For Whom the Bell is Silent

(Sorry, embedding is not my forte - full Youtube broadcast available at this link. Or, to go direct to Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElsyNIodVqI&feature=player_embedded)

This fascinating documentary, produced by BELSAT in 2008, tells the story of a forgotten church bell located on the roof of a 1940s building directly opposite the imposing KGB headquarters in Minsk.

The bell commemorates the soldiers of the Minsk infantry legion of the Polish army, who fought against the Red Army in the 1919-1920 Russo-Polish war. Hundreds of young men signed up for Pilsudski's army in the hope of gaining national independence for Belarus. When the war ended, Poland annexed the territories which came to be known as the "Kresy Wschodnie" (Eastern Territories) - now more commonly referred to as "Western Belarus". A bell was moulded in 1929 in Maladzechna, on the Polish side of the new border between Poland and the USSR, to commemorate their feats, and was placed in a triumphal arch at the edge of the town and used for religious ceremonial purposes (the arch was later destroyed, and only photographic evidence remains). In the early 1940s, after the Red Army's invasion and annexation of Western Belarus, the bell was brought to its current location.

The building itself is known for its clocktower, with its characteristic clockface in this iconic part of the city. The tower is at least 150 years old, and was brought from Konigsberg (now Kaliningrad). The commemorative bell was installed as a chime for the clock, but since 1951 has not been heard. It is said that the bell was a favourite "plaything" of the Belarusian NKVD head Laurenti Tsanava, who directed the Terror operation of the 1930s and 1940s. He used to climb up onto the belltower and beat the hour, thereby reminding the city of his commanding position over its residents' lives. When he was himself repressed in 1951, the bell was disconnected from the clock, and has remained there since, off limits to the citizens of Minsk and disambodied from the city's memory culture.

The film provides a thoughtful meditation on the dynamics of memory and forgetting in a repeatedly-devastated country, through the prism of an object whose fate reflects that history in a unique way. It is also a moving commentary on the role of religion and sacral objects and their relationship to national and cultural identity.

Unfortunately, as often happens with Belarusian films, there are no subtitles. A decent proportion of the material is in Russian, however, which should make it more accessible for some.