A defining feature of Belarusian theater in the first half of the 2020s has been the large-scale erasure of figures—and sometimes entire theater companies—from the history of the nation's art. This widespread purging has also affected the field of theater studies. Some individuals simply ceased to be published, while others were forced to emigrate. Those who managed to continue their work within Belarus began to write more cautiously; media management within the country strives to avoid mentioning the names of those placed on so-called "blacklists." The general public no longer has access to articles, historical texts, interviews, and reviews previously published on the websites of state newspapers such as *Litaratura i Mastactva* and *Kultura*, or the magazine *Mastactva*. Writings on theater also fell victim to the state’s campaign against independent media; along with the online platforms themselves, the reviews and interviews they hosted disappeared.

Nastassia Pankratava’s book restores to the discourse of theater studies a selection of texts to which free access had been blocked—with varying degrees of success—within Belarus. It compiles selected articles that originally appeared in both state-run media and independent outlets. It helps reconstruct many of the events and names that shaped the development of theater in Belarus. Since 2020, the systematic work of local theater critics has been disrupted—a fact clearly illustrated by this book, in which analytical pieces from the last five years often take the form of annual summaries or overviews of major festivals.

The book helps document the current moment in theater history, fills the gaps that emerged following the events of 2020, and reconstructs fragments of both the biographies of individual theater figures and the theatrical processes that were unfolding within the professional community just a few years ago.