Svetlana Anikey

Svetlana Anikey (Belarusian Svyatlana Uladzimirauna Anikey, born February 7, 1977, Minsk, Belarusian SSR, USSR) is a Belarusian theater and film actress. She is the actress of the Yanka Kupala National Academic Theatre. Anikey is a recipient of First National Theater Award (2011) and Francysk Skaryna Medal (2020). Anikey was born in Minsk, Belarus, on February 7, 1977.

She graduated from the Akhremchik College of Arts, and planned to become an artist. On the first attempt, she got accepted to the theater department of the Belarusian State Academy of Arts to study under the guidance of the famous professor Lydia Alekseevna Monakova.

In 1999, Anikey graduated from the Theater Department of the Belarusian State Academy of Arts. Since 1999, she has been an actress of the Yanka Kupala National Academic Theater. She began acting in films in 2003, making her debut in the film "Hotel ‘Fulfillment of Desires’.“

In 2018, she played one of the leading roles in Radziva Prudok play by Andrus Horvat, which premiered at Yanka Kupala National Academic Theatre and was a great hit with the public. In 2018, she was also in the Crystal Swan movie by Darya Zhuk, the Belarusian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 91st Academy Awards (the Oscars).In 2020, Anikey played a leading role in Andrei Kureichik's "LIBERTÉ", a philosophical drama featuring Jean-Marc Birkholz and Didier Caness, the Ambassador of France to the Republic of Belarus.On August 26, 2020, during the protests in Belarus due to the Belarusian Presidential Election falsification and brutal violence against protesters, Anikey resigned from the theater along with 58 actors and supporting staff (the vast majority of the theater's employees). The series of resignations were caused by the firing of the theater's general director, Pavel Latushko, who spoke up against the Lukashenko regime.

On August 26, 2020, after the mass resignation in solidarity with the Belarusian nation, Anikey along with the actors and staff of the Yanka Kupala National Theatre founded the Free Kupalauski Theater, which continues the long-standing traditions of the national theater, including broadcasting their work for free on their YouTube channel, Kupalaucy. The statement after the resignation was the following: "We have left our home, but we are sure we will come back to it. Our page is about our return, our long way back home."

Besides acting, Anikey restores unique Belarusian wooden furniture from the remote villages.