Minsk who was arrested and seriously abused by the Belarusian authorities during the short-lived Revolution of 2022. His was one of the voices chosen by writer Andrei Kureichik to be included in a play titled Voices of the New Belarus. Subsequently, Oksana Mysina employed the text of that play for a film of the same name, and her choice of actors to play Melyanets was her old friend and colleague Oleg Dulenin. Here is what Sergei had to say about Dulenin's work in the film. The photo of Melyanets above is from his Facebook gallery. 

 

Oleg Dulenin was my voice in the Voices of New Belarus project. I watched the video and realized that this man had passed my situation through his heart. I found him on Facebook, wrote to him, and thanked him. Oleg replied. Here is part of our correspondence (with his permission):

 

Oleg: "Hello, Sergei! God save us! Thank you very much. I am very glad that you wrote to me. I asked Oksana [Mysina, the director of the project] if she knows anything about you, what you are doing now, if it is possible to contact you... She said she would ask Andrei [Kureichik, the screenwriter] and tell him, but then she had so much to do that I decided not to bother her anymore, so that she could do as she had planned... I thought then: The Lord will decide... And that is what you wrote to me... thank you! God bless you!"

 

I: "I'm glad to meet you. It's obvious to me that you understand and sympathize with us."

 

Oleg: "Of course... My whole family has sympathized with Belarusians all this time... For we have long understood that we have only one path... And we must walk it with honor... And conscience... And with fervent faith, of course... Therefore, when Oksana called and asked me to participate in her film, I did not hesitate for a second... She sent me Andrei's script and immediately told me to pay attention to your monologue... I read your monologue and cried... And I couldn't figure out how to read it so that it would become mine...

I'll tell you honestly, Chekhov's monologues, for example, are easier for me... Still, Oksana did not rush me, so I decided not to read the monologue, but, first of all, to learn it by heart... I studied it for a long time... But when I learned it, I began to pass it through my heart... And I slowly began to make it mine (as the actors say of this process)…

Dear Sergei, I am very touched by your attention... Thank you with all my heart... You are, after all, the strictest spectator for me... And if my interpretation seemed convincing to you, then this whole idea of the film was not in vain..."

 

I cannot express in words what feelings overwhelm me when I read these words. Getting to know Oleg is a wonderful gift from God. A man whom I have never seen, and have not communicated with, turned out to be very near to me and, I'm not afraid of putting it this way, even a family member. We're from the same family.

Belarus and Russia live with God.

 

Eph 2:19: "Therefore, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God's people and also members of his household...”