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Counter-hegemony in today's Belarus: dissident symbols and the mythological figure of Miron Vitebskii

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Anastasiya Astapova
Anastasiya Astapova*
Affiliation:
Department of Estonian and Comparative Folklore, University of Tartu, Estonia
*
∗Email: anastasiya.ast@gmail.com
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Abstract

Tackling the role of state symbols in negotiating national identity and political development, this research focuses on Belarus where the alternative white-red-white flag became instrumental in protests against the dominant political discourse. Since 1995, oppositional mass media have been reporting about cases of this tricolor being erected in hard-to-reach and/or politically sensitive places. These actions were mainly attributed to some “Miron,” whose identity remained concealed and served as a simulacrum of a national superhero in non-conformist discourse. The image of Miron immediately acquired multiple functions: condemning the Soviet colonial past, struggling for the European future, and creating a nation-state rather than the Russian-speaking civil-state of Belarus. Yet, first and foremost, Miron became a means for contesting the authority of the president who has been in power since 1994. Concentrating on the methods employed for the construction of the counter-hegemonic fakelore project of Miron and its aims, this article explores the vernacular response to its creation.

Keywords

Belarushegemonyfakeloreethnosymbolismdissidence
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 44 , Issue 5 , September 2016 , pp. 713 - 730
Copyright
Copyright © 2016 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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