In with the East Wind: A Mary Poppins Kind of Life - Belarus: National Institute for the Humanities
National Institute for the Humanities
The National Institute for the Humanities in Minsk stands as
one of Belarus’s central homes for humanistic inquiry. Housed within the
National Academy of Sciences, the institute functions as the country’s primary
engine for historical, archaeological, and cultural research. Its scholars
trace the long arc of Belarusian history, excavate ancient settlements before
modern construction reshapes the land, and publish the monographs and research
collections that anchor the nation’s understanding of itself. From its base on
Akademicheskaya Street, the institute convenes conferences, advises state
bodies on cultural preservation, and maintains the archives that hold the
country’s collective memory. In practice, it serves as both a guardian of the
past and a guide for how Belarus interprets its heritage in the present—quietly
shaping the stories a nation tells about itself.
In the 1990s, right after raspad, all the departments
were focused on revising teaching materials for Belarusian schools. A colleague and I were invited to come to
Minsk and help them do that. (I had already done similar work for several of
the former USSR republics.) With the support of ACCELS, a branch of the
American Councils on International Education, in collaboration with the
American Global Studies Institute in Spreckels, California, where I served at
the time as president and founder, we flew through Moscow to Minsk for a
multi-week program of collaborating on
the production of new textbooks through conducting workshops on teaching methodologies (bringing the West to
the East) and assisting with adaptation of materials to learner cognitive and psychological
variability (a precursor of neurodiversity in education) that would be approved
by the Ministry of Education for incorporation into all the schools in Belarus
as standardized curricula.
Initially, we were housed in dorms associated with the
institute along with the local curriculum writers who were participants in our
workshops. The rooms were sparse, had typical narrow Soviet beds with flat
mattresses, and no heat. My colleague found this uncomfortable and marginally
tolerable. Then, she learned that there was no hot water. End of tolerance. She
insisted on being moved into town and housed in a hotel. I had experienced no
problems; in fact, I thought the accommodations quite fine. But I had spent a
lot of time in Siberia where only two of three commodities was available on a
given day: heat, hot water, or electricity (finding out which two you had
access to was the first activity every morning). InMinsk, we had all three.
Where was the complaint? And the participants had the same living
accommodations. So, again, where was the complaint?
My colleague was adamant about moving out immediately.
Embarrassed and apologetic, I called our contact at the institute, who found us
lodging at a hotel in town and set up transportation to/from the institute. I
had no choice but to follow (and support) my colleague, who spoke no Russian
and was dependent upon me to guide her in Belarus as well as to interpret her
portion of the workshops.
Things got a lot better once the workshops started.
Immediate rapport with the participants made instruction easy and pointed to
good products as an outcome.
In addition, we had the full support of the president and
vice president. Near the beginning of our time there, they took my colleague
and me, along with several members of their staff, out to dinner. I don’t
remember what we ate, but I do remember with whom I ate. Aleksandr (Shura – not
his real name), the vice president, sat at the foot of the table and the
president at the head of the table. I was seated on the side that intersected
Shura’s corner, and we fell into a long two-way conversation throughout the
meal. An instinctive trust and sense of commonality sprang up between us, and
we soon discovered where that came from: our similar backgrounds. He had served
as an order of battle specialist in the Red Army (Soviet military) during the
Cold War with his expertise being US weapons and force capabilities; I had
served during those same years and at the same rank in the US Army as an order
of battle specialist with my expertise being Soviet weapons and force
capabilities. While we could never share details of our actual work, that being
classified, we both understood what each other knew because we knew it, too,
without words. There was a Russian song during Soviet times that spoke of
understanding someone “s poluslova” (literally, “from half a word”). Shura and
I understood each other “s poluslova”—as if we had been friends for years.
“You were my enemy,” Shura gasped at the recognition
of all that implied.
“And you were mine,” I responded.
“I was never your enemy,” he asserted.
“Nor I yours,” I replied.
The enormity of our pasts and our current tasks had an
immense, positive impact on a quickly developing friendship. Throughout my time
there, Shura was a quiet, intense person, and he would drop in during our
breaks every single day, and he always brought cookies, candies, chocolates,
something. And we would talk.
At the farewell dinner, a Russian-Belarusian-Soviet staple,
quiet Shura was the life of the party. He offered toast after toast, many of
them to me. Afterward, several staff members came up to me and said, “Shura
never speaks at parties; what did you do to him?”
“Nothing at all,” I replied, and added cryptically, “he took
an enemy to dinner.”
The president, on the other hand, was a light-handed,
affable, witty, elderly gentleman. After the initial dinner part, he decided he
would walk us to the hotel. He noted as we approached it that I was still
energetic while he was dragging. It had been a long night; Belarusian dinners
usually are. He asked me about my source of energy. I explained that I had no
idea where it came from, but it tended to be exhaustible.”
“Oh, my!” he said with dry wit. “I think I shall just leave
you at the door and not come up with you.” Of course, he had never intended to
come up with me. He said that in good fun, not even flirting, just an easy
camaraderie.
And that is the way I remember those days now more than 30 years later. Easy camaraderie. Productive work. Smart people. Fertile “soil.” Kind, generous folks. Friendship.
Volume 1: ABC Lands
by Dr. Betty Lou Leaver
For more posts about and from this book, click HERE.
For more posts by and about Betty Lou Leaver, click HERE.
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