Belarusian authorities monitor students’ use of social media and threaten activists with prison, one student says.
VILNA When Denis Drobkov moved from Russia to Lithuania last fall, he was excited to be able to study at a European university in his native language. It never occurred to him that there would be no return.
– If I return to Russia, either prison or the army awaits me. There are no other options, says Drobkov.
Vladimir Putin or opposing the war in Ukraine gets long prison sentences in Russia.
In addition, Drobkov, 25, has postponed his military service due to his studies. He wondered why twenty invitation letters were still sent to someone his age last year. When the attack started, he understood.
– They wanted more soldiers for this operation, to die in the fields of Ukraine. They wanted me to join them in killing the fraternity.
In February, Drobkov was visiting Russia on winter vacation. When the invasion of Ukraine began, he immediately jumped on the first westbound bus.
On the borders of Russia and Belarus, Drobkov was afraid. When the bus finally crossed the Lithuanian border, he could breathe.
The Belarusian University is a refuge in Lithuania
Drobkov studies at the European Humanities University (EHU) in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. The private EHU was founded exactly 30 years ago in the neighboring country of Belarus, when the country, which had recently been freed from Soviet rule, glimpsed a possible democratic future for a while.
It was the other way around. Alexander Lukashenko after coming to power, the activities of the university, which promotes European values of liberal democracy, only became more cramped. In 2004, the university’s business license in Belarus was completely denied.
The following year, it opened its doors in Vilnius as a kind of representative of an alternative Belarus. This can already be seen at the university gate, over which the white-red flag used by the Belarusian opposition flies.
The majority of the more than 800 students are Belarusians, but there are also many Russian students. Since the start of the war, Ukrainians have been offered more study places and scholarships.
The university’s operations are partly financed by tuition fees, but mostly by donations from, for example, the European Commission, the Lithuanian government and the Nordic countries.
Incarcerated students are the university’s pain
You can’t talk about EHU these days without talking about a handful of its current and former students who are political prisoners in Belarus.
They have been active in the pro-democracy movement in Belarus and were arrested after protests rocked the Lukashenko regime in the summer of 2020. The close ally of Putin has since violently suppressed the opposition.
The most famous of EHU’s imprisoned students is a Russian Sofia Sapega. Last year, Belarus hijacked a Ryanair passenger plane flying in its airspace. A Belarusian opposition journalist who was on his way to Vilnius Rama Pratasevich and his female friend Sapega was arrested.
– At the graduation party, Sapega’s parents received his diploma. That was very sad, Headmaster Sergei Ignatov says.
At the time of the 2020 large-scale demonstrations in Belarus, approximately 50 EHU students and alumni were arrested. The university is trying to help the students and alumni who are still incarcerated, for example by arranging legal aid for them, but the situation looks bleak.
– We know each of our students by name and face. When we hear that someone has been imprisoned, it is a personal pain for us, says Ignatov.
People who post on Some are knocked on the door in Belarus
With the wave of suppression of the opposition, EHU has offered more study places to Belarusians and organized students in Vilnius who previously completed their degrees remotely from Belarus.
According to the rector, the Belarusian administration accuses the university of brainwashing young people into Western ideologies, which increases students’ insecurity.
also interviewed one Belarusian student Matthewwho for security reasons only appears using the international form of his first name.
For Matthew, the high-quality international study program was the primary reason for coming to EHU. He regularly travels back and forth between Vilnius and Belarus and has not experienced any problems due to his studies. According to him, it is because he is not politically active.
Instead, according to him, Belarusian fellow students who make pro-opposition posts on social media are being monitored by the authorities.
– Some students cannot return to Belarus, because they are considered terrorists. There have been knocks on the doors of those discussing politics on Some and told that prison awaits if they don’t stop posting, says Matthew.
The future of Belarusian democracy?
Rector Ignatov paints a picture of the university as a harbinger of future Belarusian democracy. The school emphasizes individual development, freedom of choice, self-expression and low hierarchy.
– For Eastern European countries, the liberal arts system is the best way to raise a generation interested in civic activities, says the rector, referring to higher education that combines humanistic and social subjects.
According to him, two out of three Belarusian students at EHU return to work in their home country after graduation. They are not welcome in government agencies, but in the corporate world and in non-governmental organizations, they are reforming the country’s systems at the grassroots level.
Ignatov has experience in the development of education policy in former socialist countries, as he has previously served as the Minister of Education in his native Bulgaria.
– Let’s imagine that in 10 or 15 years Belarus will have a new democratic government that wants to reform the country’s education system. Our university then offers a living model of a functioning liberal educational institution.
EHU’s purpose is to expand into a regional university. In an optimistic picture of the future, it would once again open a campus also in its country of origin.
– The university’s goal is to return to Belarus. Belarusians feel it as a duty towards their homeland. This is what we are preparing for, says Ignatov.
“Without hope there is no life”
When the war started, even at EHU the atmosphere between Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian students became tense. However, according to the Russian Denis Drobkov, the disagreements and accusations have been resolved.
The students have since organized together support for the Ukrainian refugees who arrived in Vilnius.
– Many women with small children, as well as elderly people, have come here. We have helped them, for example, by donating medicine and clothes, says Drobkov.
Russian students have recently faced prejudice in Lithuania. Drobkov wants to remind that at least a small number of Russians, many of them young people living abroad, openly oppose Putin’s regime and the war in Ukraine.
– We are not Putin’s followers. I have been against the Russian dictatorship for years and I don’t believe their propaganda.
Drobkov believes that things can still turn for the better in Russia.
– I really hope so. Without hope there is no life.