Julija Čarniaŭskaja is a cultural scholar, playwright, writer, and blogger.
A PhD holder, she worked at the Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts from 1996 to 2020. She headed the literary club GRAPHO and created several author-led cultural video series, including Ripples on Water, Artefact with Julija Čarniaŭskaja, Soviet Atlantis with Julija Čarniaŭskaja, and Without Answers. She has published over 200 scholarly articles and several academic books.
She is the recipient of the 2013 National Theatre Award for her play Bukovki (Odnoklassniki) [Little Letters (Classmates)].
On 18 May 2021, she was detained in Minsk in connection with a criminal case against the independent news portal TUT.BY, accused of alleged large-scale tax evasion (Part 2, Article 243 of the Criminal Code). During a search of her apartment, her health deteriorated; her whereabouts were unknown for over a day before it emerged that she had been taken to the hospital under escort and subsequently placed under house arrest.
On 25 May 2021, she was recognised as a political prisoner. On 13 January 2022, her preventive measure was changed, and she was released from house arrest.
Selected works
Plays:
Medea Syndrome http://dramacenter.org/upload/information_system_25/2/1/1/item_211/information_items_property_525.pdf
The Fourth Side of the Triangle http://dramacenter.org/upload/information_system_25/2/1/1/item_211/information_items_property_503.pdf
Little Letters
Prose:
Boy with a Dog
Poetry:
The World About You (collection of poems)
Academic research publications:
- Anthology of the Psychology of National Intolerance (1998)
- Folk Culture and National Traditions (2000)
- Ethnic Foundations of Culture (2001, co-authored)
- Introduction to Cultural and Philosophical Anthropology (2003)
- Personality and Culture (2003)
- Belarusian: Strokes for a Self-Portrait (2006)
- Belarusians: From “Locals” to a Nation (2010)
- Ethnic Culturology: Concepts, Approaches, Hypotheses (2010)