Belarus and ‘Europe’: Elite Discourses

Abstract

Unlike Russia and Ukraine, where distinct identity discourses with more or less well-articulated visions of their positions vis-à-vis Europe and foreign policy preferences became fairly well established, post-Soviet Belarus presents a different story. Scholars of nationalism have often considered Belarusian national identity as remarkably slow to develop.¹ Up until the beginning of the 20th century, the people who live in what we now call Belarus tended to view themselves as tuteishiya (locals) rather than members of a distinct ‘imagined community’ — a community that would be different from its immediate neighbours such as Russia, Poland, Lithuania or Ukraine in their various historic forms. Moreover, for most of the 20th century, the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was the most loyal part of the Soviet Union, and its dominant identity was overwhelmingly Soviet rather than nationally defined. Andrew Wilson, in his study of Belarus, has linked this apparent lack of a national identification with what he describes as ‘false starts’ in its history — a number of unsuccessful attempts to establish a viable state on the territory of modern Belarus prior to its unexpected independence from the Soviet Union at the end of 1991.²