Margarita Ivanovna Belichenko (Kevyŋevyt), 1945–2021: Radio Journalist and Champion of Chukchi Language and Tradition

Margarita Belichenko, beloved radio journalist and dedicated promoter of Chukchi language and culture, passed away on October 9, 2020 in Anadyr, the regional center of Chukotka. Only eight months earlier, on her seventy-fifth birthday, she was awarded Chukotka’s highest distinction, the title of “Honorary Citizen of the Chukotka Autonomous Region,” which Governor Roman Kopin presented to her personally in the offices of the state radio station where she worked, before a gathering of colleagues who laughed and cheered in celebration of her achievements. Belichenko’s journalistic career spanned nearly half a century, and her voice was heard daily throughout Chukotka in her Chukchi language radio broadcasts, which always began with the words “Еттык, тумгытуры”/ Ettyk, tumgytury [Hello, friends]. Belichenko was born on February 10, 1945 in the village of Enmelen on the Bering Sea coast, the second of five children (she had an older sister and three younger brothers). Her given name was Кэвын’эвыт/Kevyŋevyt, which means “Comfortable.” Her father’s clan was Уэчгын/Uesgyn,which she said was untranslatable, while her mother’s clan was К’эпэр/K’eper [Wolverine]. Her father, a sea mammal hunter, also hunted Arctic foxes to supply the WWII front, while her mother worked as a seamstress in the collective farm. Belichenko was born inside the family яранга/iaranga [reindeer skin tent] and lived there until the age of nine, when the family was moved into a wooden house built by the collective farm. Belichenko spoke no Russian until she went to school at the age of seven; the schoolteacher spoke only Russian and forbade the children to speak in their native languages. Belichenko did not fully master the Russian language until about the age of nine, and often talked about how difficult it was to make sense of Russian grammar, which seemed to have nothing in common with Chukchi grammar. “It was dreadful,” she said of the experience. But she considered herself lucky that her house was located in the village, so she could still live at home while going to school; she only had to stay in a boarding school (in Nunligran) during the fifth and sixth grades, until another school was built in Enmelen that taught through the eighth grade. “That’s why my siblings and I knew our own language so well,” she said; “it was because we lived at home.” After eighth grade, at the age of sixteen, Belichenko went to study at the teacher training college in Anadyr. The seeds of her radio career were planted at the very beginning of her studies there, when she entered a translation contest organized by Chukchi and Yupik members of the regional Komsomol [Young Communist League]. The task was to translate summaries of popular movies that were to be shown to reindeer herders and sea mammal hunters in the “Red Tents”—local culture bases—as entertainment. Red Tent workers complained that it was difficult explaining to non-Russian speakers what the movies would be about. Belichenko won the contest with her translation into Chukchi language of a text summarizing the film “Divorce Italian Style.” The judges congratulated the top three translators in the regional media, and as a result, Belichenko was noticed by the state radio station and was invited to work part-time as a correspondent during her studies. Belichenko graduated from the teacher training college in 1966, and was then obligated to work as a schoolteacher for at least two years. She moved to Sireniki and taught a combined class of second and fourth graders for several years. There she met Ivan Bardashevich, with whom she had a daughter, Tatiana. After three years of active participation in the community, Belichenko was …