Ever since the Russian invasion, Ukraine has been busy cleansing itself of any sign of its former Russian and Soviet rulers. Statues of Russian leaders and cultural figures have been removed from public spaces, and streets once named after Russians or Bolsheviks have had their names changed. Ukraine, in other words, shuns anything related to the occupiers and celebrates its nationalism.
In neighboring Belarus however, quite astonishingly, the opposite is true: The regime of Alexander Lukashenko, Vladimir Putin's ally, is working to pare down and restrict Belarusian culture. Absurdly, the Belarusian nation state has declared war on its own national culture.
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A few examples from December alone: The Justice Ministry in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, called for the closure of a volunteer organization that looks after cultural and heritage sites, the curator of 20th century Belarusian culture at the National Museum was thrown out of her job, but most symbolic of all has been the wholesale confiscation of books published in Belarusian by independent publishers. The publishers themselves had already been shut down.
According to Henadz Korshunau former head of the Institute of Sociology at the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, anyone who now speaks or reads Belarusian, creates Belarusian music, or sells Belarusian artifacts in private shops, can now consider themselves part of a persecuted minority.
"From the start, Lukashenko considered any expression of Belarusian nationalism as hostile," Korshunau tells Israel Hayom in a call from Bialystok. "The ideological foundation of his regime is a return to the Soviet era, which in many respects was supranational. After taking office, Lukashenko scrapped the historic Belarusian white-red-white flag, while the post-Soviet revival of the Belarusian language was brought to a gradual end. In 2014 [following the Russian annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas – D.B.] when Lukashenko understood that Putin and his imperial worldview were a threat to him as well, the glass ceiling of supra-nationalism was lifted: Shops began to spring up selling the Belarusian and the history books no longer began with the Soviet Union but went back as far as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
The Belarusian renaissance came to an end in one fell swoop in August 2020 when the Lukashenko regime falsified the results of the elections and hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets. "Even back then, there were already cases in which protesters speaking Belarusian were arrested, had a mark branded on their head, and were beaten up," recalls Korshunau.
Since then, Lukashenko has sought to repress any sign of nationalism associated with an independent civil society: Tour guides working in Belarusian were imprisoned; the historic Belarusian flag was made illegal; and the list of material considered to constitute incitement has grown and grown to include more and more Belarusian language and cultural paraphernalia and civil society activities in Belarusian.
1,000 organizations closed down
To put things in perspective, over the past two years, more than 1,000 organizations have been shut down or are in the process of being shut down. These range from the Belarusian Language Society to organizations with no political affiliation at all, such as ecological groups, NGOs helping the disabled, and publishers. The story of Yanuskevic publishing house is one such example. Andrej Yanuskevic founded it in 2014 and enjoyed stellar success in Belarus by publishing in the language of the small nation classics such as George Orwell's "1984" and Orhan Pamuk's "Istanbul", as well as three books from the Harry Potter series.
"Initial signs of repression began in November 2021. But it was only after the start of the war in March 2022 that the assault on the publishing house began," says Yanuskevic, talking from Warsaw where he is now based. "We were told to vacate our offices within two days. I thought it would be an opportunity to move out of my comfort zone and on May 16th we opened a bookstore belonging to the publishing house selling books in Belarusian. The store opened at 11 in the morning and by lunch, we received a visit from regime propagandists. By 6:30, it had been closed by injunction from the prosecutor's office because of complaints by 'concerned citizens.'"
Laughing bitterly, Yanuskevic recalls how police officers from the organized crime directorate collected the suspicious books including a children's book by the author Joseph Brodsky, 'Ballad About a Small Tugboat.' Why? Because of the ("sort of dark orange") color of the tugboat on the cover illustration on the cover which reminded the officers of the white and red of the national flag.
Yanuskevic was arrested and spent about a month in jail before being released and leaving for Poland. "This regime does not need Belarusian culture, except in the role of marginal popular culture. It is without a doubt an anti-Belarusian policy. Instead, the regime plants the 'Russian world' to make Belarus just another part of Western Russia."
Integration with Russia
Yanuskevic is referring to the increased presence of Putin's Russia in Belarus. Not only the use of its territory to attack Ukraine but also the opening of "Russian cultural houses," its propaganda of "traditional values," increased collaboration between the education systems of the two countries, and above all, the promotion of nostalgia for the Soviet Union and the common Soviet past with Russia – in propaganda, in public events, and in the way history is taught. Only recently, children from the town of Gomel in southeastern Belarus were required to write letters to Russian soldiers on the front as if they were Soviet children writing to their protectors from the Nazis.
"I'm not familiar with examples of a nation state annihilating its own national culture," says Korshunau, the sociologist. There are close examples such as North Korea, which preserves a Soviet-style regime. What is unique to Lukashenko is that he has not invented his own ideology. Theoretically, his regime should be nationalistic, but he is afraid of anything with a whiff of Belarusian to it. He wants to return to Stalinism."
Q: How similar is this to Putin who also seems to be promoting a version of Stalinism?
"Putin has gone much further back in history. His idols aren't so much Stalin but the tsars – Peter the Great and Catherine the Great. Lukashenko has gone back 100 years in time and Putin has gone back 300. Lukashenko supports socialism and internationalism, so from his point of view Belarus, Venezuela, Russia, and North Korea should be equal. From Putin's point of view Russia is an empire and other countries should be subordinate to it."
"Belarusians don't want to be part of the Russian Empire. We aren't willing to be and we never have been," Alina Koushyk, which is tasked with the national revival portfolio on behalf of the Belarus United Transitional Cabinet [the exiled government of the democratic forces, which won the 2020 elections – D.B], says unequivocally. The UTC has declared 2023 as the year of the Belarusian language. Throughout the year it will promote online Belarusian study events and will attempt to establish a network of Belarusian schools for exiles in Poland (as many as 150,000 Belarusian fled to Poland following the repression of the protests) and will print books in Belarusian.
"The initiative comes from the bottom-up and we merely support it," says Koushyk. "The language can be a source of strength and national identity and also a defense against the 'Russian world.' To tell the truth, every year should be the year of the Belarusian language."
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