The Songs of Old Europe – Ancient Belarusian Folk Songs

I fell in love with Belarusian folk songs when, as a student, I saw a group of young girls perform them. My mind was immediately consumed by the unfamiliar harmonies, some of which are based on the ancient Greek musical scales. That fascination lead me to produce and direct The Songs of Old Europe – Ancient Belarusian Folk Songs, the first ever English-language documentary about Belarusian folk songs. I am a native Belarusian who moved to Seattle in 2003, and myself perform these songs with my local group, VOLYA (“freedom”).

My country, The Republic of Belarus, is a home for 9.5 million people; it used to be part of the former Soviet Union and gained independence in 1991. Isolation, caused by geography and government measures during the Soviet times, forced the Belarusians to stay in their villages and kept the singing tradition alive up until this day.

Belarusian folk songs considered by ethnographers to be the oldest unaltered songs in Europe that are still performed until today. However, Belarusian language, songs and the people who sing them were looked down upon and mistreated, even in our own country. It makes me sad that even Belarusians don’t realize the significance of our songs. Before they completely disappear from our everyday life, I want to tell the entire world that these songs are invaluable. They are to Belarus what the pyramids are to Egypt. That’s no exaggeration. Some Belarusian folk songs originated during the same time period as the Egyptian pyramids and Babylon culture.

But change is coming fast. Political and economic shifts, technological progress and the devastation brought by the meltdown of the nuclear reactor in Chernobyl in 1986 have had an eroding effect on the Belarusian singing tradition. The folk songs are gradually disappearing, therefore making the documentary was a race against the clock.

I didn’t want to lose precious time waiting for funding and financed the film with my day-time job as a translator at Microsoft, personal loans and a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.

After writing the script in 2011, I set out to Belarus, driving hundreds of miles along windings roads and past swamps in the back country, to film groups of elderly women, called “babushkas”. The presence of an American filmmaker made the babushkas very excited, they were honored and happy to share their heritage with the rest of the world.

While filming in Belarus, I witnessed the slow death of my homeland’s native songs first-hand. In the village of Polansk, which was a bustling place fifteen years ago, there were no cars or children on the streets, and only a few babushkas.

Even some of the babushkas in The Songs of Old Europe have passed away, before they had the chance to see themselves on screen. I’ve worked as hard as I can, so our babushkas will be able to see the film and know that people around the world will talk about them and listen to their songs before it’s their time to go.