Cultural Dissent in Soviet Belarus (1968-1988): Intelligentsia, Samizdat and Nonconformist Discourses'

Home , Zianon Pazniak

H-SHERA Gapova on Astrouskaya, 'Cultural Dissent in Soviet Belarus (1968-1988): Intelligentsia, Samizdat and Nonconformist Discourses'

Review published on Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Tatsiana Astrouskaya. Cultural Dissent in Soviet Belarus (1968-1988): Intelligentsia, Samizdat and Nonconformist Discourses. Historische Belarus-Studien Series. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag,

2019. 245 pp. $65.00 (paper), ISBN 978-3-447-11188-1.

Reviewed by Elena Gapova (Western Michigan University) Published on H-SHERA (March, 2021) Commissioned by Hanna Chuchvaha (University of Calgary)

Printable Version: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=55013

In Cultural Dissent in Soviet Belarus, Tatsiana Astrouskaya tells the story of the plight of nonconformist Belarusian intelligentsia during the last decades of Soviet rule. She focuses mostly on writers and literati who used to have a place of honor in Soviet society, where they enjoyed the status of public intellectuals and judges of truth and morality. This material has never been studied before; in general, Belarus has been considered a “voiceless” Soviet republic in terms of dissent (especially if compared with neighboring Ukraine and Lithuania). This new research problematizes this point of view, to a great extent demonstrating that the reason for this perspective might have been lack of published work on unconventional thinking in Belarus, not the absence of nonconformity. While one may not subscribe to the interpretations offered in the book in their entirety, much of what is said is compelling and sometimes even revealing, bringing to light a whole new layer of Belarusian cultural and intellectual history, and weaving together events, names, ideas, texts, and social connections.

The book is a published doctoral dissertation (defended in 2018), which shows in its structure and general makeup. In Europe, at least in Germany, Sweden, and some other countries, there is an academic tradition of publishing dissertations as (first) books, which makes it possible to disseminate findings and insights as soon as they become available. However, some (smaller) academic publishers, while professional in dealing with oeuvres in their national languages, do not have personnel and resources to prepare works in English, and this is the case with the book under discussion. Errors in English grammar and syntax are abundant and sometimes hamper making sense of what the author means in a particular sentence. I am bringing this technical complaint up front to have my hands free of it to focus on the work’s ideas and interpretations in the rest of the review.

The book has 1968—the liminal year of the Prague Spring—in its title: in the former socialist bloc, the date symbolizes both the hopes and the demolition of post-Stalinist liberalization. However, Astrouskaya starts her story much earlier, beginning with the period still under Russian imperial rule. Chapter 2 (“The Intelligentsia, Official and Uncensored Publishing: A Historical Background”), which follows the introduction (chapter 1) explaining research questions, methodology, and sources, provides a much longer historical line. It goes all the way from the partition of Poland of 1772 (when Belarusian lands were first incorporated into the Russian Empire) through the nineteenth century,

Citation: H-Net Reviews. Gapova on Astrouskaya, 'Cultural Dissent in Soviet Belarus (1968-1988): Intelligentsia, Samizdat and Nonconformist Discourses'. H-SHERA. 03-17-2021. https://networks.h-net.org/node/166842/reviews/7438614/gapova-astrouskaya-cultural-dissent-soviet-belarus-1968-1988 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-SHERA the revolution of 1917, the Soviet period, with a glimpse of Belarusian intellectual life in Western Belarus (then a part of Poland) between the two world wars, World War II, and the first decade after it. This historical background is supposed to set the stage for what comes later, affirming the issue of writing and publishing in the Belarusian language as the key form of cultural dissent (more on this below).

Chapters 3 to 6 cover the post-Stalinist period. They present in some detail the life trajectories of several outstanding national literati born before World War II (Maksim Tank, Vasil Bykau, and Uladzimir Karatkevich, to name the most prominent ones), pay special attention to cultural politics during “developed socialism,” and celebrate initiatives and projects that surfaced during perestroika. The author carefully considers samizdat and uncensored publications of the period and casts a brief glance at intelligentsia’s reaction to anti-Semitism and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986. Eventually, the story reaches the lifting of censorship and transition to free media during perestroika. The book also includes appendices with tables of relevant publications and lists of renowned intellectuals belonging to several generations detailing their dates of birth, social origin, education, Communist Party membership, and other relevant data. This material will be especially important for future researchers of Belarusian intellectual history.

The focus of the book is on cultural dissent. While no concrete definition of “dissent” is provided, it can be adequately described, with few exceptions, through the concept ofraznomyslie or “the diversity of thinking.” Introduced some fifteen years ago by the Russian sociologist Boris Firsov (Diversity of Thinking in the USSR, 1940s-1960s: History, Theory and Practices [2008]) in relation to post-Stalinist Soviet intelligentsia, it denotes an array of practices and forms of expression that should not be considered as political protest acts per se but rather as the realization of intellectual autonomy. In its discussion of raznomyslie, the book follows two paths: on the one hand, it considers unconventional ideas that penetrated official literature; and on the other, it analyzes (attempts of) periodical and non-periodical samizdat (samvydat, in Belarusian) and tamizdat (foreign publications), and some other forms of nonconformist intellectualism. Astrouskaya intends to demonstrate that dissident ideas did not spread unidirectionally from the center to the periphery but to prioritize “the multi-directionality of cultutal relationships” (p. 5).

However, socialist dissent—the topic (and the very word)—is a charged subject. There is a certain tradition, a preconceived context, coming out of the Cold War in which it originated, and its preexistence may “tint” more current perspectives with connotations that are not easy to disentangle. Thus, when writing about dissent in the former socialist bloc there is a temptation to succumb to the well-established and still popular binary paradigm of “totalitarianism” versus “freedom.” Astrouskaya seeks to embrace a more complex approach by recognizing that one could be a part of the system yet still have a critical view of it. Assuming that “the meandering between collaboration and resistance” was characteristic of socialist intelligentsia throughout the region, she excapes from justapositions and arrives, wisely, at more nuanced interpretations of relationships and “negotiations” between intellectual elites and Soviet authorities (p. 2). She writes about the blurriness of dissent and official belonging, or, in her own words, “paradoxical compromise” (p. 89).

This compromise deserves some attention. Many recognized intellectuals of the older generation (born before World War II) used to be Communist Party members. Vasyl Bykau, the most prominent of them, was in the 1980s a deputy of the Supreme Soviet and a recipient of the Lenin Prize in

Citation: H-Net Reviews. Gapova on Astrouskaya, 'Cultural Dissent in Soviet Belarus (1968-1988): Intelligentsia, Samizdat and Nonconformist Discourses'. H-SHERA. 03-17-2021. https://networks.h-net.org/node/166842/reviews/7438614/gapova-astrouskaya-cultural-dissent-soviet-belarus-1968-1988 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 2 H-SHERA literature, the highest Soviet award. His works were translated into all (or most) national languages of the USSR and were published extensively with print runs that would be unthinkable in the current market economy. As a recognized writer and a Soviet “envoy,” he traveled the world. At the same time, intelligentsia (rightly) considered him a “rebel,” a person who “told the truth” about the real human price of Soviet victory in World War II and terrible choices one had to make in the war zone.

The question is how to explain this paradox (in the Weberian sense ofverstehen or “interpretative sociology”), which, in the long run, is a question about sincerity and truth. Being a part of the system, did socialist intellectuals lie? Or could they sincerely believe in what they were doing on behalf of the system? Questions like these can have meaningful answers if one recognizes that socialism was not necessarily “evil” (as it is often presented) in the eyes of the people who were a part of it: Bykau’s generation considered their country to be on the “right side of history” in its anti-fascist struggle and in some other historical events as well. Suffice it to say that most Soviet Belarusian writers addressed the events of World War II in one way or another in their work, as Belarusians lost one-fourth of their population (the highest ratio in the world) in that conflict. This background matters for any discussion of the period. However, treating World War II (or, rather, the Great Patriotic War, as it was known at the time) as the “Soviet-German conflict” and avoiding any discussion of human casualties and destruction not only excludes Belarusians as active agents from those events but also implies that that there was nothing “right” about fighting as partisans and as members of the Soviet military (p. 49). To put it differently: the book sometimes ascribes post-Soviet but also “anti-Soviet” (coming out of the Cold War) meanings and interpretations to texts and actions that had a different meaning for those who participated in them. To give another example: Astrouskaya treats the satirical poem by Nil Hilevich “On the Bald Mountain” (“Skaz pra Lysaiu haru”) as aiming at the very foundation of Soviet rule. However, at the time of its appearance in the mid-1970s, the poem, which was anonymous and was circulated widely among intelligentsia, was perceived as grotesque satire of the mercantile “instincts” of members of the Writers’ Union, not the condemnation of the Soviet system.

Another focal point of the book is the issue of the Belarusian language, which is also charged. Relegated during the imperial period mostly to uneducated peasantry, and with Belarusian nationalism emerging quite late (in comparison to Ukrainian nationalism, for example), the language was fully codified and entered schools, higher educational institutions, and “official” literature only under Soviet rule as a result of considerable and conscious effort. The process was not unproblematic, as in the 1920s urban educated groups were unhappy about being forced to switch to what they considered a “less developed” language.[1] After several decades, though, Belarusian almost went out of daily use among educated elites in the same way as it had been initially “uplifted”; as with urbanization and industrialization, Russian, a common language that the elites and administrators all over the USSR could understand, allowed access to social mobility, career opportunitites, and global culture. Following her protagonists, intellectuals and literati, Astrouskaya equates the issue of the Belarusian language (its going out of popular use) and the “preservation of national culture” to that of “freedom,” which somewhat simplifies the problem. It is true that “cultural dissidents,” who are at the center of the book, made the issue of the Belarusian language (and not “human rights” or “political freedom,” as was the dissident case in the Soviet center) their “holy grail.” They perceived the decline of the Belarusian language (in which they had an interest) as the degradation of national culture or, as Zianon Pazniak, the head of the nationalist Popular Front, stated, a moral and intellectual catastrophe. However, as the Byelorussian Soviet Republic was becoming one of the most technologically advanced in the USSR, the modernized and urbanized

Belarusian society was not interested in the Belarusian language to the same extent.[2] At some point during perestroika the language issue was resurrected under the guidance of oppositional elites (and Pazniak as their unquestionable guru of the period). But with time, it subsided and the efforts of anti- Alexander Lukashenko opposition to promote it never gained wide support. For example, the current “Belarusian revolution,” which started in August 2020 in response to the tremendous election fraud, is mainly a “Russian-speaking phenomenon,” driven by educated urbanites. While there is interest in the national past and the use of national symbols, the revolution, whichis about political freedom, does not equate it to language and culture.

However, disagreements regarding the interpretation of the material are understandable taking into account its complex nature. In her book, Astrouskaya narrates a story of Belarusian intelligentsia, and the issues that she raises are important and often controversial. While at times perspectives that the book suggests may be debatable, its contribution to the scholarship and legacy of East European socialist intelligentsia is undeniable. As far as Belarusian intellectual history is concerned, this is a much-needed work.

Notes

[1]. See Per Rudling, The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism, 1906-1931 (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015), 210-42.

[2]. See, for example, Elena Gapova, “O politicheskoi ekonomii natsional’nogo iazyka v Belarusi,” Ab Imperio 3 (2005): 405-41.

Citation: Elena Gapova. Review of Astrouskaya, Tatsiana,Cultural Dissent in Soviet Belarus (1968-1988): Intelligentsia, Samizdat and Nonconformist Discourses. H-SHERA, H-Net Reviews. March, 2021. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55013

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.