The taste of the tongue comes later…
Svetlana Yulyanovna Kompaneets has been working as a teacher of the Belarusian language and literature in Radun school for more than twenty years. Her pupils repeatedly won olimpiads and contests of research work. She constantly works at raising the professional level, she was recognized as the best teacher of the year of Prinemanya. She willingly shares her experience with colleagues, she is the head of the regional methodical association of teachers of the Belarusian language and literature. This year her name is brought to the district board of honour.
HERE IS THE BEGINNING OF LIFE AND MOTHERLAND
The house of the Kompaneets is in the center of Radun but it is hidden successfully behind the buildings. You can hear the sounds of the street from here, watch the traffic, but it is quiet in the yard, there is a flower paradise and a comfortable pergola. We met with Svetlana Yulyanovna at the table with a cup of coffee with cinnamon. And we did not talk so much about her professional secrets, which, of course, the talented teacher had but about living and being. It is interesting to look into the rich inner world of a person who sows reasonable, good, eternal.
Here in Radun the family of my parents began. Mother was born in Kuban, Father is local. My life , personal and professional is spinning around my native school. I was born, studied in Radun ,by the way in the same class with my husband Vitaly, and returned here as a teacher. Svetlana Yulyanovna remembers: - I couldn’t be a doctor or a bookkeeper, I was not very good at accurate subjects. I had the opportunity to enter Grodno university on the faculty of Belarusian philology and I liked the idea as I was good at Belarusian at school and loved my teacher Valentina Iosifovna Lemontovich very much.
IF IT’S A MATTER OF HEART
I am listening to my interviewee and understand that I am pleased with the sounds of her voice, beauty of the Belarusian word from the first minutes of our meeting. – You see there was nothing magic in the choice of profession, - smiled the teacher. – The taste of the tongue comes later. When you get into Belarusian surroundings, where teachers and students speak Belarusian, read the literature and become more profound in it, when the pupils appear, whom you should show the beauty of the native word…
We “taste” apt Belarusian words: arangavik – an orange, letishcha – a summer cottage, and such a delicate usage of the verb “to cut” if we speak about bread – kroits.
I always speak Belarusian . It seems to me I think in it too. I like when my pupils recite poems, we often do poetic minutes at the lessons, - Svetlana Yulyanovna adds. – I love my subject and want my pupils to know it. Of course, sometimes it is not easy for them, but I am strict and experienced. And this cannot be compared with anything. You are gradually enriched with knowledge, ideas and values.
HAPPY TOGETHER
She has been married to Vitaly for more than twenty years. Their sons Artyom and Valentin are students. The children have already fled out from parental care. Although it is sad from understanding of this inevitability, but there are some pluses in it too. Daily rhythm of Svetlana and Vitaly’s life has become more moderate. Their personal time is regulated in a different way, it is devoted to each other: meeting a new day together with a cup of coffee in the open air, reading, travelling.
I read much and to my husband too. He is not fond of reading in Belarusian, but he likes listening, usually short stories from modern literature. I think Belarusian authors are great in this small genre. And to say more, our literature is intellectual, it’s impossible to read it on the train or bus wasting time.
Travelling is another good tradition in their family. Around Belarus, abroad. Cycling tours through native places also bring many impressions. The Kompaneets discover new landscapes, which they had already seen from the window of their car. You take the surroundings with their sounds, smells, colours in a different way. And then you begin to understand the sources of inspiration of Belarusian classics, comparisons, parallels, epithets…
AT PARTING
Don’t write much about me, - Svetlana Yulyanovna said at the end of our meeting. – Thank you for attention to my personality, but I am a usual teacher. I am doing my own thing and try to make children’s meetings with their native language and literature useful and informative . I share my knowledge with pupils, bring them up. Because I have relationship to their soul…
Olga Vorobyova
Translated by Zinaida Tserpitskaya