Per Anders Rudling. The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism, 1906-1931. Pitt Russian East European Series. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2015. Illustrations. 448 pp. $29.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-8229-6308-0. Reviewed by Magdalena Waligorska Published on H-Nationalism (August, 2016) Commissioned by Cristian Cercel (Ruhr University Bochum) “People must be carefully and attentively cul‐ ed ... because it does not enjoy liberty of con‐ tivated the way a gardener tends a favorite tree,” science (freedom of religion), liberty of move‐ believed Josef Stalin (pp. 209-210). And if his ment, etc. Give it these liberties and it will cease metaphor sounds more benign than the way it to be discontented” (p. 126). And so, Soviet Be‐ was historically applied, we can certainly say that larus (BSSR), in its inception, promised equality the amount of experimental “gardening” that Be‐ for all of the country’s ethnic groups and carried larus received in the early twentieth century has out the policy of quadrilingualism (with Belaru‐ made it a rather exceptional case in the European sian, Russian, Polish, and Yiddish as official lan‐ orchard of nations. Given that Stalin the gardener guages). Not only was education, the militia, the did not refrain from brutal pruning, Per Anders legal system, the post, and the telegraph to be op‐ Rudling’s story of the slow birth and rapid decline erational in all four languages, but the policy of of Belarusian nationalism in the frst decades of sblizhenie (rapprochement) also was to ensure the twentieth century is also a fascinating history that each ethnic group had a chance to acquaint of collective traumas that continue to shape Be‐ itself with the languages and the cultures of the larusian society till this day. others. Stereotypes, ethnic animosities, and igno‐ The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism, rance were thus to become the past. 1906-1931 is “a history full of paradoxes,” as the That a multicultural utopia could have ended author puts it (p. 317). And indeed, the Belarusian in a wave of brutal repression against the very nationalist project initiated under the aegis of the national activists who had been carrying it out is Soviets was based on such admirable multicultur‐ not the only paradox in this story. Belarusian na‐ al principles that one can only wonder how it tionalism developed from the very beginning in could have failed so badly. Stalin himself, in 1913, rather unconducive conditions. Already at the was of the opinion that a “minority is discontent‐ turn of the twentieth century, some observers H-Net Reviews were declaring Belarusian a dead language, and, ground of constantly shifting borders that the in the frst decades of the twentieth century, an‐ emergent Belarusian state (or rather, states) were thropologists tasked with mapping ethnically Be‐ adopting. The next chapters focus on the policies larusian lands faced a real puzzle. The surveyed that both the Soviet Union and the newly reborn peasants identified themselves as tuteishyia (from Polish state applied vis-à-vis Belarusians. While here), some of them explaining, in perfect Belaru‐ the BSSR encouraged a nationalist revival of the sian, that they speak only Russian. The question of different ethnic groups within the country to gen‐ the Belarusian capital was equally complex. Al‐ erate support for the Communist government and though most national activists saw Vilnius, the the new social order, Poland abandoned the ini‐ historic seat of the Great Duchy of Lithuania, as tial ideas of a multiethnic federation, expecting its the principal symbolic reference point, Belaru‐ Belarusian minority to Polonize. sians constituted only a tiny minority of the city’s Chapter 6 returns to the ambitious Soviet inhabitants, and, apart from short episodes in project of Belarusization in the phase of its de‐ 1918 and 1919, the city was never to form part of cline, as an increasing number of people opposed the Belarusian state.[1] Minsk’s population, in the nationalizing measures imposed by the state. turn, was only 9 percent Belarusian, while 51.2 Rudling discusses here why the affirmative action percent of its inhabitants spoke Yiddish (data policies did not reverberate in the way the Soviets from 1897, p. 17). Adding a very high illiteracy had hoped for and how the Communist authori‐ rate to the picture makes the nationalist project in ties eventually realized that supporting local na‐ Belarus appear doomed from the beginning. tionalisms did not serve the internationalist goals Rudling’s research question of how to explain of world revolution. Chapters 7 and 8 picture the the relative weakness of nationalism in Belarus end of the Belarusian nationalist endeavor on and the particularities of its “political landscape” both sides of the Polish-Soviet border. Following brings him to illuminate all these paradoxes. He the 1926 coup, Poland intensified its attempts to tries to pinpoint the motivations and agendas of curtail Belarusian nationalism, closing down Be‐ different actors, including Belarus’s neighbor larusian papers, extending Polonizing policies (es‐ states, its exiled intellectuals, various political pecially via the Catholic Church), and prosecuting groups in and outside of the country, and its eth‐ Belarusian political activists. At the same time, the nic minorities. After having set the stage by pro‐ so-called War Scare of 1927 triggered a similar viding the definitions of key terms, such as “na‐ turn of events in the BSSR, marking the end of the tion,” “state,” and “nationalism,” Rudling moves policy of quadrilingualism, the beginning of on to the case study at hand. tighter party control over Belarus, and the start of Chapter 2 spans the time frame from the Kali‐ a brutal wave of repression. nouski Uprising (1863), through the tsarist repres‐ Rudling’s monograph is an important contri‐ sions in its aftermath, to 1906, when Nasha Niva, bution to the debate on Belarusian nationalism the frst legal paper in the Belarusian language, because it sheds light on a period that generated appeared. Chapter 3 addresses the most turbulent myths that prevail in the collective political imagi‐ period for the Belarusian nationalist movement nation to this day.[2] Looking at the Belarusian (1917-20), in which dramatic geopolitical changes nationalist movement in a comparative perspec‐ brought about no less than six different declara‐ tive, and in relation to other nationalist projects tions of independence in just three years. Rudling in the region (in particular, the Polish, Lithuanian, sketches here the rivaling visions for the country’s Ukrainian, and Jewish ones), Rudling’s mono‐ allegiances and political system against the back‐ graph is the best compendium on Belarusian na‐ 2 H-Net Reviews tionalism in the English language to date and a region were less volatile than others. At times, must-read for anyone interested not only in Be‐ this essentializing approach brings the author larusian history but also in its current political sit‐ some difficulty, for example, while referring to uation, memory politics, and identity building Kastus' Kalinouski, one of the leaders of the anti- processes. Russian uprising of 1863, venerated as a national The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism hero both in Belarus and in Poland (where he is will also be an eye-opening position for Polish known as Wincenty Konstanty Kalinowski). On readers, as it addresses some difficult subjects page 37, for instance, Rudling claims that Kali‐ that still remain under-researched in Polish histo‐ nouski “never referred to himself as a Pole” but, riography, such as pogroms of Jews by the advanc‐ on page 132, states that he was “of Polish national‐ ing Polish troops in the Polish-Soviet war ity.” Perhaps, if the author had not adopted the (1919-21) or repressions of the Belarusian minori‐ policy of providing all proper names exclusively ty in interwar Poland. Now that the mythologizing in Belarusian transliteration, the seeming contra‐ narrative of the Polish eastern borderland is once dictions, ambiguities, and simultaneities of identi‐ again ascendant, Rudling’s book, which ruthlessly ties in this fascinating region would have come debunks the nostalgic myth of the Kresy, should more to the fore. be obligatory reading for every historian of the While the study of nationalism (as nationalist region. Having said that, it seems that in investi‐ discourse itself) rests on the assumption that na‐ gating how the concept of national identity is be‐ tionalist discourse can generate clear dichotomies ing instrumentalized by different political actors, of “us” and “them,” the study of identities Rudling does not fully avoid the pitfall of essen‐ (whether national or ethnic) calls for a fner grain tializing the categories he is analyzing. Going to of description. National identification in early lengths to explain the difficulty of establishing the twentieth-century Belarus was no doubt a dynam‐ eastern boundaries of BSSR, where border shifts ic category that embraced hybridity, simultane‐ based on ethnographic research met with resis‐ ousness, and perhaps also what Jonathan Y. Oka‐ tance of the local population, when it comes to the mura labeled “situational identity.” Okamura ob‐ territories that found themselves within the served, for instance, that individuals might boundaries of the Second Polish Republic after choose between a number of ethnic categories “in the Treaty of Riga in 1921, he seems to be rather accordance with their belief that such a selection unequivocal, operating with the term “West Be‐ of ethnic identity will be to their advantage.” [3] larus.” The dramatic shifts in the national censuses, in Moreover, Rudling’s examples clearly demon‐ which the size of a given ethnic group differed de‐ strate that ascribing national identities to people pending on how one formulated the questions, or inhabiting the multiethnic and multidenomina‐ the curious case of the 1926 Soviet poll, in which tional area of the former Great Duchy of Lithua‐ only every third person who declared their na‐ nia was a rather precarious endeavor.