About

The Worldwide Readings of Insulted. Belarus

A project conceived and cultivated by Andrei Kureichyk & John Freedman

The Insulted. Belarus Worldwide Readings Project is a program of dramatic readings that expresses international solidarity with the people of Belarus. Insulted. Belarus is a play by Andrei Kureichyk that highlights corruption and cruelty during the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko, specifically in the early days of the 2020-2021 Belarusian protests, and depicts the Belarusian people as courageous and peaceful in desperate times.

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The play was written in August and September 2020 at the height of the protests. By the first week in November 2020, Insulted. Belarus had been translated into 18 languages and had been given 77 readings of various kinds in 22 countries. As of November 2021, the play had received more than 130 readings in 100 venues in 30 countries, had been translated 24 times into 21 languages, and published in nine languages.

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A second play - Voices of the New Belarus - was written by Kureichyk in August 2021. Compiled entirely from verbatim transcripts, this piece gives voice to 16 individuals who had been arrested, tortured or murdered in the wake of the August 2020 revolution. Kureichik explains: “I considered it important to record the crimes of the Lukashenko regime in documentary form. So that no one could say later that what was done to these people was someone’s imagination."

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The project expanded in early 2022 to include Backbone, a play written anonymously by a Belarusian writer. The play had its world premiere at Reed Hall Pond, University of Exeter, U.K. on 10 July 2022 in a production by Poppy Franziska and Sophia Trewick.

After the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the Worldwide Readings Project expanded further to include multiple playwrights and plays from Ukraine. More about this can be seen at our Facebook page and here.