Nel romanzo ​Moba​墨瓦 (​ Knigharbor, 1914) dello scrittore bielorusso

Victor Martinovich (1977 – viv.) la lingua nazionale viene disintegrata e

ridotta ad una forma di droga. Ambientato a Minsk, fra circa settanta anni,
mostra la Bielorussia occupata e dominata da un impero russo-cinese che
ha completamente annullato l’identità linguistica e culturale del paese.
Nessuno ricorda più la propria lingua, a parte un gruppo di tossici che
fanno uso del ‘Mova’, una droga che consiste in biglietti scritti a mano in
bielorusso, la cui lettura ha un particolare effetto inebriante. Il biglietto,
una volta letto, va subito distrutto (per non essere scoperti dalla polizia),
lasciando in chi ne ha fatto uso la voglia smaniosa di ottenerne uno nuovo.
La rinnovata percezione di questa lingua ormai dimenticata arreca uno
scossone alla coscienza dei ‘consumatori’, tale da poter far sperare nella
rinascita di una cultura indipendente nel proprio paese e ritrovare valori –
come l’amore (termine che era ormai in disuso) – da tempo smarriti.

What If Your Language Were an Illegal Drug?

Victor Martinovich (1977 – v iv.)
FacebookTwitter

Belarusian writer Victor Martinovich (Blr. Viktar Martsinovich) talks to

Culture about his newest political thriller, a dystopian vision of the future
in which the Belarusian language has disintegrated into a mind drug and
Poland's capital is where the junkies score their highs. How likely does
this innovative author think his vision is?

Mikołaj Gliński: Your newest book is entitled "Mova 墨瓦". Mova is

obviously 'language' in Belarusian... But what do these Chinese
ideograms stand for? Can you explain this?
Victor Martinovich​: I would have to start from the beginning. The book
is set in Minsk in the near future, around 70 years from now. Minsk is
occupied by a Russian-Chinese Empire, there's no mention of Belarus, no
Belarusian words or toponyms on the streets. Actually, nobody even
remembers the Belarusian language. There's only a small group of junkies
who take a drug called Mova. This means they read small samples of
classic Belarusian literature to get high. The whole system of drug
distribution is obviously controlled by the Chinese. The centre of
production of the drug is actually Warsaw.
What happens next?
There are two narrators: one is a drug addict, an intellectual who thinks
that he's very smart, he's very fond of the French language – and he keeps
using French quotes but they're full of mistakes. The second narrator is a
drug dealer whose job is to travel to Warsaw, buy a lot of drugs and then
transport them to the border and trick the border control and their scanners.
The whole thing is about insubstantial drugs, drugs that go into your
consciousness without leaving a physical mark. And since the Chinese
control the drug traffic, to buy the drug you have to go to the Minsk
Chinatown and look for these two Chinese ideograms: the
first ​Mo​ means ​ink​, the second is ​Va​ – it means ​roof tile​. This symbol
means that you can find the drug in this place.
How does one actually take Mova?
You read it. The thing is that the fragments should be written by hand –
printed text is much easier to detect by scanners. That's why these Chinese
triads keep copying these fragments onto small pieces of paper. The
problem is you can only get high by reading a new fragment. You read it
and you destroy it because it's very dangerous to have it in your pocket.
And then you have to look for another fragment.
During perceiving this new language, what happens to your consciousness
is that the structure of your Russian begins to change. You begin to make
mistakes in Russian – and this is the way for the state to catch you. It's an
action thriller but with a literary touch. At one point in the book it turns out
that there a small armed resistance group formed by Belarusian
nationalists. They are not fighting the drug trafficking, they just want to
restore the language and they need those scraps of paper to put them into
libraries. They hunt for words which are lost forever.
What words are they looking for?
The actual plot centres around one word which is used in the Belarusian
translation of Shakespearean sonnet, done by a Belarusian dissident
Vladimir Dubouka, an intellectual who came through the Gulag and whose
Belarusian lexicon was extremely large. Basically the search is for the
third word for love in Belarusian: one is ​lubov ​(this is for intellectual kind
of love), the second is ​kohanye​ which denotes erotic kind of love, the third
word which I found in Dubouka and which is not used widely today, is for
spiritual kind of love, emotional connection. This word is not specifically
mentioned in the book but it's in
How real is the situation which you described in the book when the
Belarusian language is not spoken anymore?
I wrote the book to warn people about it. Because I feel like there's a big
probability that the language will disappear in say 50 years. The whole
country could actually disappear. A lot of Belarusians are very
sympathetic to Putin. The idea of the Russian world (​ruskiy mir)​ is very
attractive – they listen to the radio, watch Russian TV and feel part of it.
But this is problematic. In a way our whole historical existence is a
mistake – we gained independence in 1991 without fighting for it. We just
received it as a gift. And as everything which you didn't pay for it can be
easily lost.
Mova which you also wrote in Belarusian was translated into Russian.
How did this work?
The translator of the book Lidia Mikheeva decided to keep all the Mova
fragments in Belarusian – she just provided the Russian translation for all
these fragments. We had a lot of feedback from people who were
deliberately buying this book in Russian, saying that in Russian this book
works even better. Because of this barrier, a difference between Russian
and Belarusian. The first time you see the Mova fragments you are
shocked – you say: 'All right, so this is Mova!' And you are actually
getting high, intoxicated by it. Interestingly I had numerous requests from
many institutions and plants in Belarus to sign the book for their directors
who couldn't read the Belarusian version. So the Russian version was a big
success too. I told Lydia: “Wow, your book is more popular than mine!”.
And now the book is being translated into German – I really look forward
to see how Thomas Weiler will do it because he will have to stick to one
language. I think he will want to work with dialects of German to express
these Mova fragments.
Could Mova, that is Belarusian language, be dangerous for the regime
today?
It's not about being dangerous to the regime. I can easily imagine
Lukashenka speaking Belarusian. He can – and it's not dangerous for him.
It used to be dangerous in the 90s when we used to have a strong national
front. But we don't have this any more. Lukashenka is the only one there
and Belarusian is not dangerous for him – but he still hasn't overcome this
fear which Belarusian was causing in the 90s.
You said at the meeting in Warsaw that the whole revival of the
Belarusian language is in a state of decay right now. What should one
do to keep it alive?
Five years ago speaking Belarusian was a political statement, saying “I
speak Belarusian” meant that you were politically involved... But it's a bad
motivation to speak a language just to show off. Today it's more about
fashion. Young people in creative business, PR, copywriters, also film
directors, musicians – all of them have been speaking Belarusian because
it's fashionable. But fashion is also a very weak motivation. Fashion
comes, fashion goes. What we are experiencing right now is the decaying
of fashion.
I think the key approach for us is to create a lot of products which would
help to glue people to the language. For us intellectuals, writers it's
important to create good products in the Belarusian language – we should
create more interesting texts in Belarusian, more interesting Belarusian
movies, etc.