How one song became the anthem of pro-democracy protests in Belarus

Across Belarus, crowds are gathering. Over the past four weeks, protests and rallies have broken out across the country, not just in Minsk, but in provincial towns and cities. Demonstrators gather to show their support for democracy, and condemn corruption, and police brutality. Many meetings are in support of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who will run in Belarus’ upcoming presidential elections against Alexandr Lukashenko, the country’s dictatorial leader since 1994, on 9 August. One song has become synonymous with their discontent: Razburi Turmi Muri, or Break the Prison Walls.

“Destroy the prison walls! You want freedom, take it!,” the lyrics declare, “The wall will soon collapse, And bury the old world!”

It isn’t the first time that the song has made its mark on Belarus. The anthem was first sung following the country’s December 2010 elections, when more than 10,000 people took to streets before 700 protesters and 25 journalists were eventually imprisoned. But Break The Prison Walls has an international history of fighting against dictatorships. Its lyrics are a Belarusian translation of the 1978 Polish Solidarity movement anthem Mury, written by the poet and singer-songwriter Jacek Kaczmarski.

Kaczmarski himself based his tune off the 1968 Catalunian L’Estaca (or The Stake), by Lluis Llach, a resistance song against Franco’s regime in Spain. More recently, the anthem was also played in Tunisia during the Arab Spring.

It is perhaps no surprise, then, that the song has been revived for Belarus’ current struggle. Since May, hundreds of opposition supporters have been imprisoned, including presidential candidates Sergei Tikhanovsky, a vlogger, and Viktor Babariko, a former banker. Another candidate, Valery Tsepkalo, the former Belarusian ambassador to the United States, was barred from registering as a candidate by the Central Electoral Committee. In an unlikely turn of events, it is now Tikhanovsky’s wife, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who has taken up the opposition mantle after managing to register to run as the main opposition candidate. Supported by Tsepkalo’s wife, Veronika Tsepkalo, and Babariko’s campaign manager, Maria Kolesnikova, the 38 years-old has galvanised crowds in Minsk, as well as across smaller towns, where thousands of people are taking to the streets for the first time.