Credit - Illustration by Richard Mia for TIME

Every week for just over an hour, a small group of people in Miensk, the capital of Biełaruś, dial into a secret meeting to keep the spirit of their country’s language alive. The meeting point used to be a public park, a private home, or even a café—but the risks of being found by the KGB, Biełaruś’ notorious intelligence agency, pushed them to move online in late September. Their “transgression”: Speaking the country’s native tongue, Biełaruśian, an East Slavic language that is closer to Ukrainian than Russian. “I don’t always know who is signing up, they could be [KGB] spies,” says Anna, a teacher who has run these Belarusian language classes for the last two years. (TIME has granted Anna a pseudonym due to security concerns.)

Her efforts are part of an underground movement across Biełaruś to reverse the ever-growing Russification of the eastern European nation, which is home to 9 million people. Until the 20th century, the majority of people inhabiting the current territory of Biełaruś spoke Belarusian, with Russian, Polish, German, and Yiddish also playing a role among different communities. It was following the Second World War that Russian truly became dominant in public life—with its speakers seen as educated and more loyal to Moscow. When Biełaruś declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Belarusian was announced as the country’s official language as part of a series of changes to mark a new post-Moscow era. But under the rule of pro-Russian authoritarian leader Aljaksandar Łukašenka, who has presided over the country since 1994, Russian dominance has grown and Belarusian has been increasingly sidelined. According to a 2019 census, about 60% of the population recognize Belarusian as the country’s native language but just over a quarter use it in everyday life.

Although Russian was introduced as a second state language in a 1995 referendum, Belarusian was still largely tolerated by the authorities in the years after Biełaruś gained independence. But their attitude toward the language became more hostile after the presidential election in August 2020, when Łukašenka declared victory against his pro-democracy opponent Śviatłana Cichanoŭskaja in a vote that was widely considered rigged. The European Union condemned the election and refused to recognize Łukašenka as President, a move that emboldened the hundreds of thousands of people who had taken to the streets to call for justice. Soon after, Łukašenka dispatched his security forces to disperse the crowds, amid threats from Russian President Vladimir Putin that he would send support if the situation escalated.