[Whiteruthenian]

Some words on the history of the Belarusian national movement have to be said so that it became clearer why everything is how it is.

The process of creation of the nation from the ethnical group began here very late in comparison with other Slavs. Its starting point may be year 1891. It was the year when the small collection of poems “Dudka Biełaruskaja” by Francišak Bahuševič was published. (By the way, it couldn’t be published in the Russian Empire and was published in Austria-Hungary, in Krakow.) It wasn’t the first book published in the New Belarusian language, but it was especially important because it was the first time when (in the foreword) (something like) the national idea was articulated. The author pointed out that the situation when the Belarusians didn’t have books in Belarusian was abnormal. In the book the author mentioned documents (read by him) written centuries ago - the documents “in our pure language [obviously Old Belarusian] as if they have been written right now”, written by “great sirs”. He compared the situation to situations of other Slavic nations (Croats, Czechs, Bulgarians, Ukrainians) and said his book was an attempt to restore justice. Also the book reminded about the great past when “Lithuania and Belarus united in the single powerful state” (historical tradition), designated the borders of Belarus “Belarus is there where our language lives” and enumerated some most significant cities on the Belarusian ethnographical territory.

But the true rebirth began only in year 1905 when in the Russian Empire the laws concerning the ethnical minorities near its western border were liberalized. Unlike the Ukrainians (another Slavic people with similar fate) Belarusians didn’t have their Piedmont (Ukrainians had their Galicia (part of Austria-Hungary – freer for national development than Russia at that time)). But building of our national identity began and that work lasted more or less successfully to the First World War and during the war. After the October revolution this process was stopped and a new type of identity began to form – Soviet Belarusian identity. Its formation was so successful because ‘normal’ Belarusian identity simply wasn’t rooted deeply.

That’s what we have here, in my humble opinion – one ethnos but two identities. With two different views on the Belarusian history, with two separate pantheons of heroes, with different kind of languages (don’t you know about the two systems of orthography in the Belarusian language?), with two different national mythologies etc. etc.

That’s why Łukašenka is so popular. He is blood of our blood, flesh of our flesh – he is Soviet Belarusian, like most people in this country. But we can’t blame this situation on Łukašenka and people. It isn’t their fault.

One fateful aftermath of this position was the physical destruction of Belarus in World War II, including a heavy demographic loss ('every fourth one').

This may be an example of the Soviet mythology. Probably every Belarusian knows about “every fourth civilian killed” during the Second World War and believes that it’s true. The Soviet myth repeated thousand times became the truth in Belarusians’ minds.

As a consequence, the number of Russians in the republic rose by about one million between 1945 and 1985. This increase was even more significant among the intelligentsia as a result of the disproportionately high destruction of the native cadres in Stalinist purges.

By the way, researches show that up to 90% of executors were “imported” (weren’t from Belarus). It gives to these purges a genocide-like character.

Many Belarusians still cannot think of themselves as self-sustained nation, especially in terms of economic relations, which entails and enhances linguistic and cultural attachment to their eastern neighbor.

Probably most Belarusians already can ‘think of themselves as self-sustained nation in terms of economic relations’. After 17 years of independence this complex has been overcome. As for “linguistic and cultural attachment” – it is true.

During the last two years shifts at the top of the power in Minsk led to a dramatic increase in ethnic Russians occupying top positions in the Belarusian government where the country's prime minister, his deputies and heads of the power ministries, as well as a number of deputy ministers and the speaker of the lower chamber of parliament, are all Russian-born.

I don’t believe it was done on purpose. On the other hand I can remember that on the list of the people who tried to compete with our beloved father Łukašenka in presidential elections (I wonder how people can be so optimistic ) there were only people of Belarusian ethnicity. Everything is relative.

Kurapaty immediately became a generic symbol of Stalinist repression of the nationally conscious Belarusian intelligentsia which took place in the ideological and ethnic cleansing of the 1930s.

There were attempts to accuse Nazis of these executions (the victims were supposed to be Jews). What is the reason to defend in such a way Stalin’s executioners I have no idea.

Another important factor that impacted the rise of the issue of national self-assertiveness was the revelation, toward the end of 1989, that over seventy percent of the radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster landed on Belarusian territory. A public outcry and pressure for investigation of the Chernobyl cover-up had significant political and psychological repercussions. The republic's leadership was accused of subservience to Moscow at the expense of national interests. 'The Chernobyl tragedy has demonstrated,' wrote one critic, 'that the Belarusian people needs indispensably to raise its self-awareness. If our leadership had high national self-awareness, this would not have happened.'

At the moment few people blame “judeo-bolshevik Moscow” for those seventy percent of the radiation.

The key element in this quest for a new conceptual base of nationhood was to be sought, obviously, in the spheres of culture and history. The multiconfessional and multiethnic makeup of Belarusian society, located between East and West, was now presented in a new light. It was found to possess a distinct type of mentality characterized by tolerance, humanistic values, the absence of extremist views, and having peaceful intentions toward its neighbors.

What?! Hell no, I won’t agree to eat this, thank you.

Researchers found that only five to six percent of the population 'possesses the necessary knowledge of the history of [our] national culture.'

Sounds like true. ½ of inhabitants of Minsk believe that Peter the Great was our ruler, and 2/3 believe that Ivan the Terrible was too. The ignorance is striking. I hope that among youths the figures aren’t so scary. For older people who were taught the history from Abecedarski’s “History of the Belarusian SSR” such ignorance is more forgivable.

A poll conducted in March 2000 among 1,608 residents of Belarus, a country with eighty-one percent Belarusians, revealed an amazing lack of national self-awareness. The respondents were asked to say who, according to them, Belarusians are 'a separate self-sustained (samastoynaya) Belarusian nation,' or 'a branch of the triune Russian nation,' or 'other.' Only 49.8 percent said Belarusians are a separate nation, while 42.6 percent chose the category 'the triune (i. e., Russian-Ukrainian-Belarusian J.Z.) Russian nation.' Five-and-a-half percent said they did not know how to answer.

Plausible. Probably now more people will agree with the first option, though. But I would not agree that these figures mean that 42.6 percent of Belarusians in 2000 were ready to join Slavyanskiy Sobor Belaya Rus’ (an organization of Russian imperialists (by the way it was not re-registered in Belarus because it didn’t have enough members. )).

In Belarus, as in Eastern Europe generally, the notion of nationality has been based on ethnicity.

Yes, and it should be so for ever.

Secondly, the language itself, in the mind of the population, was stigmatized as 'peasant' by years of disuse in the higher echelons.

It is called “inferiority complex”. Yes, such thing exists.

In spite of ardent protests by some legislators and members of the intelligentsia, the answer was a firm 'yes,' explained by the following: a) decades of Russian being used as the official language; b) weak national self-awareness on the part of a majority of Belarusians; and c) intensive government propaganda, including the president himself, on behalf of the Russian language.

The attitude towards the Belarusian language usually depends on what the language for a person is, “means of communication” or “value”. Obviously for most Belarusians (Soviet Belarusians) the language is not a value so it does not need a special protection from the state.

Is Russian, spoken by Belarusians, unavoidably a carrier of Russian cultural and political identity?

I would agree that very often it is not. A person who speaks Belarusian not so well but is loyal to their folk is much better than a person who express their anti-Belarusian beliefs in Belarusian.

A recent study by the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences has shown that forty-seven percent of the population are believers, while twenty percent are non-believers and thirty-three percent could not provide an answer as to their religious conviction. Among the believers, seventy-eight percent are Orthodox Christians, nine percent Catholics and the rest belong to various other denominations.

Interesting that proportion of curacies gives another image – 3 orthodox curacies : 2 protestant curacies : 1 catholic curacy. The cause of the difference is probably high percentage of not practicing Orthodox Christians and “Orthodox atheists”. It is the reason why the Belarusian Orthodox Church reacts so nervously to activities of the small Uniate church and its attempts to position itself as the national church. If the Uniate church manages to do it (and will be seen as the national church by most Belarusians) we may see sharp rise in conversions from “Orthodox atheism” to “Uniate atheism”.

But the idea of the autocephaly of the BOC, recently aired by some clergy and laymen, has a long way to go. As one of its protagonists put it, 'The path toward a Belarusian national [Orthodox Christian J.Z.] church goes through an INDEPENDENT NATIONAL BELARUSIAN STATE! (emphasis in the original J.Z.) Only then could one could speak also about autocephaly.'

I agree. First Belarus must become Belarusian in full sense of this word.
I heard that Metropolitan Filaret [Vakhromeyev] himself was going to proclaim autocephaly after the collapse of the USSR but our indecision and failures on the way to building the national state discouraged him. Metropolitan Filaret is more judicious than his chiefs in Moscow, it can be seen from his attitude to hierarchs of Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (in the USA) to Belarusianess etc.

As to the Roman Catholic Church in Belarus, it is characterized, as a result of history, by a close pro-Polish orientation in its linguistic and cultural expression. The equation of Orthodoxy with Russianness and Catholicism with Polishness is still deeply ingrained in the popular mind.
[…]
Fully devoted to the cause of religious and national rebirth is the small Belarusian Greek-Catholic (Uniate) Church … .

Yes, yes! Only the Uniate church will save us all!

The past decade of independence has seen efforts to raise society's awareness of its power potential. Scores of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are trying to increase citizens' civic assertiveness, political activism and national consciousness.

It is the most hateful thing our opposition does – it mixes up Belarusianess, democracy/liberalism and euro-enthusiasm and tells us to eat this dish. It uses white, red and white flag, for example, and discredits it – people associate the flag not with the nation but with the opposition (which is not popular at all).

There is a view that the government, which has vested interests in independence, has no choice but to resort to the national awareness of the population as a sort of barrier against absorption of the country's sovereignty by Russia where the status and role of Belarusian bureaucrats, including that of Lukashenka, will be unavoidably reduced. 'Gradually,' writes one analyst about recent trends, 'the government's rhetoric began to emphasize the need to maintain Belarusian statehood and sovereignty no matter how advanced the integration process became.'

It may be true. Today it seems, there are attempts of the authorities to work out something like Neo-Soviet Belarusian identity (to adapt the Soviet Belarusian identity of older generation to new conditions – to the independent Belarusian state (a union with Russia becomes less and less probable)). What this identity will be like and whether it will absorb some elements of “normal” Belarusian identity it is unclear yet. There are suppositions that among other elements, Łukašenka’s regime can most easily (without being unfaithful to itself) adapt the idea of preservation of the Belarusian language (for example) and some others. Well, let’s see.

'Each day that passes strengthens the sense of national consciousness among Belarusians most rapidly among the young, the intellectuals, and those who hold the reins of power and see the advantages that independence has brought.'

Indeed.