OPPOSITES PUT TOGETHER BELARUS’S POLITICS OF MEMORY Kamil Kłysiński, Wojciech Konończuk WARSAW OCTOBER 2020 OPPOSITES PUT TOGETHER BELARUS’S POLITICS OF MEMORY Kamil Kłysiński, Wojciech Konończuk © Copyright by Centre for Eastern Studies CONTENT EDITOR Adam Eberhardt EDITOR Szymon Sztyk CO-OPERATION Tomasz Strzelczyk, Katarzyna Kazimierska TRANSLATION Ilona Duchnowicz CO-OPERATION Timothy Harrell GRAPHIC DESIGN PARA-BUCH DTP IMAGINI PHOTOGRAPH ON COVER Jimmy Tudeschi / Shutterstock.com Centre for Eastern Studies ul. Koszykowa 6a, 00-564 Warsaw, Poland tel.: (+48) 22 525 80 00,
[email protected] www.osw.waw.pl ISBN 978-83-65827-56-2 Contents MAIN POINTS | 5 INTRODUCTION | 11 I. THE BACKGROUND OF THE BELARUSIAN POLITICS OF MEMORY | 14 II. THE SEARCH FOR ITS OWN WAY. ATTEMPTS TO DEFINE HISTORICAL IDENTITY (1991–1994) | 18 III. THE PRO-RUSSIAN DRIFT. THE IDEOLOGISATION OF THE POLITICS OF MEMORY (1994–2014) | 22 IV. CREATING ELEMENTS OF DISTINCTNESS. A CAUTIOUS TURN IN MEMORY POLITICS (2014–) | 27 1. The cradle of statehood: the Principality of Polotsk | 28 2. The powerful heritage: the Grand Duchy of Lithuania | 32 3. Moderate scepticism: Belarus in the Russian Empire | 39 4. A conditional acceptance: the Belarusian People’s Republic | 47 5. The neo-Soviet narrative: Belarusian territories in the Second Polish Republic | 50 6. Respect with some reservations: Belarus in the Soviet Union | 55 V. CONCLUSION. THE POLICY OF BRINGING OPPOSITES TOGETHER | 66 MAIN POINTS • Immediately after 1991, the activity of nationalist circles in Belarus led to a change in the Soviet historical narrative, which used to be the only permit ted one. However, they did not manage to develop a coherent and effective politics of memory or to subsequently put this new message across to the public.