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National Awakening and National Consciousness in Belarus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

David R. Marples
David R. Marples*
Affiliation:
History at the University of Alberta, Canada
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Extract

A frequent assertion about the recent events and pervasive mood in Belarus—the apparent efforts to reunite with Russia, the virtual denial of a Belarusian identity by a Russophone president, official nostalgia for the time of the former Soviet Union— is that national consciousness is somehow retarded or delayed, and national development is lagging considerably behind that of its neighboring states, Lithuania and Ukraine. This article seeks to address the question of national self-awareness in Belarus from three angles: those of demography, culture, and language. Was development of the republic in the Soviet period different from that of the other republics, and is that development responsible for what has been described as the “national nihilism” of today? Is that mood likely to change with a new generation of Belarusians? How far is President Alyaksander Lukashenka, the first president of Belarus, who was elected in July 1994, responsible for the present situation and how far is he a symptom of the notable lack of self-assertion of Belarusians?

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , December 1999 , pp. 565 - 578
Copyright
Copyright © 1999 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. See, for example, E. L. Abetsedarskaya et al., Istoriya Belarusi (Minsk: Ekoperspektiva, 1997), pp. 168–169. One historian states that the movement originated in the first quarter of the nineteenth century after the failure but under the influence of the Polish uprising against the Russian Empire in 1831. A similar upsurge of activity occurred during the Polish rebellion of 1863, but the major cultural activity dates from the 1890s around the Russian newspaper Minskiy listok and in the early twentieth century around the newspaper Nasha dolya (Vilna) and the first illustrated Belarusian newspaper, Nasha niva, the goal of which was the cultural and political awakening of the Belarusian people. See F. Turuk, Belorusskoe dvizhenie: ocherk istorii natsional'nogo i revolyutsionnogo dvizhenie Belorussov (Moscow: Gos. izd-vo, 1921), pp. 7–21.Google Scholar

2. See, for example, Rostislav Platonov, “Epidemiya zla,” Belaruskaya dumka , No. 1, 1993, pp. 52–56; and No. 2, 1993, pp. 64–68.Google Scholar

3. Belarusian State University, Faculty of History, Istoriya Belarusi (Minsk, 1997), pp. 304–305.Google Scholar

4. See, for example, David R. Marples, ”Kuropaty: Investigation of a Stalinist Historical Controversy,“ Slavic Review, Vol. 53, No. 2, 1994, pp. 513–523.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. The best account of these events is Jerzy Turonek, Bialorus pod okupacja Niemiecka (Warsaw: WERS, 1995). See especially p. 115.Google Scholar

6. Turonek, p. 118.Google Scholar

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15. Interview with A. E. Mikhnevich, Minsk, 16 December 1997.Google Scholar

16. These remarks should be qualified with the reminder that the Ukrainian national bard, Taras Shevchenko, often wrote in Russian and spent much of his productive years in St Petersburg. These factors have hardly reduced his influence among Ukrainians.Google Scholar

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20. Lukashenka also often speaks from a Russian imperialist perspective. Thus one could suggest that his use of Russian is also a reflection of his worldview: better to use the language of a great power than that of a small nation in which the native language in the past was limited to the villages.Google Scholar

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22. A.E. Mikhnevich, Russkiy yazyk v Belorussii (Minsk: Nauka i tekhnika, 1985), p. 18. Notably, also, there were no institutions of higher learning on Belarusian territories prior to 1914, other than the University of Wilno, which was closed after 1831.Google Scholar

23. Steven L. Guthier, “The Belorussians: National Identification and Assimilation, 1897–1970. Part 1:1897–1939,” Soviet Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1, 1977, p. 55.Google Scholar

24. Ibid., p. 58.Google Scholar

25. Nicholas P. Vakar, “The Belorussian People between Nationhood and Extinction,” in Erich Goldhagen, ed., Ethnic Minorities in the Soviet Union (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1968), p. 221.Google Scholar

26. Steven L. Guthier, “The Belorussians: Part 2:1939–1970,” Soviet Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2, 1977, p. 275.Google Scholar

27. State Committee for Statistics of the Belarusian SSR, 1990, pp. 118–119.Google Scholar

28. Pawluczuk, 1996, pp. 68–72.Google Scholar

29. O. Trusov, “Pochemu tol'ko ‘bilingvizm’?” Kommunist Belorussii , No. 5, 1989, p. 15.Google Scholar

30. Z. Smolenskiy, “Legko byt' illyuzionistom,” ibid., pp. 15–16.Google Scholar

31. E. Rutskaya, “Rodnaya rech'—eto bestsennyy klad,” Kommunist Belorussii , No. 3, 1989, p. 77.Google Scholar

32. Efrosin'ya Andreeva, “Belorusskiy yazyk: vzglyady Russkogo,” Neman, No. 4, 1989, p. 127.Google Scholar

33. E. L. Abetsedarskaya et al., Istoriya Belarusi (Minsk, 1997), pp. 307–308.Google Scholar

34. Ibid., pp. 308–309.Google Scholar

35. Ibid., pp. 309.Google Scholar

36. Interview with Mikhnevich, 16 December 1997.Google Scholar

37. The author attended one such demonstration on 27 July 1998, the eighth anniversary of the declaration of sovereignty, and until November 1996 a day of national holiday. Lukashenka changed this date by referendum to 3 July, the day that the city of Minsk was liberated from German occupation in 1943.Google Scholar

38. Belarusskaya sotsiologicheskaya sluzhba, “Obshchestvennoe mnenie”, Belarus': dva goda : Public Opinion in Minsk, nezavisimosti (Minsk, 1992), pp. 54–62.Google Scholar

39. Ibid., p. 61.Google Scholar

40. Ibid., p. 62.Google Scholar

41. Zyanon Paz'nyak, Sapraudnae ablichcha (Minsk: Palifakt, 1992), p. 49.Google Scholar

42. David R. Marples, “Belarus: Toward Diplomatic Isolation,” Belarusian Review, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1998, pp. 8–9.Google Scholar

43. According to a careful political analyst, “Unfortunately, the election did not become an election at all, and even failed to be a political action, since it is still unclear how many people voted.” Yuri Drakokhroust, “Elections dent opposition credibility,” Belarus Today , 25 May 1999, p. 4.Google Scholar