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Documentary

Andrei Liankevich

Photographer

Andrei Liankevich

Pagan traditions in Belarus

Belarus people have original culture rooted back in pagan, pre-Christian days. The Belarusian culture has benefited from the fact that when the Slavic tribes came to inhabit nowadays Belarus lands they accept
the achievements of Pagan Baltic and Finno-Ugric tribes. Pagan form of religious perception existed for quite a long time and made the basis of today’s Belarusian
culture. Now there is no doubt that Belarusians had written language already in the pagan period. Most of Pagan traditions were lost or stopped its celebration in 19th- 20th centuries. Great number of still
existing traditions and celebrations are reconstructed by people interested in Belarus culture and by folk unions. It’s a luck if you can find just one person, who participated in original celebration when she (he) was
teenager.
The idea of the project is to document still existing pagan culture traditions and believes and signs.

Andrei Liankevich

Born 1981 in Grodno and based in Minsk (Belarus). Since 2004 Andrei taught a course on Photojournalism at the European Humanities University in Vilnius (Lithuania). His works are published in international media as The New York Times, Le Figaro, Newsweek, Die Zeit, Spiegel, GEO, Vanity Fair, Readers Digest and the International Herald Tribune. In 2009 Andrei won a prize at the Humanity Photo Awards for his work ”Pagan traditions in Belarus”, late that year the project was among finalists of “Magnum Expression Award”. Later Andrei wins 1st Prize at the Polish Photography Contest dedicated to 170 Years of Photography. And in 2010 Andrei won OSCE photo contest.