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The Belarusian Minority in Lithuania a n F P 7 - SSH collaborative research project [2008 - 2 0 1 1 ] w w w . e n r i - e a s t . n e t Interplay of European, National and Regional Identities: Nations between States along the New Eastern Borders of the European Union Series of project research reports Contextual and empirical reports on ethnic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe Research Report # 6 Belarus The Belarusian Minority Germany in Lithuania Hungary Latvia Authors: Arvydas Matulionis | Vida Beresnevičiūtė Lithuania Tadas Leončikas | Kristina Šliavaitė Hans-Georg Heinrich |Olga Alekseeva Poland Russia Slovakia Series Editors: Ukraine Hans-Georg Heinrich | Alexander Chvorostov Project primarily funded under FP7-SSH programme Project host and coordinator EUROPEAN COMMISSION www.ihs.ac.at European Research Area 2 ENRI - E a s t R es e a r c h Report #6: The Belarusian Minority in Lithuania About the ENRI-East research project The research project ‘The Interplay of European, National and Regional Identities: Nations between states along the new eastern borders of the European Union’, further known under the acronym ENRI-East, is designed to promote and understand the way contemporary identities and regional cultures are formed and inter-communicated in the Central and Eastern European neighborhood. In this project we aim to galvanize three perspectives on the dynam- ic relationships between identities and state restructuring. Those three perspectives are the restructuring of the nation- state, the increasing self legitimization of states (rearrangement of the relationship between state and society) and observation of emerging identities at different levels (supra-national, sub-national and global), as well as their complex relationships on the level of individual and group experiences and practices. The following project objectives have been established and implemented through the project activities: To understand the mechanisms behind European, national and regional identities, the way they are consti- tuted and negotiated through individual and group narratives and practices within an increasingly complex set of institutional arrangements To explore the interrelation between individual identities (increasingly complex), group identities (where there is a growing significance of cosmopolitan and European identities parallel to national and regional identities), and institutional frameworks (still dominated by the state, but with the increasing significance of non state ac- tors). To make inroads in conceptualising different identity regimes, To re-examine the ways in which the dominant form in which identity and sovereignty are coupled continues to be significant, To understand the diverse set of nested and interlocking institutional, historical and cultural frameworks with- in which different European identities are constantly negotiated and reshaped These objectives are integrated within four general research themes. The first one deals with the interplay of identities and cultures by comparing ‘mother nations’ and their ‘residual groups abroad’. The second theme is a cross-cutting approach which addresses the nations and the states: more exactly, the attitudes and policies of ‘mother nations’ and ‘host nations’ toward the ‘residual groups’ and vice versa. The third research theme comprise the reality of self organi- zation and representation of “residual groups abroad” (ethnic minorities) along the East European borderland. Finally, the last research theme of the project deals with path dependencies, historical memories, present status and expected dynamics of divided nations in Eastern Europe. The project has applied a set of quantitative and qualitative methods in Poland, Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia, and Germany: 1) ENRI Values and Identities Survey (face-to-face interviews with members of 12 ethnic minority groups in eight countries), short ENRI-VIS 2) ENRI-BIO: qualitative, biographical in-depth interviews with members of 12 ethnic minority groups in eight countries 3) ENRI-EXI: qualitative, expert interviews with governmental and non-governmental representatives of eth- nic minority groups in eight countries 4) ENRI-BLOG: online content analysis of weblogs and Internet periodicals run or maintained by ethnic mi- nority group members 5) ENRI-MUSIC: special study on cultural identities and music; an innovative, multi-disciplinary pilot effort in Hungary and Lithuania „ENRI-East” Project (www.enri-east.net) | Series of Project Research Reports | 2011 ENRI - E a s t R es e a r c h Report #6: The Belarusian Minority in Lithuania 3 The series of ENRI-East research reports includes the following individual papers: Summarizing and generalizing reports 1. Theoretical and methodological backgrounds for the studies of European, national and regional identities of ethnic minorities in European borderlands (WP1) (Edited by Claire Wallace, Natalka Patsiurko) 2. Interplay of European, National and Regional Identities among the ethnic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe (WP2) (Heinrich, Chvorostov, Shimpfoessl, Rollings) Contextual and empirical reports ethnic minorities in Central and Eastern Europe (co-editors Elisabeth Schimfoessl, Tom Rollings 3. The Polish Minority in Belarus (Rotman, Ivanyuto, Veremeeva) 4. The Slovak Minority in Hungary (Sik, Oerkeni) 5. The Russian Minority in Latvia (Arvydas Matulionis et al ) 6. The Belarusian Minority in Lithuania (Arvydas Matulionis et al) 7. The Polish Minority in Lithuania (Arvydas Matulionis et al) 8. The Russian Minority in Lithuania (Arvydas Matulionis et al) 9. The Belarusian Minority in Poland (Ilona Matysiak) 10. The Ukrainian Minority in Poland (Ilona Matysiak) 11. The Lithuanian Minority in Russia (Kaliningrad oblast) (Tumanov, Stremovskaya) 12. The Hungarian Minority in Slovakia (Ladislav Machacek) 13. The Hungarian Minority in Ukraine (Bakirov, Kizilov, Kizilova) 14. The Polish Minority in Ukraine (Bakirov, Kizilov, Kizilova) 15. Special Case Study Germany (Barbara Dietz) Series of empirical survey reports: 16. (WP4) Values and Identities Survey ENRI-VIS 1. Methodology and implementation of ENRI-VIS (Technical report) (Chvorostov, Pichler, Cebotari) 2. ENRI-VIS Reference book (major cross-tabulations and coding details) (Chvorostov et al.) 17. (WP5) Qualitative sub-studies of ENRI-East project (technical reports and data base descriptions 3. ENRI-BIO (Lyudmila Nurse) 4. ENRI-EXI (Natalka Patsiurko) 5. Pilot study on musical cultures and identities (Lyudmila Nurse) 6. Pilot study of web-spaces (Heinrich, Alekseeva) „ENRI-East” Project (www.enri-east.net) | Series of Project Research Reports | 2011 4 ENRI - E a s t R es e a r c h Report #6: The Belarusian Minority in Lithuania Annotation This book "ENRI-East Comparative context Report" is the first issue in a series of research reports being produced within the framework of the multinational research project "ENRI-East". The Report provides a comparative overview of ##. The countries covered are: ## Acknowledgements The contents of this publication do not necessarily reflect the opinion or position of the European Commission. We would like to thank the sponsors of the project: Directorate-General Research at the European Commission and especially ## for funding and supporting the project. We would also like to thank the Austrian Ministry for Science, Education and Art for additional support and the staff at Austrian Research Promotion Agency for… We are also grateful to ## for thorough processing, harmonization and cleaning of ENRI-East Survey data sets, ## for his help with the layout of the published reports and to ## for ###…. Principle Investigator Prof. Hans-Georg Heinrich (University of Vienna, Austria) ENRI Project Coordinator Dr. Alexander Chvorostov and the CEASS-Center team at the Institute of Advanced Studies Austria) Project Partners TARKI Research Institute Inc. (Hungary) (Team Leader Prof. Endre Sik) University of Aberdeen (UK) (Team Leader Prof. Claire Wallace) Osteuropa Institut Regensburg (Germany) (Team Leader Dr. Barbara Dietz) Lithuanian Social Research Center(Vilnius, Lithuania) (Team Leader Prof. Arvydas Matulionis) Moscow State University (Russia) (Team Leader Prof. Sergei Tumanov) Belarusian State University (Belarus) (Team Leader Prof. David Rotman) East-Ukrainian Foundation for Social Research (Ukraine) (Team Leader Prof, Vil Bakirov) University of St. Cyril and Methodius (Slovakia) (Team Leader Prof. Ladislav Machacek) Oxford XXI (UK) (Team Leader Dr. Ljudmila Nurse) Maria Curie-Sklodowska University Lublin (Poland) (Team Leader Prof. Konrad Zielinski) Project Website: www.enri-east.net Primary funding for the research project ENRI-East is provided by the European Commission through an FP7-SSH grant #217227. „ENRI-East” Project (www.enri-east.net) | Series of Project Research Reports | 2011 ENRI - E a s t R es e a r c h Report #6: The Belarusian Minority in Lithuania 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 8 Abstract ............................................................................................................ 8 Summary of the study ....................................................................................... 8 Summary of practical recommendations ........................................................ 14 1 BELARUSIANS IN LITHUANIA: A BACKGROUND OVERVIEW 16 1.1 Lithuanian majority and Belarusian minority relations............................. 16 1.2 Demographic overview ..........................................................................
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