National awakening and national consciousness in Belarus

Nationalities Papers

Volumn 27, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 565-578

  Marples, David R ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION; NATIONAL IDENTITY; POLITICAL CHANGE;

BELARUS;

EID: 0033493596     PISSN: 00905992     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/009059999108830     Document Type: Article

References (44)

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.
2. 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.
3. See, for example, Rostislav Platonov, "Epidemiya zla," Belaruskaya dumka, No. 1, 1993, pp. 52-56; and No. 2, 1993, pp. 64-68.
4. Belarusian State University, Faculty of History, Istoriya Belarusi (Minsk, 1997), pp. 304-305.
5. See, for example, David R. Marples, "Kuropaty: Investigation of a Stalinist Historical Controversy, " Slavic Review, Vol. 53, No. 2, 1994, pp. 513-523.
6. The best account of these events is Jerzy Turonek, Bialorus pod okupacja Niemiecka (Warsaw: WERS, 1995). See especially p. 115.
7. Turonek, p. 118.
8. For a reflective analysis of Masherau, see Vladimir Velichko, "Istina - ne razmennaya moneta," Belorusskaya niva, 8 June 1993, pp. 2-3.
9. Despite popular myths, one author notes, it would be an error to regard Masherau as an oppositionist. He was on good terms with the Soviet leadership, including L.I. Brezhnev. However, this same writer believes, Belarus enjoyed a period of economic prosperity under Masherau's leadership, "Belarusian stores were better stocked than anywhere else in the [Soviet] Union." S. Aslezov, "Chelovek iz budushchego: P. M. Masherov - legendy i byl'," Vo slavu rodinu, 13 May 1992, p. 3; and 14 May 1992, p. 2.
10. Vasiliy Kharevsky, "Goroda navyrost': kak sovmestit' interesy predpriyatiy i lyudey?" Kommunist Belorussii, No. 1, 1990, p. 42.
11. Belarusian State University, Istoriya Belarusi, p. 389.
12. G.I. Kasperovich, Migratsiya naseleniya v goroda i etnicheskie protsessy (Minsk: Nauka i tekhnika, 1985), pp. 44, 51.
13. State Committee for Statistics of the Belarusian SSR, Narodnoe khozyaystvo Belorusskoy SSR v 1989g: statisticheskiy ezhegodnik (Minsk, 1990), p. 14.
14. This phenomenon has occurred elsewhere. For example, in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), an autonomous republic of the Russian Federation, urbanization has been offset by the much higher birthrate in the rural communities.
15. T.M. Mikulich, Mova i ethnichnaya samasvyadomasts (Minsk: Navuka i tekhnika, 1996), p. 82.
16. Interview with A. E. Mikhnevich, Minsk, 16 December 1997.
17. 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.
18. Wlodzimierz Pawluczuk, "Ruskie drogi," Polityka, 20 November 1996, pp. 68-72.
19. The territories of present-day Belarus were incorporated into the Russian Empire fully by 1795. After the First World War, western Belarus (Brest, Hrodna, and about 50% of the current Minsk Oblast) were included in the restored Polish state. In September 1939, the Red Army invaded these regions and they were included in a "reunited" BSSR. Between 1944 and 1946, most of the Polish population was moved to Poland in a one-sided exchange of populations. The Bialystok region was detached from the BSSR and included in the new Polish state. The other territories annexed during the war were retained by Belarus. The Vilna region, ceded to Lithuania in 1939, was included in the Lithuanian SSR formed after the war. See David R. Marples, Belarus: From Soviet Rule to Nuclear Catastrophe (New York: St Martin's Press, 1996.)
20. For a representative example of Paznyak's views on Russia, see Zenon Poznyak, "O russkom imperializme i ego opasnosti," Narodnaya hazeta, 15-17 January 1994, p. 2.
21. 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.
22. Adam Mal'dis, "Davayte, nakonets, zagovorim." Kommunist Belorussii, No. 3, 1989, p. 74.
23. 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.
24. Steven L. Guthier, "The Belorussians: National Identification and Assimilation, 1897-1970. Part 1: 1897-1939," Soviet Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1, 1977, p. 55.
25. Ibid., p. 58.
26. 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.
27. Steven L. Guthier, "The Belorussians: Part 2: 1939-1970," Soviet Studies, Vol. 29, No. 2, 1977, p. 275.
28. State Committee for Statistics of the Belarusian SSR, 1990, pp. 118-119.
29. Pawluczuk, 1996, pp. 68-72.
30. O. Trusov, "Pochemu tol'ko 'bilingvizm'?" Kommunist Belorussii, No. 5, 1989, p. 15.
31. Z. Smolenskiy, "Legko byt' illyuzionistom," ibid., pp. 15-16.
32. E. Rutskaya, "Rodnaya rech" - eto bestsennyy klad," Kommunist Belorussii, No. 3, 1989, p. 77.
33. Efrosin'ya Andreeva, "Belorusskiy yazyk: vzglyady Russkogo," Neman, No. 4, 1989, p. 127.
34. E. L. Abetsedarskaya et al., Istoriya Belarusi (Minsk, 1997), pp. 307-308.
35. Ibid., pp. 308-309.
36. Ibid., pp. 309.
37. Interview with Mikhnevich, 16 December 1997.
38. 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.
39. Belarusskaya sotsiologicheskaya sluzhba, "Obshchestvennoe mnenie", Belarus': dva goda: Public Opinion in Minsk, nezavisimosti (Minsk, 1992), pp. 54-62.
40. Ibid., p. 61.
41. Ibid., p. 62.
42. Zyanon Paz'nyak, Sapraudnae ablichcha (Minsk: Palifakt, 1992), p. 49.
43. David R. Marples, "Belarus: Toward Diplomatic Isolation," Belarusian Review, Vol. 10 No. 2, 1998, pp. 8-9.
44. 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.