The ways of Belarus Europeanization: between politics and identity construction. Edited by Olga Shparaga, Belarusian Center for European Studies, Minsk, 2012

© Center for European Studies, 2012Site: http://eurocenter.by

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The ways of Belarus’ Europeanization: between politics

and identity construction(1991–2010)

Edited by Olga ShparagaAcademic consultant Anatoliy Kruglashov

2012Minsk



http://eurocenter.by

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ThE ways of BElarus’ EuropEanizaTion: BETwEEn poliTics and idEnTiTy consTrucTion

(1991–2010)

Edited by Olga ShparagaAcademic consultant Anatoliy Kruglashov

summary

This book contains a whole spectrum of definitions of the notion of «Europe-anization»: from the «Europeanization of politics» and «Europeanization from above and from below» to the «Europeanization of social practices, knowledge, and everyday culture». All these strategies are placed by the authors in the Be-larusian context in order to study the conditions, possibilities, and perspectives of their implementation in Belarus. The object of this analysis comprises the following phenomena: the foreign and regional policies of the Republic of Be-larus; the authorities’ and oppositionists’ discourses; Belarusian society’s value dimension; the «politics of memory» (Geschichtspolitik) and the potential of the concept of the «Empire of Central Europe»; materials on European issues in the official and non-official printed mass media; and the practices of consumption in Belarus. The contents of this book have an interdisciplinary character, and the book itself is aimed at everybody who is interested in the problems of Europe-anization and in the way these problems are reflected in the context of Belarus.

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Preface: creating another Belarus (Alexei Bratochkin) .................................. 5

I. The genesis and possibilities of «Europeanization from above» in Belarus

Alexander Vlaskin, Anatoly KruglashovThe «Europeanization» of Belarus’ foreign policy: US-Belarus dialogue and its prospects ..................................................................... 12

Anatoly Kruglashov, Yulia KotskayaThe regional policy of the Republic of Belarus: difficulties of its Europeanization ............................................................................. 40

Pavel UsovThe European vector and European integration in the authorities’ and oppositionists’ discourses ................................................. 71

4 The ways of Belarus’ europeanizaTion: BeTween poliTics and idenTiTy consTrucTion (1991–2010)

II. The European values inside and outside of the EU institutional frameworks

Olga ShparagaThe value dimension of the Europeanization of Belarus: Europeanization as a form of the reflection upon the continuing transformation of modernity ............................................ 92

III. «Europeanization from below»: memory, identity, representation Alexei BratochkinThe genesis, basic problems, and the European dimension of the «politics of history» in Belarus ............................................. 116

Alaksiej ŁastoũskiThe significance of the idea of «Central Europe» and that of the imperial legacy for Belarus’ Europeanization .......................... 151

Alexander SarnaThe Belarusians’ European identity and the image of Europe in the Belarusian mass media .................................... 175

Dmitry KolyadovEuropeanization at the level of everyday practices: from idealization to profanization .......................................................................... 198

Conclusion: Europeanization as theory and practice with a lot of subjects and levels (Olga Shparaga) ............................................. 209

About the authors ....................................................................................................... 215

German researcher Astrid Sahm’s review of the book «The ways of Belarus’ Europeanization: between politics and identity construction (1991–2010)» ................................. 218

About the Center for European Studies ...................................................... 220

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preface: creating another Belarusalexei Bratochkin

After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, several states, includ-ing the Republic of Belarus, were formed on its territory. The initial attempts of democratic reforms and economic liberalization in the country took place against the backdrop of an economic and political crisis, which occurred after the collapse of the Soviet system. Despite the new situation, Belarus’ ruling elite, who, in many respects, pre-served the former, «Soviet» way of thinking did not place the question of the country’s Europeanization on the political agenda, even though this idea was discussed in society. The historical legacy of the last 200 years has conditioned Belarus’ economic, cultural, and political de-pendence on neighboring Russia. In its turn, Russia also tried to keep its influence on Belarus. The unsuccessful reforms of the first half of the 1990s became the reason for the «electoral counterrevolution», due to which Alexander Lukashenka came to power in 1994. He ac-tually set a course to establish an authoritarian regime; a number of Soviet institutions and practices were restored in Belarus. In addition, he declared that his foreign policy course was aimed at cooperating with Russia.

By the end of the 1990s — the beginning of the 2000s, there was a consolidation of the authoritarian regime of Alexander Lukashenka in Belarus, who remains in power today. During this time, civil and polit-ical rights and freedoms have been repeatedly infringed, the results of elections and referenda — forged, and political prisoners have appeared in the country. All these became the reason for Belarus’ difficult rela-tions with the European Union and, simultaneously, «strengthened» the union with Russia, in which authoritarian tendencies have also been observed. At the same time, Belarusian society has been chang-ing as well; according to sociologists, today there is a quite stable group of people who share such European values as respect for human rights and aspirations to establish democratic institutions. For these people, the image of united Europe, which has developed after World


War II, is important and attractive, and it is this group of people in Belarus that today carries the ideas of the country’s Europeanization. It is possible to say that, in contemporary Belarus, there is a process of confrontation between the authoritarian rulers and society, a part of which has absolutely other values than representatives of the rul-ing elite.

The image of Belarus ruled by an authoritarian regime and the im-age of Belarusian society split into supporters and opponents of this regime have become the most wide-spread outside the country. Some studies — not numerous in number — of Belarus written recently by non-Belarusian authors have been focused basically on the political situ-ation in the country and the way this situation is reflected in the life of Belarusian society1. Still, the real dynamics of the social change that is taking place in Belarus are often left beyond the frameworks of such descriptions, and not much attention is paid to potential possibilities of the country’s transformation. This is caused not only by the orientation of these researchers’ interests, but also by the fact that, inside Belarus, there is a lack of complex studies of the situation in the country, and therefore external observers have no possibility to base themselves on such works.

For this very reason, the book titled «The ways of Belarus’ European-ization: between politics and identity construction (1991–2010)», and now its translation into English have appeared. Its authors would like to present the Belarusians’ own judgment concerning the current situ-ation and the possibilities of its alteration. The task the authors faced was not simple. On the one hand, the sui generis «warp» observed in the works that have appeared outside Belarus is characteristic of Be-larusian researches, too. Their attention is concentrated on the evolu-tion and features of the political regime as well, and even though this focus of research is important, it does not allow them to see another Belarus, outside of political opposition. On the other hand, it was also difficult because the authors of this book wanted to consider the situa-tion in Belarus in the context of the process of its Europeanization, but this process is happening today in Belarus not at the level of political and other institutions, but mostly at the level of everyday practices in isolated communities.

One of the sets the authors of this research stuck to during their work was to constantly dialogue with the knowledge of Belarus (and not only Belarus) which is available today in the European intellectual

1 One of the recent examples: Andrew Wilson. Belarus: the Last European Dictatorship. Yale University Press, 2011. 256 p.

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field. Today, it is this dialogue that is a way of overcoming one’s self-obsession with local problems and even isolation, in which Belarus’ intellectual and academic communities happen to be now. In the ar-ticles of this collection, it is possible to notice many references to the European experience and theoretical know-how from abroad.

Another set of authors base their works on the idea of «Europeaniza-tion from below», which was already happening in the country after 1991. It was important to show the processes that often remain in the shadow of the studies focused exclusively on the political situation — the change of the system of values in Belarusian society, the formation of the Belarusians’ European identity, and the influence of the European values and examples of political, economic, and other mechanisms in the Belarusian everyday life of Belarusians. The idea of «Europeaniza-tion from below» in the Belarusian context has appeared in this book thanks to the concept of Europeanization, which is elaborated on in the article of German political scientist Stefan Garsztecki, whose materi-als have been widely used in the research. Stefan Garsztecki reviews the «discourse of Europe’s self-creation» and the processes of European integration taking place today in the EU and says that these processes are developing according to the scheme «from below to above» — not only pan-European institutions and practices are important, but also national elements, which are transferred to the European level2. In this sense, the Belarusians should understand the process of their country’s Europeanization not as the intrusion of «alien standards», but as a dia-logue between Belarus and the EU and, simultaneously, as a process of disseminating European values, which happens at various levels of Belarusian society.

These two sets, i.e. the idea of «Europeanization from below» and the inclusion of Belarusian problematic in the European intellectual context, have conditioned the contents of this research. In addition to theoretical conclusions, the book suggests practical steps for Belarus’ Europeanization, proceeding from today’s situation in the country with all its restrictions. The researchers analyze Belarus’ foreign policy and Belarus-EU dialogue prospects (A. Kruglashov and A. Vlaskin) and de-termine the difficulties of Belarus’ regional policy, proceeding from the possibility of its reformation according to what happens today in the Eu-ropean Union (Y. Kotskaya and A. Kruglashov). The methods the current

2 Stefan Garsztecki’s article «Actual dimensions of Europe in Central and Eastern Europe — Europeanization from below?» is published in the Belarusian edition of this collection, but is absent in this translation of the research; however, the texts all contain references to this author.


Belarusian political regime and oppositional political forces perceive the idea of European integration and their attitude towards European values are analyzed (P. Usov). Considerable attention is paid to the prob-lem of Belarusian society’s values and social capital in the context of value changes that have happened in European societies (O. Shparaga).

This research also raises the problems of constructing the Belaru-sians’ national identity and «politics of memory» (Geschichtspolitik), without which it is impossible to imagine the process of Belarusian so-ciety’s inclusion in the pan-European space of memory and history (A. Bratochkin). The problem of the Belarusians’ European identity is also reviewed through an analysis of the representations of European dis-course in the mass media of the country (A. Sarna). Attention is paid to the role of the idea of «Central Europe» and the intellectual heritage of the European idea of «Empire» in the Belarusians’ self-determination (A. Łastoũski). This collection of articles is completed by an analysis of everyday practices in Belarusian society, which help to see the presence of European influence in Belarus today (D. Kolyadov). All these research themes make it possible to observe in Belarusian society not only the presence of political problems, but also to designate structural possibili-ties for changes.

The critical orientation of the research is due to the authors’ desire to demonstrate various prospects while considering the problem of Europe-anization in the Belarusian context, as well as to try to specify the threat of ignoring the true nature of European values and practices in Belarus.

This book was written in 2010, when in Belarus’ foreign policy there was another turn towards a rapprochement with the EU and inside the country some «liberalization» was declared, at least, in a number of spheres of public life. The authors hoped that in these new conditions this research would bring certain practical benefits and that its results could be used to continue the changes that were launched. The cruel crackdown of the peaceful rally on 19 December 2010, on the presiden-tial election day in Independence Square before the House of Govern-ment in Minsk, has shown that the declared liberalization and the small improvement of relations with the EU, as it had already been many times before, were only political games of the ruling regime that tries to pre-serve its power, grounded in the contradictions existing between Belar-us, the EU, and Russia. In Belarus, repressions against political and civil activists have been toughened once again and civil society structures’ work has become considerably complicated.

A number of difficulties, which appeared when this collection of ar-ticles was written, also have to do with the situation in which the Be-larusian expert community happens to be now, in which intellectuals

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are working and academic studies of Belarusian society are being con-ducted. Before the breakdown of the USSR in 1991, socio-humanitarian knowledge had been ideologized, being under the influence of Soviet Marxism, and many of its directions had practically been absent. After 1991, there was a transformation of socio-humanitarian knowledge in Belarus; the process of its professionalization and internationalization began. This process is taking place with great difficulties, including due to the political situation that has developed — the state tries to control areas of research that can be important and change the situation in the country (for example, authors of independent sociological studies are being oppressed), universities have no autonomy, a number of research centers are registered outside Belarus and have no possibility to work legally in the country. The problem of studying Belarus is also connected today with the difficulties of forming the professional and independent expert community, a lack of research centers, and the insufficient num-ber of applied and fundamental studies in the country.

The history of the birth of this book reflects all these problems, too. It was conceived by a small collective of authors who created a «Euro-pean laboratory» in order to carry out their own researches focused on the problematic of Belarus’ Europeanization. Later, some other authors from different areas of knowledge joined, which resulted in the appear-ance of not only this book, but also of the Center for European Studies, which was built on the basis of the «European laboratory» in 2011 and which the authors did manage to register in Belarus. For the authors of this collective research, it was important to show that a part of Be-larusian society, including its intellectual part, thinks that the future of Belarus is in democratic transformations and the European choice. Still, for this purpose, it is necessary to seriously study the possibilities of Be-larusian society’s development in this direction.

The authors of this collection of articles hope that the English transla-tion of their work will help widen the conceptualization of Belarusian society outside Belarus and will be an important contribution to the process of professionalization and internationalization of the intellec-tual and expert community in Belarus, which, in its turn, will spur on changes in Belarusian society and the process of the country’s Europe-anization.

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I The genesis and possibilities

of «Europeanization from above» in Belarus

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«Europeanization» of Belarus’ foreign policy: us-Belarus dialogue and its prospectsalexander Vlaskin, anatoly Kruglashov

The foreign policy course of each country is closely connected with its internal policy, its priority tasks, and purposes. Being defined, first of all, by the type of political system of a country and the character of its politi-cal regime, it also reflects the key necessities of a state, its possibilities and place in the system of international relations, and the degree of its recognition by the international community. Simultaneously, the politi-cal toolkit of the implementation of the purposes and tasks of foreign policy, which is used by the heads of a state, is indicative of the intellec-tual and moral qualities of the ruling political elite, its state thinking and political, conative potential. In the case of Belarus, in order to answer the questions about the orientation, results, and efficiency of its foreign policy, it is very important to study the degree of its conformity with the European values and principles and the character of its mutual relations with the European Union and its members.

It is the EU that is Belarus’ largest partner in the economic sphere, and increasingly in the political one, despite the fact that during the last 15 years the relations between Minsk and Brussels have been mainly of a negative character. Along with the Russian Federation, the EU plays the most considerable role in the country’s politics, and in the future, its significance for Belarus will inevitably increase. In the future, the EU has a chance to become as important in Belarus’ political field as Russia, and probably even more influential. The reason for this is not only the scale of this amalgamation of countries, but also its weight in global politics and trade and the variety of the foreign policy tools used by the European Commission and other institutions of the EU in rela-tion to foreign countries as a whole and the neighboring countries in particular.

As the European Union’s influence on the Belarusian political field is growing, it becomes more and more necessary to study Belarus’ poli-tics through the prism of its natural or compelled «Europeanization». In making this connection, there is a need to define such a term as the

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13«europeanizaTion» of Belarus’ foreign policy: us-Belarus dialogue...Alexander Vlaskin, Anatoly Kruglashov

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«policy of Europeanization» in general and that of the foreign policy in particular. It is difficult to discover a conventional scientific definition of this term in modern scientific literature. Explanatory dictionaries define «Europeanization» generally as «the process of attachment to Western European culture and education»1. At the same time, some researchers draw parallels or even are inclined to identify the processes of «Europe-anization» and liberalization, globalization and the notion «modernity» as a whole2. Thus, as a notion, the «policy of Europeanization» can be defined as its subjects’ adherence to the principles and system of Euro-pean values (in particular — liberalism, rule of law, democracy, market economy, human rights) and their aspiration towards and readiness to embody them in their political practice. It is characteristic that it is these principles that are listed in the well-known document «What the Euro-pean Union could bring to Belarus» as the fundamental conditions for beginning and developing a dialogue between Belarus and the European Union3. They are also present in an earlier document — the Partner-ship and Cooperation Agreement between Belarus and EU, signed by the parties in 1995, but not ratified since4.

Accordingly, if we talk about the «policy of Europeanization» of a cer-tain country as a process, it is necessary to note that this term can be under-stood both ways. First of all, this process can be considered as a consistent transition of this he country to a situation where the principles listed above become foundational during the formation of its policy. On the other hand, the «» «Europeanization of foreign policy» can be understood as the ori-entation of the corresponding policy of a concrete state towards European values5, a growth of the importance of united Europe among the foreign

1 http://slovari.yandex.ru/~книги/Толковый словарь Ушакова/Европеизация/2 Ruediger Korff, Europe Beyond East and West. Vortrag an der National University of Malaysia 2000. https://www.uni-hohenheim.de/i490d/publications/Europe.htm Compare also with O. Shparaga’s reflections on the link between Europeanization and modernity in this book.3 Benita Ferrero-Waldner. Non-paper «What the European Union could bring to Belarus»: http://ec.europa.eu/comm/external_relations/belarus/intro/non_paper_1106.pdf4 U. Snapkoũski. Relations of Belarus with the European Union: from isolation to normalization. Works of the International Relations Department. Issue I. Minsk, BSU, 2010, p. 38–435 R. Khestanov, Continental rake. Russia will inevitably be involved in the Europe-anization orbit. Political Magazine. http://www.politjournal.ru/index.php?action=Articles&dirid=67&tek=3327&issue=99

https://www.uni-hohenheim.de/i490d/publications/Europe.htm

http://ec.europa.eu/comm/external_relations/belarus/intro/non_paper_1106.pdf



policy priorities of such a state6, and, finally, its determination to become integrated into the European structures, and into the EU in particular.

Proceeding from these conceptual, terminological frameworks, within the confines of this sub-section of the monograph, the problem of the «Europeanization» of Belarus’ foreign policy will be considered. For the analysis of the foreign policy activity of the Republic of Belarus, the definitions presented above seem to be quite applicable. In the case of Belarus, it is necessary to remark, however, that the process of Euro-peanization of state policy is at times fragmentary, unsystematic, con-tradictory, and even marginal. Since the moment the country gained its independence, Minsk has been quite inconsistent in accepting and implementing the basic European principles and values in its policy. Furthermore, it is also necessary to note the insufficient importance of the European vector in Belarus’ foreign policy for almost the entirety of the two decades that Belarus has existed as a sovereign state.

On the basis of studying the contents and orientation of Belarus’ for-eign policy and determining the basic stages of its evolution during the years of the existence of the independent Belarusian state, we shall pro-pose a definition of the conformity of the foreign policy of Minsk with the notion and process of the Europeanization of politics. According to this purpose, the authors set before themselves the following tasks: to review the contents of the concept of the national interests and the basic directions of the foreign policy of Belarus, to reveal the degree of their Europeanness, to open possibilities and to suggest further prospects of Belarus’ rapprochement with the EU.

Here, the object of analysis is the foreign policy of the Republic of Belarus, and is the theme is the level and possibilities of Europeaniza-tion of this policy in the course of the formation and implementation of the relations between Minsk and Brussels (the Republic of Belarus and the EU). The need for such an approach is due to the importance of defining the essence, orientation, and efficiency of the foreign policy of the officials in Minsk and by the acuteness of the outlined crisis of mutual relations of the Republic of Belarus with its priority partners. First of all, its acuteness is defined by the depletion of resources and the loss of the positive dynamics of the Belarusian-Russian integra-tion and by the simultaneous emergence of new aspirations, ones more open to Europe and the EU, in the foreign policy of President A. G. Lukashenko. At the same time, the majority of the scientific works on the problems of the foreign policy course of the Republic of Belarus

6 B. Wildstein. Europeizacja amerykaсskiej polityki. Rzeczpospolita, 06-11-2008. http://www.rp.pl/artykul/80250,215387_Europeizacja_amerykanskiej_polityki.html

http://www.rp.pl/artykul/80250,215387_Europeizacja_amerykanskiej_polityki.html


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considers it with the help of the paradigms of «Realpolitik», realism, or neo-realism, thus concentrating on more or less close studies of the motives and interests of the head of the Belarusian state. Admitting the soundness and relevance of such an approach to the concrete condi-tions of Belarus, the authors remark that an important criterion for evaluating the contents, orientation, and prospects of development of the foreign policy of Minsk and, partly, all political development of the country, is the consistent application of the criteria and indicators of «Europeanization» during their analysis. In particular, the political elite’s and Belarusian society’s subjective readiness and aspiration to modernize the country and its governing system according to exam-ples which have proven their effectiveness and viability in the majority of European countries. Firstly, (but not exclusively), in those countries which are members of the EU. At the same time, Europeanization is understood by us as a process that is defined and designed not only by politics, but that also takes place due to objective reasons and fac-tors which influence the Belarusians’ and their political leaders’ civili-zational choice, and that forms their aspiration to join the economic, socio-cultural, and political space of Europe. Hence, even not pursuing the aim to join the European structures and to become integrated into the EU, Belarus is a subject and, to an increasing degree, an object of the processes of Europeanization.

From such a point of view, the available scientific literature concern-ing the foreign policy of the Republic of Belarus is far from raising the questions and proposing solutions on the degree, implementation, and potential of realizing any variant of the Europeanization of Belarus. As a whole, the literature available in Belarus only slightly covers the prob-lematic of this section.

The basic sources concerning the development of Belarus’ foreign policy can be divided into three categories: scientific research, official documents and materials, and other sources (publications in the mass media, materials of public organizations, seminars, etc.). Official docu-ments and materials include enactments, documents of state admin-istrative bodies, speeches of the administration of the state, materials of the web-sites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other state ad-ministrative bodies, as well as archival materials of state administrative bodies. In particular, within the confines of this work, documents in the archives of the Coordination Bureau of the TACIS Program in Belarus were used.

Among the publications of the Belarusian authors who are engaged in research in the sphere of our interest, it is necessary to mention the texts of the experts who have worked within the scope of the projects «Our


Opinion», «New Europe», «Wider Europe», and the Belarusian Institute of Strategic Studies (BISS). Quite substantial analyses on the research subject field have been published in the «Magazine of international law and international relations» issued by the Belarusian State University (BSU). For example, there are articles by such authors as V. Ulakhovich7, A. Chelyadinsky8, A. Rusakovich9,10, etc. As for works by foreign authors there has been practically no research done abroad on Belarus’ foreign policy for a long time11. Nonetheless, interesting research has recently been published, in particular in the bulletin of the Polish Institute of International Affairs and in the magazine «Europe».

It is necessary to note, however, that the majority of researchers essen-tially concentrate on general questions of the foreign policy of Belarus or on the problematic of the mutual relations of Belarus with European and other countries (Poland, Germany, Russia, China, etc.). The total number of publications and studies dedicated to the mutual relations of Belarus and the EU as a whole, and the problem of the Europeanization of Belarus’ foreign policy in particular is rather insignificant; it is obvi-ously insufficient for a comprehensive description of the case in point. It allows us to state that the problematic considered by the authors of this sub-section are not developed in the scientific community; they require new research efforts and further discussions.

7 V. E. Ulakhovich, Formation and development of the conceptual basis of the for-eign policy of Belarus: sources and historiography. Magazine of international law and international relations, № 2, 2007 Minsk, BSU, 2007, p. 56–62.8 A. A. Chelyadinsky, The concept of integration in international relations: Theo-retical aspect. Magazine of international law and international relations, № 2, 2009 Minsk, BSU, 2007, p. 78–909 A. V. Rusakovich, New tendencies of Belarusian-German political relations at the present stage. Magazine of international law and international relations, №2, 2009 Minsk, BSU, 2009, p. 44–4910 A. V. Rusakovich, Belarusian-German relations in the early 21st century: Eco-nomic aspect. Magazine of international law and international relations, №4, 2009 Minsk, BSU, 2009, p. 60–7211 V. E. Ulakhovich, Formation and development of the conceptual basis of the for-eign policy of Belarus: sources and historiography. Magazine of international law and international relations, № 2, 2007 Minsk, BSU, 2007, p. 56–62.


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The Republic of Belarus on the international scene: the European dimension of the search for ways to embody national interests

Belarus’ acquisition of sovereignty in 1991 was quite unexpected for then elites of the country. It is necessary to remark that in the second half of the 1990s, the aspiration to state independence was not as openly expressed in the BSSR as in the other union republics of the former USSR. Nevertheless, on July, 27th, 1990, the Byelorussian Supreme So-viet accepted the Declaration of state sovereignty of the BSSR, which for the first time declared the objective of Minsk to independently form its foreign policy12.

Admittedly, Belarus began to implement its foreign policy activity only in 1991, after the August events which marked the disintegration of the Soviet Union. On 2 October 1991, the Belarusian Supreme Soviet accepted the statement «On the principles of the foreign policy activity of the Republic of Belarus», thus confirming the country’s adherence to the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the same year, the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Belarus addressed the parliaments of the member states of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) with an appeal to accept Belarus as a full member of the CSCE and to start negotiations about nuclear weapon destruction and a proclamation of the European continent as a denucle-arized zone13.

Then, the process of international recognition of the new independent state was launched. Already in 1992, in Belarus, the embassies of Ger-many, France, and Great Britain, which represented the interests of the European Union in Minsk, were opened. The beginning of the 1990s be-came the time of spreading the network of Belarus’ legations abroad. It is characteristic that the countries where it was planned to open establish Belarusian diplomatic representatives abroad were, along with Russia and Ukraine, such states as Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Sweden, Po-land, Czechoslovakia, as well as the USA, Canada, the Republic of South Africa, and Israel14,15. On the basis of this list, it is possible to say that since the moment of the declaration of independence, the government of Be-larus considered the leading European countries as important partners

12 K. V. Kamyshev. International recognition of the Republic of Belarus. Magazine of international law and international relations, 2005 №1. Minsk, 2005, p. 46–5113 Ibid14 Ibid15 P. Kravchenko, «Notes of the diplomat and politician», Free News, № 10, 10 March 2007, p. 18


and the European direction as one of the major priorities of foreign policy.The first years of Belarus’ existence as an independent state and of the

implementation of its own foreign policy by Minsk can be characterized as a period of quite active Europeanization. And, in this case, the Eu-ropeanization process is understood in two ways — broad and narrow. First — as a recognition and application of the basic European priorities during the formation of this policy. Second — as a growth of the im-portance of the EU in it; the formation of a corresponding long-term prospect of integration into the European structures. In particular, in 1993, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus Piotr Kravchenko pre-pared a program of social and economic transformations which would allow Belarus to declare its intent to join the EU by 1999 and, probably, to be included into the EU in 2006–200716. However, the country’s elite and population did not become interested in this program, as it was sup-posed that it was not realistic for Belarus to join the European Union in such a short time. Moreover, Vyacheslav Kebich’s government and the prime minister himself were rather skeptical about the person of then Minister of Foreign Affairs17 , which can explain the aversion to his pro-posals. Nevertheless, the appearance of the ideas of European integra-tion per se as a key direction of the foreign policy for Belarus during that period is rather representative

Admittedly, this policy did not last long, and already since the middle of the 1990s it was becoming more and more obvious that the process of Europeanization of Belarus’ foreign policy was shutting down. The coolness of relations between the parties was caused by the withdraw-al from the principles of the rule of law and democracy in domestic policy and by the referendum on the changes in Belarus’ Constitution in 1996. The acceptance of the decision of the EU Council on Septem-ber, 15th, 1997 became the crucial event. This decision contained not only the decision to refuse to ratify the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement aimed at creating the political-legal foundation of relations between the EU and Belarus, but also the restriction of assistance pro-vided to help the country18. In its every subsequent decision concern-ing Belarus, the EU Council confirmed the force of the decision d/d September, 15th, 1997, and thus, this document accepted ten years ago continues to be relevant. As for the real reasons of the coolness of the

16 Ibid17 P. Kravchenko, «Notes of the diplomat and politician», Free News, № 17, 7 May 2007, p. 1718 EU-Belarus Relations in 1991–1999. http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/bela-rus/pdf/eu_belarus_relations_11_en.pdf

http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/belarus/pdf/eu_belarus_relations_11_en.pdf



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relations, in our opinion, it was caused by the fact that Belarus’ new management lost their interest in the further strengthening of political mutual relations with the European institutions in connection with the development of integration projects in the eastern direction. Besides, the keen interest of the European Union in the democratic character of election procedures in Belarus was an extremely «inconvenient» factor that would not allow the elites to preserve their power and would not allow them to implement the model of development of the country that they chose. The authors will consider this question later in this work.

Thus, since 1996–1997 a confrontational period of the relations be-tween Minsk and Brussels began. As for Belarus’ foreign policy towards the EU, in this case, the changes that took place are described most pre-cisely by the term «re-Sovietization» of this policy, as an antithesis to the process of «Europeanization».

Simultaneously, since the middle of the 1990s, the role of the Russian Federation has considerably increased in the foreign policy of Belarus. The signing of the Treaty to create a Union State of Belarus and Russia in December 1999 showed that the policy of rapprochement and integra-tion with the Russian Federation is the basic, if not the only, valid vector of the external course of Minsk. Due to this turn of events, already since 1996, for Belarus’ government, the European Union and the western vec-tor of the foreign policy as a whole have become «auxiliary», while there is the only one full-fledged and active foreign policy direction of the pol-icy directed towards exclusive relations with the Russian Federation. Ac-cording to some experts, the relations with the Russian Federation dur-ing this period were a continuation of the domestic policy of President Lukashenko, and the main purpose of this policy was to build the Union State with Russia. These steps were also aimed at increasing the political weight of the head of the Belarusian state among the Russian elite19.

However, when the leadership changed in Moscow in 2001, Minsk lost the strategic initiative in the course of the implementation of the Union project, and A. G. Lukashenko started to lose the laurels of the main integrator on the post-Soviet territory. From now on, it was V. V. Putin and his political team that were more successful in the strug-gle for these laurels. A more assertive, if not aggressive, policy of the Russian management headed by President V. Putin led to the fact that since the middle of a new decade, Belarus started to realize the neces-sity to start searching for foreign policy partners other than Russia, and

19 Grzegorz Gromadzki, «Belarusian Foreign Policy — Change or Continuity?», «Back from the Cold? The EU and Belarus in 2009», edited by Sabine Fischer, Chail-lot Paper No. 119, November, 2009, Institute for Security Studies, Paris


obviously the European Union was the first candidate for such a role20. Thus, within the two decades of the country’s independence, the ba-sic foreign policy choice for Belarus was a choice between the Russian and European foreign policy vectors, and all of the activity of Minsk in its foreign policy is related to the implementation of one of the two basic directions of the international policy of the Republic of Belarus.

As a matter of fact, since the middle of the 1990s, the foreign policy of the officials in Minsk has always been defined by the purposes and logic of the domestic policy. External partners of the country were expected to legitimize the Belarusian authorities and, whenever possible, to grant their economic help to Belarus’ economy21. The latter was especially im-portant, because already at the end of the previous century a strong cor-relation was: direct dependence between the country leaders’ popularity and the level of voters’ economic well-being22.

In spite of the fact that, until a certain moment, the Russian Federa-tion satisfied to the maximum the requirements that Belarus asks of its main foreign policy partner, Europe as a whole and the European Union as an institutionalized partner has never disappeared from Belarus’ offi-cial rhetoric and media reality23. Moreover, the country leaders’ political statements have constantly underlined that Belarus is a European state located in the geographical center of the continent and that it belongs to the European cultural space. However, proceeding from these assertions, all problems of mutual relations of the parties have been imputed to the management of the European Union, and the only reason for the aris-ing conflicts was explained by the European officials’ «policy of double standards» in relation to Minsk. In particular, specially emphasizing the cooperation in the field of economy and safety, the management of Be-larus considered and considers to be unreasonable the statements about the non-democratic character of the Belarusian elections. Thus, for ex-ample, on the threshold of the 2010 presidential election in Belarus, in

20 V. Ulakhovich. Conceptual approaches in the foreign policy of Belarus (1991–2001). Magazine of the Polish Institute of International Affairs «Europe», № 1 (6), 2003, p. 23–2621 Grzegorz Gromadzki, «Belarusian Foreign Policy — Change or Continuity?», «Back from the Cold? The EU and Belarus in 2009», edited by Sabine Fischer, Chail-lot Paper No. 119, November, 2009, Institute for Security Studies, Paris22 S. Nikolyuk, «Country of not frightened revolutionaries», New Europe, Septem-ber, 21st, 2009. http://n-europe.eu/article/2009/09/21/strana_nepuganykh_revoly-utsionerov23 А. Sarna. The European identity of Belarus and the image of Europe in the Be-larusian mass media

http://n-europe.eu/article/2009/09/21/strana_nepuganykh_revolyutsionerov

http://n-europe.eu/article/2009/09/21/strana_nepuganykh_revolyutsionerov


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December 2010, at the OSCE Summit in Astana, President Lukashenko made a declaration of the necessity to work out the «universal standards of elections», which could be applicable in all countries. Thus, he also said that references to such standards and OSCE as a whole are a «blud-geon in someone’s hands»24.

Mutual relations of the Republic of Belarus with European part-ners, their value for the national economy and the social and po-litical spheres

For a better understanding of the European policy of the officials in Minsk, it is necessary to offer its periodization for the period from the moment of Belarus’ acquisition of independence to the present day.

Right now in the scientific literature, there are several approaches to the question of the periodization of the relations of Belarus with the Eu-ropean Union as a whole, as well as with separate EU countries. Thus, for example, the dean of the BSU International Relations Department Alexander Sharapo defines two periods in Belarus’ foreign policy con-cerning the Republic of Poland in particular and Europe as a whole. In his opinion, the basis that determines the time frameworks of the for-eign policy periods is the personalities of the politicians of the highest rank. In the case of Belarus, these are Stanislav Shushkevich (Stanisłaũ Šuškievič) and Alexander Lukashenko25. However, in our opinion, such an approach, so focused on personalities — though it has the right to exist — does not reflect in its entirety the whole variety of the political processes which have been taking place from 1994 to 2010.

Still, all researchers agree one way or another that the first period of mutual relations between the parties ended after Alexander Lukashenko was elected President of Belarus. However, there is a need to compile a periodization of the country’s foreign policy during his administration from 1995 up to the present moment.

Andrei Rusakovich, the vice dean of the BSU International Relations Department, specifies three stages of mutual relations between the Re-public of Belarus and the EU in the 21st century: 2000–2004, 2004–2006, and 2007–2010. The defining events of the beginning and the end of

24 OSCE needs serious modernization — Lukashenko. BelTA, 02 December 2010.http://www.belta.by/ru/all_news/president/OBSE-nuzhdaetsja-v-serjeznejshej-modernizatsii---Lukashenko_i_533954.html25 A. V. Sharapo, Poland-Belarus, the history and the present. Magazine of interna-tional law and international relations, №4, 2007. Minsk, BSU, 2007, p. 45–54

http://www.belta.by/ru/all_news/president/OBSE-nuzhdaetsja-v-serjeznejshej-modernizatsii---Lukashenko_i_533954.html

http://www.belta.by/ru/all_news/president/OBSE-nuzhdaetsja-v-serjeznejshej-modernizatsii---Lukashenko_i_533954.html


each period are the following, respectively: the expansion of the Euro-pean Union and the appearance of its common borders with Belarus, as well as the publication of the informal document signed by Benita Ferrero-Waldner «What the European Union could bring to Belarus»26. However, this periodization, in our opinion, reflects only the external, in relation to Belarus, events and does not consider the position, actions, and intentions of the officials in Minsk at all.

Perhaps the most complete periodization of Belarus’ foreign policy concerning the European Union is presented at this moment by Vladimir Ulakhovich. He defines three basic stages of the development of Belarus’ foreign policy since the moment of its independence. (1) 1991–1994 — a parliamentary republic and a search for the national identity within the limits of all-democratic approaches; (2) 1995–2000 — the domination of the executive power and the desire to play the role of the basic ally of Russia in its foreign policy; (3) since 2000–2001 — the stage of compli-cated relations with the Russian Federation, the beginning of conflicts in the Union State of Belarus and the Russian Federation, a search for alternative foreign policy partners27. We are inclined to agree with the logic of such an approach and to accept it as a basis for the first decade of the relations of the Republic of Belarus and the EU.

Nevertheless, none of the periodizations presented above consider, in our opinion, all the key aspects of the policy and mutual relations of the Republic of Belarus with the EU or cover the whole time interval from the moment when the Republic of Belarus attained its sovereignty up to the present day. Therefore, it is necessary to independently determine the periods of the European foreign policy of Minsk.

The authors of this sub-section distinguish five stages in the history of the mutual relations of the parties. As reference points that define the time frameworks of each of them, we choose the major, meaning-form-ing events in the process of development of these relations, the events initiated by both Belarus and the European Union.

1. The First Stage — 1991–1994, mentioned briefly above, — the beginning of the Europeanization of the foreign policy of the Repub-lic of Belarus. It was, perhaps, the only period which can be considered the time of real inclusion of Belarus’ foreign policy in the processes of

26 A. V. Rusakovich, New tendencies of Belarusian-German political relations at the present stage. Magazine of international law and international relations, №2, 2009 Minsk, BSU, 2009, p. 44–4927 V. Ulakhovich. Conceptual approaches in the foreign policy of Belarus (1991–2001). Magazine of the Polish Institute of International Affairs «Europe», № 1 (6), 2003, p. 107


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Europeanization. During the first three years of the existence of inde-pendent Belarus, the country’s foreign policy contacts with the Europe-an continent countries and with the EU member states were activated. V. Kebich’s government actively used the expert services of specialists from the EU countries. There was a policy of unification of the national legis-lation according to European norms. During the same period, in Minsk, the Coordination Bureau of the TACIS Program in Belarus was opened; the implementation of the projects of technical assistance was begun, and the investment projects aimed at supporting the national economy were being planned. Within the scope of the TACIS Program, more than 60 consulting projects for members of parliament in the field of law-making were carried out28. During the same period, Belarus submitted its application to join the Council of Europe, and this application was accepted for consideration, and the status of a specially invited state was given to the country. Thus, during this period, the European Union was if lesson more and no less important an international partner for Minsk than the Russian Federation.

2. The Second Stage — 1995–1997; it is characterized by the re-orientation towards Russia as the major foreign policy partner. At that time, there was a withdrawal from the European priorities first in the internal and then in the foreign policy.

In spite of the fact that there was an active negotiating process be-tween Belarus and the EU, which resulted in the signing of the Part-nership and Cooperation Agreement in March 1995, the withdrawal from democratic standards in the internal policy and the referendum in November 1996, which was not recognized legitimate by the Euro-pean Commission, Council of the European Union, and the Council of Europe, complicated the relations between the EU and the Republic of Belarus. The events that complete this period, according to us, are the termination of the ratification process of the Partnership and Coopera-tion Agreement in 1997 and the acceptance of the decision of the Coun-cil of EU d/d September, 15th, 199729.

The years 1995–1997 in Belarus’ foreign policy concerning the Euro-pean Union can be defined as the beginning of a larger period — the «re-Sovietization» of this policy. In our opinion, it is impossible to consider this period to be over even now. The withdrawal from the principles of Europeanization, political confrontation with Western countries, which

28 Information and Data Exchange and Archive (IDEA) Database in Belarus as of 5 September 2009. Coordination Bureau of the TACIS Program of the EU in Belarus29 EU-Belarus Relations in 1991–1999. European Commission. http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/belarus/pdf/eu_belarus_relations_11_en.pdf




stems from a conflict of values and political interests, and the aspiration to develop relations exclusively at the technical and economic levels, can be considered the basic features of the «re-Sovietization» of the foreign policy of the Republic of Belarus concerning the EU.

3. The Period 1997–2000 was a time of the historical minimum in the relations of the parties of the Republic of Belarus and the EU. The basic and, perhaps, only priority of Belarus’ foreign policy during this period was the mutual relations with the Russian Federation, which were accompanied by a conflict of values and politics between Minsk and Brussels; this decreased the importance of the EU in Belarus’ inter-national policy.

The scornful attitude of the officials in Minsk towards the Europe-an direction of the foreign policy of the Republic of Belarus was also defined by the fact, that in the late 20th century, the European Union did not yet play a considerable economic role in the foreign trade of the country, which it will begin playing after its expansion in 2004. Thus, the goods turnover with all EU countries before 2000 amounted to only 18% of the foreign trade of Belarus and was unprofitable for Minsk — 1.2–1.4 billion USD per year30. At the same time, the Russian Federation was the main partner of Belarus, providing more than a half of the foreign trade of the country31.

During this period, in the political plan, the relations between Belarus and the EU (both bilateral and multilateral) were becoming more and more complicated due to diplomatic and political crises. Thus, the first aggravation of relations occurred in 1999, after the Belarusian govern-ment unilaterally terminated the lease contracts of the residences of the ambassadors of various countries, located in the district of Drozdy in Minsk. The long negotiations between the ambassadors and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus were unsuccessful; as a result, in June 1998 the heads of diplomatic offices of the USA and all EU countries left Minsk in protest of the infringement of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations by Minsk. In spite of the fact that the embassies of the EU coun-tries remained without their heads no more than half a year, the conflict left a negative mark on the further relations of Belarus and the EU.

30 S. V. Kosinskaya, Trade relations between Belarus and the European Union: problems, benefits, prospects. Magazine of international law and international rela-tions, №4, 2004. Minsk, BSU, 2004, p. 45–5031 E. A. Kovshar, The Role of the settlement of trade and economic cooperation be-tween Belarus with the EU member states in the development of the export potential of the country. Magazine of international law and international relations, № 2, 2006. Minsk, BSU, 2006, p. 39–46


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It is necessary to remark that the year 1999 was simultaneously the time of the most active integration processes of the Republic of Belarus in the eastern direction. It was in December of this year that the Treaty to create the Union State of Belarus and Russia was signed32. It is quite difficult to consider a mere coincidence the simultaneous activation of the integration processes with Russia and the Belarusian officials’ de-monstrative actions aimed at the deteriorating relations with the Euro-pean Union and the USA.

In situation in which the Belarusian government actually refused to dialogue with the European structures, the European Parliament made a decision to organize a joint activity concerning Belarus by the Council of Europe, OSCE, and Parliament (Troika). After the 2000 parliamenta-ry elections, the Troika proposed the four minimum recommendations to Belarus, whose observance would serve as a starting point to launch a negotiation process between Minsk and the European structures: 1) to return all complete legislative power to the parliament, which had been deprived of it as a result of the referendum in 1996; 2) to allow the opposition enter the structure of election committees; 3) to grant the opposition which has an equal number of representatives access to the state-run mass media; and 4) to make the election legislation conform with international norms. None of these recommendations has been ex-ecuted until now. Besides the acceptance of political statements and the expression of its concern about the state of affairs in Belarus in the field of democracy and the development of civil society, the European Union has considered the possibility of introducing sanctions against Belarus. The first precedent for the introduction of sanctions against Belarusian officials was the interdiction for Belarus’ official persons to enter the ter-ritory of the EU in 1999 after the diplomatic scandal with the ambas-sadors’ residences. These sanctions were introduced repeatedly and are still in effect.33.

The European structures have repeatedly tried to organize a dia-logue between the power and the opposition in Belarus. In 1999, the head of the OSCE Office in Minsk Hans-Georg Vick initiated the im-plementation of a round table between the government and opponents of the President; however, the negotiations were aborted because of the government, which refused to seriously participate in these nego-tiations and organized an alternative round table with the participation

32 Treaty to create the Union State, 08 December 1999. Informational-analytical portal of the Union State. http://www.soyuz.by/ru/?guid=1044733 T. Korovenkova. EU has prolonged sanctions against Belarus’ high-ranking of-ficials. http://news.tut.by/politics/201474.html

http://www.soyuz.by/ru/?guid=10447

http://news.tut.by/politics/201474.html


of the state-run mass media and pro-governmental public organizations. Further attempts of the European structures to organize such a dialogue were also unsuccessful. We shall underline that all electoral campaigns in the country have been considered non-democratic and as not corre-sponding to the international standards by the EU.

4. 2000–2007 — the period when Belarus’ enthusiasm for integrat-ing with Russia faded away. Even though the basic vector of the foreign policy of Belarus remained the Russian Federation, when the leaders changed in Moscow, Minsk quickly lost the initiative in the develop-ment of the Union project. The more aggressive and systematic foreign policy of the Russian management headed by President V. Putin, fluc-tuating between neo-imperial and retro-imperial values and methods for the implementation of the foreign policy, led to a situation in which Belarus was compelled to start seeking new foreign policy partners. The European Union was obviously the first candidate for the role of such a partner34. Nevertheless, the «western» vector still remained minor or «auxiliary» to the implementation of foreign policy concerning the Rus-sian Federation, as well as to the strengthening of the sovereignty of the Republic. It is characteristic that the initiatives of the President of Belar-us in the field of the consolidation of relations with the European Union practically always coincided with the time when the relations between the Union State of Belarus and the Russian Federation were aggravated, and did not give in any practical results35. The main reason for such a state of affairs, in our opinion, was the fact that the European vector of Belarus’ foreign policy remained secondary in its economic and politi-cal value in comparison with the Russian one. Therefore, the initiatives of the Belarusian management to adjust the relations with the EU were, more likely, a way to pressure the administration of Russia rather than the valid tools of building relations with the European Union.

During the same period, the largest expansion of the European Union occurred: in 2004, the number of EU members increased from 15 to 25, and in 2007 — to 27 members. Due to the first wave of this expansion, Belarus acquired a common border with the European Union that is one thousand kilometers long. During this period, the role of the EU as an external economic partner of Belarus grew considerably. Since 2004 and

34 V. Ulakhovich. Conceptual approaches in the foreign policy of Belarus (1991–2001). Magazine of the Polish Institute of International Affairs «Europe», № 1 (6), 2003, p. 10735 Grzegorz Gromadzki, «Belarusian Foreign Policy — Change or Continuity?», «Back from the Cold? The EU and Belarus in 2009», edited by Sabine Fischer, Chail-lot Paper No. 119, November, 2009, Institute for Security Studies, Paris


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until now, the share of the countries of the European Union in the total amount of Belarus’ foreign trade is more than a third and is compara-ble to the volume of trade with the Russian Federation36. Moreover, the EU was in the lead among importers of Belarusian goods and services (43,9%), and trade with the EU for Belarus was a surplus37.

5. The beginning of the fifth and current stage of mutual relations of the parties — the second half of 2008. This period became the time of the beginning of the revision of the foreign policy of the country; Be-larus got a chance to return the tasks and possibilities of the policy of Eu-ropeanization to the agenda of the national-state development. It was the start of the global financial and economic crisis and the Russian-Geor-gian conflict in August 2008 that induced Minsk to completely revise its mutual relations with its long-term basic main on the world scene — the Russian Federation. By the beginning of this period, Belarus had already had four power wars with Russia which had definitively shown a decline of such an integration project as the Union State38. Furthermore, the be-ginning of the global financial crisis resulted in an acute shortage of in-vestment and budgetary resources39, which the Russian Federation could not and did not want to provide Belarus with any longer. Thus, Belarus’ attempts to adjust its relationship with and, whenever possible, to receive economic assistance from the EU became almost inevitable40. As a result of these factors, a process of adjusting relations with European institu-tions was begun by the Belarusian authorities in 2008.

In order to understand the reasons behind the described evolu-tion of mutual relations of the parties, it is necessary to consider their motivations in their policy towards each other.

36 E. A. Kovshar, The Role of the settlement of trade and economic cooperation be-tween Belarus with the EU member states in the development of the export potential of the country. Magazine of international law and international relations, № 2, 2006. Minsk, BSU, 2006, p. 39–4637 Belarus-EU Trade Statistics, European Commission, Trade. http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/html/113351.htm38 P. Usov, «Family drama of the Russian-Belarusian relations», New Europe, June, 15th, 2009. http://n-europe.eu/article/2009/06/15/semeinaya_drama_rossiiskobelar-usskikh_otnoshenii39 A. Pankovsky, V. Kostyugova, «Russia-Belarus relations», Belarus year-book - 2008, Belarusian Institute of Strategic Studies, Belarusian Fund of Public Politics, Minsk, 2009, p. 59–6840 Łukasz Adamski. Partnerstwo Wschodnie a polityka UE wobec Białorusi. Buletyn Polskiego Instytutu Spraw Międzynarodowych, nr 27 (559), 15 maja 2009, PISM, st. 2019

http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/html/113351.htm

http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/html/113351.htm

http://n-europe.eu/article/2009/06/15/semeinaya_drama_rossiiskobelarusskikh_otnoshenii

http://n-europe.eu/article/2009/06/15/semeinaya_drama_rossiiskobelarusskikh_otnoshenii


Until recently, for the European Union, Belarus had not been a prior-ity object of foreign policy because of the insignificance of its economy and political weight in the region. The EU had been only basically in-terested in Belarus as a provider of transit for Russian energy carriers. However, the Russian-Belarusian power conflicts not only compelled Belarus to realize the importance of relations with Europe, but also raised the interest of Europe in Belarus. The further growth of interest of the European Union in Belarus was due to the aforementioned eco-nomic and political changes at the end of 2008. The role of Belarus in the geopolitical plan increased considerably: without it, the «good neigh-borhood belt» created by the EU would have had no sense41. Inter alia, the Russian-Georgian conflict made the EU face the necessity of saving the post-Soviet countries from the political influence of the Russian Fed-eration, and this was the cause of Brussels’ dialogue with Minsk42. As was already noted above, the growth of interest of Minsk in more active rela-tions with Brussels also appeared to be due to simply economic reasons. Thus, at that moment, both parties had a mutual interest in developing political relations.

Still, the basic problem in the relations of the parties is still the fact that there is practically no institutional-legal basis for them. Thus, in December 2008, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Belarus and the Eu-ropean Commission Representation in Belarus confirmed that there were no negotiations on the Agreement and that «today, Belarus has no agreements which officially regulate relations with the EU».43

One more problem is that the Republic of Belarus and the EU still cannot find common positions to start a rapprochement. While for the European Union, the major conditions are still liberal values and demo-cratic and economic transformations, the administration of Belarus is interested exclusively in the development of economic cooperation and perceives the political conditions of Brussels as a «shaggy dog story»44.

41 D. Melyantsov. Belarus-EU. Long normalization. Belarus year-book 2009, Belarusian Institute of Strategic Studies, Belarusian Fund of Public Politics, Minsk, 2010, p. 71–8242 Łukasz Adamski. Partnerstwo Wschodnie a polityka UE wobec Białorusi. Buletyn Polskiego Instytutu Spraw Międzynarodowych, nr 27 (559), 15 maja 2009, PISM, st. 201943 «Belarus and the EU do not carry on negotiations on the Partnership and Co-operation Agreement», Belarusian News, December, 19th, 2008. http://naviny.by/rubrics/politic/2008/12/19/ic_news_112_303429/44 V. Tretyakov, President in an interview to the «Lithuanian Courier»: Lukashenko is a guarantor of independence. http://news.tut.by/politics/201072.html

http://naviny.by/rubrics/politic/2008/12/19/ic_news_112_303429/




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Thus, despite the mutual interest of the parties in the development of relations between the EU and the Republic of Belarus, there are still no accurately defined prospects for the adjustment of political connec-tions between them. Though the European Union has gradually reduced the requirements it presents to the Belarusian authorities, they are still limited to the imitation of reforms and superficial actions which change nothing in the general state of affairs45. In its turn, the officials in Minsk make declarations about their progress, i.e. the signing of the Agreement on the creation, privileges, and immunities of the European Commission Representation in Belarus in 200846. However, Minsk does not mention that the question of the opening of the Representation had been raised by EU institutions for five previous years and found no understanding among Belarus’ administration.

Proceeding from these tendencies, it is possible to conclude that, nowadays, the necessary external conditions exist for the Europeaniza-tion of Belarus’ foreign policy. The only obstacle in the way of transform-ing them from «necessary» into «sufficient» conditions is the position of the country’s leaders, who try to preserve the status quo political system of the country and do not to allow the carrying out of needed reforms in the political and economic spheres. The reason for this attitude is the fear that such reforms can weaken the positions of the current Belarusian elite in society and, thus, these reforms do not satisfy the elite’s interests.

The political dialogue between Minsk and Brussels in the culs-de-sac of cosmetic «Europeanization»

It is necessary to admit that all attempts of the «Europeanization» of Belarus from the outside have appeared to be unsuccessful. On the other hand, during practically the entire period of the «re-Sovietization» of Belarus’ politics, the European Union did not seriously make every effort, and the EU politicians did not allocate any significant amount of financial and intellectual resources to solve the «Belarusian question». Until 2008, Belarus had been in sight of the EU, but had remained mainly on the periphery of Brussels’ interests.

45 D. Melyantsov. Belarus-EU. Long normalization. Belarus year-book 2009, Belarusian Institute of Strategic Studies, Belarusan Fund of Public Politics, Minsk, 2010, p. 71–8246 U. Snapkoũski. Relations of Belarus with the European Union: from isolation to normalization. Works of the International Relations Department. Issue I. Minsk, BSU, 2010, p. 38–43


Such a small degree of interest from the European Union in Belarus was explained not only by Belarus’ insignificant political and economic role in the region, but also by the fact that the EU political elite realized that Belarus would remain close to Russia from a cultural, economic, and military point of view. Moreover, the majority of representatives of Belarus’ elites of the 1990s was obviously pro-Russian and was support-ed by a considerable part of society.

Nonetheless, the official documents defining the foreign policy of Be-larus contain a number of formal signs of the «Europeanization» of this policy. In spite of the fact that basic attention in all of them is paid to the economic aspects of external relations, they also mention humanitarian cooperation and cooperation in the field of human rights47. Of course, the problems of economic, military, and transboundary cooperation, as well as those of cooperation in the field of safety, are elaborated on in detail at the conceptual level, which is indicative of the secondary place that European values occupy in the list of priorities of Belarus’ national policy.

In spite of the fact that the European direction is not defined separate-ly in the Law «On the basic directions of domestic and foreign policy», which is currently the definite conceptualization of the foreign policy of Belarus, the European Union occupies an important place in the rheto-ric of the representatives of national organs of power, which is addressed both to interstate and international audiences48. Still, the management of Belarus’ foreign policy department sees the basic directions of coop-eration with the EU, first of all, as the solution of questions of economy and safety, and secondly — the alteration of the visa regime. Thus, the department insists that questions concerning the statement of European values in the domestic and foreign policy of Belarus are above all only the «means of creating «dividing lines» and of struggling for influence in Europe» on the part of the European and Euro-Atlantic structures49.

47 Law of the Republic of Belarus № 60-3 d/d November, 14th, 2005 «On the statement of the basic directions of the domestic and foreign policy of the Republic of Belarus, 2/1157 (24 November 2005), Chapter 2 «Basic directions of the for-eign policy of the Republic of Belarus», p. 40–42. http://www.pravo.by/pdf/2005-188/2005-188%28034-048%29.pdf48 P. Usov. The European vector in the domestic (official and oppositional) policy of the Republic of Belarus.49 A. A. Skripko, the Chief of the Central Department on Europe of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Belarus, Actual questions of the development of rela-tions of the Republic of Belarus with the European Union, including within the frame-work of the Eastern Partnership: problems and prospects. Belarus in the modern world. Materials of the 8th International Scientific Conference. Minsk, «Tesei», 2009, p. 13–20

http://www.pravo.by/pdf/2005-188/2005-188%28034-048%29.pdf

http://www.pravo.by/pdf/2005-188/2005-188%28034-048%29.pdf


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Here, it is possible to conclude that the relations with the EU have still been perceived by the official in Minsk, including at the level of the con-ceptualization of the foreign policy of Belarus, in a narrowed semantic sense, narrowly-practically, without taking into account the necessity of systematic «Europeanization» of the practical policy of the country, let alone of the Belarusian state and society as a whole.

It is necessary to remark that, until 2004, inclusively, the «Belarusian question» seriously bothered practically none of the EU member states. For example, out of 25 member states, only 11 had their embassies in the Republic of Belarus. Besides, the fact that some EU countries had certain commercial interests in Belarus was not a sufficient stimulus to coordinate the EU policy towards Minsk50.

In the case of Belarus, the standard methods of influence, such as the use of «soft force» and then the introduction of economic sanctions, did not work. On the contrary, they were constantly used by Minsk for the purposes of propaganda: the internal and external legitimization of the authorities’ policy. Internal — the positioning of the West as the enemy of the vital interests of Belarus’ society and state, and external — as a negative, but still important, recognition of the role of the country as Russia’s outpost in its «historical opposition» to Europe51.

The opposition to this propaganda was also complicated by the relatively passive position of Brussels. The absence of considerable interests that demanded that attention be paid to the «Belarusian problem» led to the fact that the EU did not allocate correspond-ing resources for its solution. As a result of an essential reduction of financing of the programs of assistance to Belarus during the period from 1998 up to the present day, it was not Belarus that suffered, but the EU policy towards this country. Thus, the limitation of assistance to Belarus in the 1990s only to the projects of assistance to civil soci-ety and democratic institutions52 (only about 5 million euro) had not brought about any essential results in the field of democratization and simultaneously undermined the effectiveness of the only tool of influence of the EU on the policy of Minsk.

50 Charles Grant, Mark Leonard. Inconvenient neighbor of the EU: the time of a new policy concerning Belarus. New Europe, March, 13th, 2008. http://n-europe.eu/content/index.php?p=374051 P. Usov. The European vector in the domestic (official and oppositional) policy of the Republic of Belarus; А. Sarna. European identity of Belarus and the image of Europe in the Belarusian mass media.52 Sander Huisman, «The EU and Belarus», Belarus, quo vadis?, Materials of the International Scientific Conference, Vilnius, 16–17 January 2003. p. 100–101

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Actually, the choice of the EU’s foreign policy tools concerning the Republic of Belarus was limited to numerous statements supported by a set of political and economic sanctions. But, in a situation in which Belarus’ basic foreign policy partner and donor was the Russian Federa-tion, such approaches could not bring about a desirable result.

The publication of the informal document «What the European Union could bring to Belarus» became the first step which could be called an attempt to use «soft force» in relation to Belarus53. The docu-ment lists the benefits which the Belarusian people could receive from political cooperation with the EU. Among them — a simplified visa re-gime with the EU countries, expanded transboundary cooperation, eco-nomic assistance from Brussels, help in entrepreneurship development, assistance in reforming the system of public health services, etc. Belarus was offered to become a full partner of the EU with the prospect, in the future, of entering the zone of the «four freedoms of movement»: people, capital, labor force, and goods. Belarusian citizens did not have the opportunity to express their opinions concerning these proposals, and the government of the country did not give any positive answer to them54. The officials in Minsk only reacted to the EU offer «to have an equal dialogue without preliminary conditions», which in the then state of affairs brought to nothing the very possibility of launching such a dia-logue55.

Due to the aforementioned reasons, the 2008–2009 period became the time of a partial restoration of relations between the parties. Brussels tried to initiate a dialogue with the authorities of Belarus, simultane-ously having decreased its requirements and having passed to laxer posi-tions concerning Minsk56. It is necessary to note that, besides the already mentioned EU interest in saving Belarus from Russia’s influence and including it in the «good neighborhood belt», Brussels now possessed more considerable possibilities in the formation and implementation of the policy concerning Belarus.

53 Benita Ferrero-Waldner. Non-paper «What the European Union could bring to Belarus». http://ec.europa.eu/comm/external_relations/belarus/intro/non_pa-per_1106.pdf54 U. Snapkoũski. Relations of Belarus with the European Union: from isolation to normalization. Works of the International Relations Department. Issue I. Minsk, BSU, 2010, p. 38–4355 Ibid.56 D. Melyantsov. «Relations of Belarus and the EU: Dialogue in difficult condi-tions», Belarus year-book 2008, Belarusian Institute of Strategic Studies, Belarusian Fund of Public Politics, Minsk, 2009, p. 69–77




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First, after the EU expansion in 2004–2007, it includes the states-lob-byists who are interested in the solution of the «Belarusian question» and the Europeanization of the country, and even, in the long-term fu-ture, are not against Belarus joining the European Union57. Among this group of EU member states, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia are the most active lobbyists for the intensive development of relations between the EU and the Republic of Belarus. Such a state of affairs eliminates the factor of the absence of the European Union’s interest in Belarus, which was characteristic of the period 1996–2004, and also solves the problem of the absence of a due level of expertise of the decisions accepted on the Republic of Belarus among European researchers and intellectuals. The problems which still exist, e.g. the formulation of the EU position con-cerning Belarus and the formation of the uniform policy of the European Union in this direction will be solved after a full or partial implementa-tion of the provisions of the Treaty of Lisbon58.

At the same time, the administration of Belarus also shows a more and more open interest in a rapprochement with the European Union, as opposed to the rigid dependence on the Russian Federation as the relations between Minsk and Russia became more conflictive in nature r59. Moreover, the value of Russia is decreasing in the domestic policy of Belarus as well: the authorities and, above all, President Alexander Lukashenko have begun to understand that their policy should repose not on Russia, but above all, on «national traditions, national mentality, and the nation»60.

Thus, in the current domestic and foreign policy situation, there is a number of factors influencing the changes of the character and inten-sity of mutual relations between Belarus and the European Union. These factors, which used to hamper the establishment and development of political contacts between the EU and the Republic of Belarus, are now losing their influence:

57 J. Kałasoũski. Again at the crossroads, or why Poland calls Belarus to Europe. Centrum Stosunków Międzynarodowych, Warszawa, Polska, 2009. http://csm.org.pl/pl/projekty/projekty-zakonczone/belarus-live/juras-kalasouski-2.html58 E. Preigerman. Relations of Belarus and the EU «under the sign of Lisbon»: what we should expect from the enactment of the Treaty of Lisbon? BISS Blitz, BB #33/2009RU, 21 December 2009? p. 559 Łukasz Adamski. Partnerstwo Wschodnie a polityka UE wobec Białorusi. Buletyn Polskiego Instytutu Spraw Międzynarodowych, nr 27 (559), 15 maja 2009, PISM, st. 201860 V. Kaspruk. The Dilemma of the Belarusian choice. Tyždeń, 02 August 2010. http://www.ut.net.ua/online/212/0/97/

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• The conflict between Russia and Belarus is receiving a more and more irreversible character61; it is becoming obvious that, in the near future, Belarus will not be able to count on economic preference and unconditional political support from the Russian Federation62. Some ex-perts also express the opinion that, in the near future, the national in-terests of Belarus will result in some kind of confrontation with Russia63.

• As a result of the aggravation of relations with its basic foreign pol-icy partner, Belarus is in great need to adjust relations with a third party in order to balance the loss of its only foreign policy ally and to escape the economic consequences which are inevitable in the case of a further deterioration of mutual relations with Russia. The only partner satisfy-ing all these expectations is the European Union, which is the largest economic and political amalgamation in the region.

• In the short term, Belarus has all chances of becoming one of the priorities of the foreign policy of the European Union in the region of Eastern Europe, taking into account the fact that the role of Russia in this region has changed (there are grounds to believe that Russia is not able to guarantee the safety of the countries of the post-Soviet terri-tory any more, and its «soft force» does not work)64. Therefore, the EU is interested in removing the countries it borders upon — the former republics of the USSR — from Russia’s unilateral political influence in order to create a «stability belt» 65. Nowadays, there are more or less serious problems in the field of the implementation of these tasks only with Belarus. Here, it will be logical to assume that, in the short and medium term, the EU will activate its attempts to adjust relations with Belarus as a whole and the Belarusian authorities in particular. Thus,

61 Adam Eberhardt. Konsekwencje rosyjsko-białoruskiego sporu energetycznego. Buletyn Polskiego Instytutu Spraw Międzynarodowych, nr 4 (418), 15 stychnja 2007, PISM. st 56862 V. Kostyugova, A. Pankovsky. Russian-Belarusian relations: now together sepa-rately. Belarus year-book 2009, Belarusian Institute of Strategic Studies, Belarusian Fund of Public Politics, Minsk, 2010, p. 59–6863 Uladzimir Matskevich: They are forced to fight and will be beaten… Belarusan Partisan. 29 July 2010. http://belaruspartisan.org/bp-forte/?page=100&backPage=13&news=65263&newsPage=064 V. Kostyugova, A. Pankovsky. Russian-Belarusian relations: now together sepa-rately. Belarus year-book 2009, Belarusian Institute of Strategic Studies, Belarusian Fund of Public Politics, Minsk, 2010, p. 59–6865 Łukasz Adamski. Partnerstwo Wschodnie a polityka UE wobec Białorusi. Buletyn Polskiego Instytutu Spraw Międzynarodowych, nr 27 (559), 15 maja 2009, PISM, st. 2020

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for example, recently the EU authorities have already made certain concessions for the Belarusian authorities, having lowered the number of requirements concerning the reform of the country’s political sys-tem, and then actually showed their readiness to achieve informal ar-rangements with Minsk66 (e.g. it is possible to remember Javier Solana’s consent in February 2009 to carry out a dialogue with Minsk «without intermediaries and preliminary conditions» and the statements of the President of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė that for the EU it would be desirable to see Lukashenko’s victory in the 2010 election67. It is espe-cially characteristic that this statement was made at a closed meeting with the ambassadors of the EU countries and that, afterwards, it was disavowed).

• During the decades since the moment of Belarus’ acquisition of independence, the weight and authority of the pro-Russian elites in Belarus have considerably decreased68. This does not mean that, now and in the near future, the pro-European outlook will prevail among the national elite. However, the factor of the Russian domination of Be-larus’ foreign policy, which was noted by the authors earlier, will not be an obstacle for the development of the western, «European» vector of Belarus’ foreign policy. The reason for this is the discredit of the for-mer approach to the formation of a unilateral orientation of the foreign policy, which had led to the absolute domination of the Russian vec-tor. Such a policy has shown its inconsistency and a low crisis-stability. Thus, Belarus’ foreign policy with all its evidence needs more than one vector, and the EU is a natural choice as one of the basic, if not the one basic partner.

• In Belarus’ society, some kind of a social order for the development and improvement of relations with the European Union is definitely be-ing formed. Moreover, the polls show that the majority of citizens of the Republic of Belarus are sure that their country needs changes69. This de-sire for change is not yet concretized. However, together with the afore-mentioned about the sympathies for the idea of European integration,

66 D. Melyantsov. Belarus-EU. Long normalization. Belarus year-book 2009, Belar-usian Institute of Strategic Studies, Belarusian Fund of Public Politics, Minsk, 201067 Mass media: the President of Lithuania considers Lukashenko’s victory in the 2010 election favorable for the EU. TUT.BY, November, 11th, 2010. http://news.tut.by/politics/204384.html68 Nikolai Radov: Belarus’ political elite on the eve of the presidential election. REGNUM-Belarus, July, 27th, 2010. http://belarus.regnum.ru/news/1319206.html69 A. Medvetsky. Belarusians want changes, but do not know which ones. TUT.BY, July, 29th, 2010. http://news.tut.by/society/188451.html



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such a change of public moods and priorities confirms that the present foreign policy of the Belarusian authorities does not satisfy the needs of citizens of the country any longer.

To summarize, we will underline that the main obstacle to the estab-lishment of fully-developed political contacts between Minsk and Brus-sels is the aspiration of the Belarusian authorities to maximally avoid political and economic reforms or to minimize their scale and depth. However, it is also obvious that recently both parties — Belarus and the European Union — have shown their readiness to make some, conces-sions in their positions, even if these concessions are not accurately de-fined.

In particular, Belarus is ready to make some changes in its official ideology and rhetoric. Thus, the Belarusian authorities, for the first time during the latest 15 years, speak about the possibility of integration into the European space, meanwhile strictly limited to national interests70. Moreover, during the two recent years, the rhetoric of the authorities has definitely changed in other spheres as well, which allows researchers to make declarations about an illusory possibility of the implementa-tion by the present Belarusian authorities of a political program of the Belarusian People’s Front71. It is even possible to ask a broader question about the process of forming the discourse of the country’s Europeaniza-tion in the form of a basic national discourse which consolidates society, unlike the previous years, when it was marginalized by the authorities and called «oppositional».

On the other hand, it is clear that the representatives of the European institutions have also updated their positions in relation to Belarus — first, they had reduced the list of requirements to Belarus down to five and then down to just one: to release political prisoners. This alleviation of the positions took place within the confines of the so-called «policy of drawing in», which resulted in the expansion of political contacts be-tween the political elites of Belarus and the EU, as well as a considerable, in comparison with the previous years, breakthrough in the implemen-tation of Belarus’ foreign policy in the western direction72.

70 Y. Chausov. Extraordinary ideology: To the change of the ideological paradigm of power. Belarusian Institute of Strategic Studies. 28 July 2010. http://www.belinsti-tute.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=729%3A2010-07-28-06-37-39&catid=5%3Areviews&Itemid=27&lang=ru71 Ibid.72 D. Melyantsov. Belarus-EU. Long normalization. Belarus year-book 2009, Belarusian Institute of Strategic Studies, Belarusian Fund of Public Politics, Minsk, 2010, p. 71–82

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On this basis, it is possible to affirm that, at the present moment, there are favorable possibilities for a further development of the dia-logue between the parties, both at the informal level and at the level of political elites. Practically all obstacles to the establishment of political connections that had previously existed, the development of full-fledged mutual relations, and the beginning of the integration of Belarus into the European economic, political, and cultural space, are not defining any more. Between the parties, there are still considerable values and political disagreements. However, it is obvious that Belarus and the Eu-ropean Union are ready to make concessions in their positions in order to achieve concrete political and economic aims.

Conclusions

Belarus is getting the opportunity to become a full participant of the European processes, an object and a subject of Europeanization, includ-ing in their foreign policy. Certainly, this objective process is being slowed down by the unwillingness and inability of the authorities of Belarus to depart from the political practices established in the country, because, until recently, the legitimacy of the existing power and the stability of social comfort of the political-administrative elite were guaranteed.

However, the situation both inside the state and around it makes clear that the foreign policy of the Republic of Belarus has ceased to be an adequate continuation and means of establishing the domestic policy because the changing foreign-policy and external-economic realities in-creasingly define new directions of actions of the officials in Minsk. In this situation, the policy of maneuvering between two centers of force, a combination of the methods of making advances and black mail, cannot be effective any longer73.

The further sequence of events depends on the Belarusian authorities and the direction of development they choose for the country. Currently, there are several possible foreign-policy scenarios for Belarus. In brief, they can be presented as follows:

1. Restoration of the former political and economic relations with the Russian Federation; returning to the absolute domination of the Rus-sian Federation in the foreign policy of Belarus.

2. Continuation of the policy of maneuvering between two cen-ters of gravity and «the implementation of an independent sovereign

73 Y. Pshennik, «Careful! — the chairs are falling part», Our Opinion, May, 14th, 2009. http://nmnby.eu/pub/0905/14m.html

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policy <…> without merging with the European Union or Russia»74.3. A strategic decision to gradually integrate into the European po-

litical, economic, and cultural space, which in the long-term can lead to the country joining the European Union.

4. The scenario of a long-lasting conflict with both partners of the Republic of Belarus — the EU and the Russian Federation, which will inevitably result in a foreign-policy isolation of the country. However, according to the authors, the implementation of this scenario (creation of a European analog of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) is probable only in a rather short-term, as such political actions would seri-ously undermine the national economy and threaten its existence as an independent state75.

The first two scenarios seem to be improbable because, in the first case, the independence of Belarus’ policy is threatened and its depen-dence on the Russian Federation can reach a degree at which the ques-tion of its incorporation in one form or another into Russia’s state system will be inevitable. In the second case, as was noted above, the situation is not promising in the long-term, as Minsk would lose its internal re-sources and external possibilities to implement such a course.

Thus, integration into the European cultural and political space be-comes the most preferable choice for the present or future Belarusian authorities. The political system and political regime of the Republic of Belarus are experiencing more and more increasing overloads be-cause of the depletion of the inner possibilities of development of the country and growing pressure upon Minsk from the administration of Russia and the formation of public opinion which threaten the ero-sion of support by citizens of the policy of the Belarusian authorities. Hence, the degree of the Belarusian authorities’ validity and indepen-dence in the process of acceptance of strategic decisions will depend on how soon these authorities start the process of reforming the political and economic system of the country. The Belarusian regime finds itself at a decisive point, and its subjects should independently find a way out — otherwise, this will only be done by external agents, i.e. Russian or European politicians. And, if in the case of compelled participation in the European project the result will be a gradual restoration of in-dependence and a formation of new Belarusian elites, then in the case

74 Uladzimir Matskevich: They are forced to fight and will be beaten… Belarusian Partisan. 29 July 2010. http://belaruspartisan.org/bp-forte/?page=100&backPage=13&news=65263&newsPage=075 A. Klaskovsky. Belarusians on the «alternative horns». Naviny.by, 02 August 2010. http://naviny.by/rubrics/politic/2010/08/02/ic_articles_112_169870/



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of a compelled end of the project of integration with Russia, the result will be the complete elimination of existing Belarusian elites from the decision-making process in the country.

An important factor in the present state of affairs is the strategic position of the European Union. The quicker the clear and unambigu-ous «road map» and algorithm of the EU political actions concerning Belarus are formed, the greater the probability that Belarusian society and authorities will accept the initiatives of Brussels and agree to take part in their realization. It is necessary to add that the road map and strategy should consider not only the EU’s interests in Belarus, but also, to the greatest possible extent, take into consideration the interests of the Belarusian elite. Otherwise, either the Belarusian party will continue delaying decisions or the forms and contents of these decisions will be inadequate for the existing conditions and opportunities.

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regional policy in the republic of Belarus: the difficulties of its Europeanizationanatoly Kruglashov, yulia Kotskaya

Regional policy is one of the major indicators of the political develop-ment of a state. Relations between the center and the regions, between their elites and the population reveal the contents and dynamics of po-litical processes in a country. Besides, administrative independence and sustainable development of regions, processes of regionalization are an important condition of European integration that has especial signifi-cance for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The European model of regional policy has become an example sui generis of efficient management at a local level, an example of the participation of regions in the political life of a state. From this point of view, the Europeaniza-tion of regional policy means that said policy is being reformed in order to build a democratic, politically stable, economically competitive, and socially focused model of regional management.

The primary purpose of this sub-section is to study the regional policy of the Republic of Belarus and attempts to reform it based on European democratic values and political practices of regional policy. After the declaration of independence in 1991,the Republic of Belarus has passed through two stages in its attempts to reform its regional policy: the so-called period of «democratic romanticism» in the early 1990s and the period of «presidential administrative universalism» — the establish-ment of a harsh presidential [vertical] after Alexander Lukashenka came to power. Despite the essential distinctions of the political conditions in which the regional policy was formed and implemented at these stages, the common thing for both of them has been the absence of any under-standing of the regional policy as a subject of a special legal regulation.

While writing this part of the collective monograph, the authors re-lied on a number of sources. First of all, the internal legislation of the BSSR and the Republic of Belarus concerning the implementation of regional policy: the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus, laws on ad-ministrative-territorial division, laws on local government, the basic di-rections of social-economic development of the Republic of Belarus for

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41regional policy in The repuBlic of Belarus: The difficulTies...Anatoly Kruglashov, Yulia Kotskaya

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the period until 2010. Then, the normative legal acts of the Republic of Belarus in the field of transboundary cooperation: bilateral agreements about the frontier between Belarus and its neighbors, the Decision of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus about the creation of the Interdepartmental Coordination Council concerning frontier co-operation with the adjacent countries; the Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus about the order of reception and use of foreign free aid. The authors have also studied legal acts of the EU in the field of transboundary cooperation: the Strategy of the European Neighborhood Policy, the programs INTERREG and Baltic Sea, the program «Eastern Partnership», and the following framework documents of the Council of Europe: the European Framework Convention on transboundary cooperation of territorial communities and authorities, the Local Self-government Charter.

While writing this text, an important role was also played by our ref-erence to scientific researches implemented by representatives of Be-larusian legal science (works by V.Kivel, V.Fateyeva, and V.Sidorchuk) which studied a [complex] of questions connected with theoretical and organizational aspects of local self-government and problems of its per-fection in the country. The authors have also used [messages] of news agencies and publications in the printed and electronic mass media, which are directly related to the topic explored here.

In the course of studying the regional policy of the Republic of Be-larus, separate historical features of its formation have been revealed; the basic characteristics of its regulatory and legal framework, orienta-tion and key problems of the regions management policy implemented by the center, have been defined. On the basis of studying these aspects, the authors also present their understanding of the role and place of Belarus’ regions in the implementation of transboundary cooperation as one of the important institutionalized channels of the Europeaniza-tion of Belarus’ territories adjacent to the EU and draw their conclusions about possible ways of the evolution of the regional policy system of the country in the changing internal and external conditions of its existence.

1. Historical experience of the formation of the regional policy in Belarus

As was already noted in the previous section, the Republic of Belarus started to form the political-legal basis of its modern statehood when the Declaration of the state sovereignty of the BSSR was proclaimed on July, 27th, 1990. But it wasn’t until more than a year later — on August,


25th, 1991 — that this Declaration received the full force of an act of state independence and Belarus became de jure a sovereign state. How-ever, the implementation of new political possibilities was hindered by the old command and administration system whose representatives kept the power exclusively in the new state.

The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, which was a part of the USSR, could not actually carry out an independent regional policy. The one-party political system and the centralized planned economy ex-cluded any possibility of even minimum independence of bodies of local authorities. The budgetary distribution deprived local communities of any form of autonomy and made them directly dependent on the Union center.

The Soviet model of management of territories and the policy cor-responding to it in the provinces did not assume any independence of local self-government, and citizens of the USSR were deprived of any possibility to influence those in power including the possibility of voting, which until 1989 was a non-competitive, ritual acknowledgement of the indestructibility of the Soviet system and the invincibility of the «block of communists and non-party citizens». It is the heritage that used to af-fect and continues to influence and define the model of management of regions and territories in today’s Republic of Belarus.

According to the current Constitution, Belarus is a unitary state. The territory of the country is 207,600 sq. km. It has a three-level administra-tive-territorial division: 6 Vobłaśćs [Regions] (Brest, Viciebsk, Hrodna, Homiel, Minsk, Mahiloũ), which include 118 Rajons [Districts] and Ru-ral Soviets [village councils]1.

The modern administrative-territorial division of the state developed as a result of its largest reform, implemented in the BSSR back in 1956–19622. The main objective of this reform was to centralize the manage-ment of agriculture in the republic. The only change to the administra-tive-territorial division happened in 1989, when in Mahiloũ Vobłaść the new 118th Rajon — Drybin District — was created in order to solve the tasks of minimization of the aftermath of the Chernobyl catastrophe.

The formation of the existing administrative-territorial regions of the country had been taking place under the influence of a number of his-torical factors, which had, first of all, political [conditionality]. For many

1 The Constitution of the Republic of Belarus: the Law of the Republic of Belarus d/d 5 January 1994 (with changes and additions d/d 24 November 1996) // the National Register of legal acts of the Republic of Belarus. — 1999. — №1.2 The administrative-territorial division of the BSSR: Reference book in 2 volumes / edited by V. A. Krutalevich, etc. — Minsk: Belarus, 1985. — V.2. — p.5–7.


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centuries, the Belarusian lands had been a part of various state forma-tions that narrowed their role down to a peripheral position in relation to the center of the historical region. The administrative territories of the Belarusian lands were frequently formed on the grounds of politi-cal instead of economic tasks. These territories were not considered as priority regions, and the policy of the center in relation to them was car-ried out by virtue of [subject-object] relations. The policy of Moscow, S.-Petersburg, Warsaw, and again Moscow was not only of a rigidly cen-tralized submissive character (the Belarusian territories were developed according to the interests of the mother country), but also, in a number of aspects, colonialist and similar to the behavior of colonial empires in relation to the «aboriginal» population.

Such a «specialization» of these territories, which was defined by political centers of decision-making that were external to Belarus, was rooted in economic and social characteristics and the nature of whose development is that of of determinants that are resistant to change. Thus, for example, the western Hrodna and Brest Vobłaśćs have a higher relative density of the agricultural population and, accordingly, an agrar-ian orientation of the economy. This is determined not only by natu-ral factors relating to climate, but also by historical ones. Of a defining significance was the fact that these territories were a part of Poland in 1921–1939, where the practice of economic regionalization and a dis-tribution of productive forces corresponding to it were applied. Also, after these territories then became a part of the USSR, they were devel-oped according to the tasks of its strictly centralized planned economy. The forced rates of the industrialization and collectivization policy did not touch these western Regions of Belarus, and their undeveloped in-dustrial infrastructure allowed them to preserve their high agricultural potential.

From the point of view of the ethnic-confessional factor of its regional structure, Belarus is rather a mono-national state. According to the last census in2009, almost 84 % of the inhabitants of Belarus consider them-selves to be Belarusians, 8 % — Russians, about 2 % — Ukrainians, 3 % — Poles3. National minorities, as a rule, live in the corresponding boundary regions and do not especially influence the regional policy. The only ex-ception is Hrodna Vobłaść, where there is a quite high concentration of Poles — 21.5 % of its population. However, back in the Soviet period, the powers in the region prevented any attempts by the national minorities to unite and limited their socio-political influence.

3 Population census of 2009 (basic results). [Electronic document]: http://belstat.gov.by/homep/ru/perepic/2009/itogi1.php (visited 10 October 2010)


After the disintegration of the USSR, regional policy in Belarus ceased to occupy an important place in state policy, and it has essentially affect-ed the formation of a regional strategy and a reform in the sphere of re-gional development. The political and economic chaos which occurred after the disintegration of the USSR removed regional policy as an object of political reforms from the sphere of state attention.

According to the processes of the country’s sovereignization, there appeared a demand for the scientific substantiation of Belarus’ own re-gional policy, its purposes, priorities, and new mechanisms of its imple-mentation. It was also necessary to deal with the existing territorially-administrative division of the country and to define the expediency and ways of reforming it. In 1990, on the instructions of Belarus’ Council of Ministers, a group of Belarusian scientists and civil servants (V.A. Alek-sandrov, G.P. Balle, L.M. Kryukov, M.S. Kunyavsky, G.N. Lych) prepared a project of the Concept of Economic Sovereignty of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic4. This document included four blocks, in one of which there was a concept of a new state policy in Belarus, which pro-vided for the functioning of its economic system. The section«Regional Policy» in this document was presented in the form of theses. Nonethe-less, this document became the basis for a further formation of a new regional policy in Belarus. This document formulated for the first time the purpose of regional policy, named some regional problems in Be-larus and the tools with the help of which the state must solve them. The document also substantiated the necessity of carrying out a reform of the administrative-territorial division, the decentralization and democ-ratization of territorial administration.

In May 1990, the Concept of Economic Sovereignty of the BSSR was studied in the Council of Ministers and directed to the Supreme Soviet. Despite some substantial limitations of the document in the sphere of regional policy, it was the first step towards the democratization and de-centralization of the system of regional development, which became the base for the formation of a new independent regional policy in Belarus. The Concept substantiated the necessity of a reform of the administra-tive-territorial division, as well as a democratization and decentraliza-tion of the system of local self-government that allows us to say that several basic elements of the European regional policy were introduced to it.

4 Tendencies of socio-economic development of regions and of the regional policy in the countries with a transitioning economy. Analytical report on the results of fundamental researches / science editor P. G. Nikitenko — Minsk: Publishing House «Law and Economics», 2001. — 59 p.


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It is necessary to note that during the first years of independence, a large part of the documents in the sphere of regional development was aimed at liquidating the aftermath of the Chernobyl catastrophe. The state structures of Belarus paid much more attention to the questions related to the radioactive pollution of a considerable part of the terri-tory of the Republic, which was the result of the Chernobyl catastrophe, rather than to all other regional problems5.

The conceptual basis of regional policy found its development in the law «About local government and self-government in the Republic of Belarus» d/d February, 20th, 1991, which fixed the basis of the legal status of local regulatory bodies and self-government, bodies of public administration6. The legal basis of regional policy is registered in the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus as accepted in 19947. The status definition of competencies of regions is in the law «About the admin-istrative-territorial division and the order of solving questions of the administrative-territorial arrangement of the Republic of Belarus» d/d May, 5th, 19988. After a considerable break, in 2010 a new law «About local government and self-government in the Republic of Belarus» was enacted9. However, the expectations of some researchers, public figures, and politicians that the provisions of this law would reflect the norms of the European right in the field of local self-government, in particu-lar — Local Self-government Charter, were deceived. Perhaps its only

5 For example, the Law of the Republic of Belarus «On social protection of the citizens who have suffered from the catastrophe at the Chernobyl atomic power station» // Narodnaja Hazeta. — 1992. 25 January. — p. 4–5.The Law of the Republic of Belarus «On the legal regime of the territories suffering from radioactive pollution as a result of the catastrophe at the Chernobyl atomic power station» // Bulletin of the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Belarus. — 1993. № 35. — p.51–73.6 The Law «On local government and self-government in the Republic of Belarus» d/d February, 20th, 1991 [Electronic document]: http://pravo.by/webnpa/text.asp?RN=v19100617 (visited 11 May 2006)7 The Constitution of the Republic of Belarus: the Law of the Republic of Belarus d/d 5 January 1994 (with changes and additions d/d 24 November 1996) // the Na-tional Register of legal acts of the Republic of Belarus. — 1999. — №1.8 The law «On the administrative-territorial division and the order of solving ques-tions of the administrative-territorial arrangement of the Republic of Belarus» d/d May, 5th, 1998 [Electronic document]: http://pravo.by/StateLaw.htm (visited 11 May 2006) 9 The Law «On local government and self-government in the Republic of Belarus» d/d 4 January 2010. [Electronic document]: http://www.pravo.by/WEBNPA/text.asp?RN=H11000108 (visited 24 February 2010)


positive innovation was the recognition of the right to create associa-tions of bodies of local self-government that allows to the expansion of the representation of the interests of territorial self-government before the central authorities.

Nowadays, just as at the dawn of Belarus’ independence, the priorities and tasks of state regional policy are stated in the basic state forecasts and programs. Special sections on regional policy are presented in the «Principal provisions of the program of social and economic develop-ment of the Republic of Belarus for 2001–2005»10 and «Basic directions of social and economic development of the Republic of Belarus for the period until 2010»11. These documents, in their contents and stylistics, are closer to program documents of the Soviet epoch rather than to the modern normative legal acts that define the construction of the Euro-pean model of regional development. As a matter of fact, they do not contain anything essentially new and necessary for an effective reform of the existing model of territorial administration.

In the «Basic directions of social and economic development of the Republic of Belarus for 2006–2015», the overall objective of the regional economic policy is to provide for the growth of the well-being of the population, irrespective of one’s place of residence. This goal is sup-posed to be reached by increasing the level of complex development of productive forces and the competitiveness of regional economies. The development program of small and average cities is implemented in the state [complex] program of regional development, small and average settlements for 2007–201012.

1.1. Imbalances of the regional policy of the Republic of Belarus

All the legislative initiatives listed above did certainly spur on the for-mation of the basis of a new independent Belarusian regional policy. How-ever, they do show that the regional specificity of the country and the cor-responding policy continue to be in the shadow of the nation-wide prob-

10 Principal provisions of the program of social and economic development of the Republic of Belarus for 2001–2005. Minsk, 16 May 2001. [Electronic document]: http://www.government.by/ru/rus_news.html (visited 11 May 2006)11 Basic directions of social and economic development of the Republic of Belarus for 2005–2010. Minsk, 3 March 2006. [Electronic document]: http://www.government.by/ru/rus_news.html (visited 11 May 2006)12 The state program for the development of regions, small and average settlements for 2007–2010: Accepted by the Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus № 265 d/d 7 June 2007. — Minsk, 2007.


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lems and are not the subject of the appropriate legal regulation of the state.Among the basic drawbacks of Belarus’ state regional policy, research-

ers reasonably mention the weak legal, organizational, and financial sup-port of local initiatives; orientation of the current state management sys-tem on the use of not stimulating, but redistributive tax-budgetary and other tools of influence on the economy and social sphere of regions; an insufficiently developed mechanism of interaction among state struc-tures, local authorities, and self-government institutions13.

One question still remains unanswered: the acceptance of the na-tional Concept of Regional Development. In August 2008, a work-ing group was created in order to prepare a project of the Concept of Regional Development of the Republic of Belarus for the period un-til 2015, which is still being completed by the Ministry of Economics, other national state bodies, regional executive committees, and other organizations. Such slow progress in the development and acceptance of the document can be explained by the disinterest of the central pow-ers in reforming the existing model of regional policy, its consistent decentralization, which, in its turn, should lead to a transfer of a part of the powers to regions and their transformation into an independent subject of state policy.

A symptomatic display of the degree of the country leaders’ interest in regional policy in Belarus is the absence of one nation-wide institu-tion whose purpose would be to work out and implement it. This role is carried out by various departmental establishments — ministries and national organs of state management, which try to obtain the maximum control over financial resources in their activity. The most essential in-fluence on Belarus’ regional development is rendered by the Ministry of Economics, Ministry of Architecture and Building, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment Protection, State Committee on Land Re-sources, Geodesy, and Cartography, as well as the Committee on prob-lems of the aftermath of the Chernobyl catastrophe at the Ministry of Emergency Measures of the Republic of Belarus.

The disadvantages and problems of Belarus’ regional policy are es-pecially noticeable when compared with that of other European coun-tries and Belarus’ neighboring countries, where corresponding laws

13 Fateyev V. S. An overview of the directions of the perfection of the regional policy and local self-government in the Republic of Belarus // Problems of forecasting and state regulation of social and economic development: materials of the 9th Inter-national Scientific Conference (Minsk, 16–17 October 2008): in 4 volumes. V.1 / Edited by S. S. Polonik [etc.]. — Minsk.: Scientific-Research Economic Institute of the Ministry of Economics of Belarus, 2008. — p. 66–78.


are being actively developed and passed. For example, we will consider Poland’s experience — it is fairly considered a country with a success-fully carried out administrative-territorial reform and an example of the Europeanization of regional policy in the post-Socialist space. Here, the Law dealing with the order of support of regional development came into force in 2000, and its implementation has appreciably borne fruit. In Russia, the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Fed-eration has been functioning since 2007, directly dealing with regional problems. There are similar ministries in Ukraine and a number of oth-er European states. The absence of a similar structure in the Republic of Belarus allows us to confirm the institutional illiberality and, accord-ingly, weak efficiency of the implementation of regional policy in the country.

1.2. Regional policy as a constituent of the «presidential universal-ism» model

The tardiness and vacillation in the questions of reforming the country, especially in the beginning of 1990s, can be explained by the fact that after the political changes in 1991 the new state and society were in a state of turmoil and a serious economic crisis. However, the refusal of the state to allow wide privatization, unlike in the majority of post-Soviet states, led to a situation in which regional groups of influence simply did not have the financial resources necessary for the implementation of their policy. The power still belonged to the old nomenklatura, and the new elite could not articulate national interests. This situation was aggravated by the absence of internal and external reference points among both statesmen and the major-ity of Belarusian citizens, as well as by the essentially weakening of the paternalistic role of the state. In these crisis conditions, one of the options to stabilize the situation was «returning» to the Soviet past. This option was used by the chairman of the Haradziec State Farm Alexander Lukashenka.

When Lukashenka came to power in the mid-nineties, there was a fast restoration of the tottering, but not completely liquidated, Soviet administrative and management system. In a situation where the demo-cratic institutions of the new independent state were not yet completely formed, the path towards the construction of a «power vertical» did not face any practical resistance from the political elites. In 1996 Lukash-enka initiated a referendum — which contained infringements that were evaluated negatively by the international community that allowed him to introduce a new variant of the Constitution. As a result, presidential


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power essentially increased and the construction of the future «presi-dential vertical» was formally legalized. From this moment, the develop-ment and implementation of regional policy belonged completely to the president14.

The basic purpose of the introduction of the presidential model of regional management of the country was the construction of the so-called presidential vertical. For Alexander Lukashenka, the power verti-cal is the «sacrosanct linchpin» of statehood for the Republic of Belarus. «There must be indestructibility of the linchpin of the vertical of power from top to bottom, and no exercises in democracy. If we destroy this basis, and the primary level is the foundation of the vertical of power, we can begin to play at democracy, self-government and so on», — he declared his unequivocal position at the meeting on the increase of the role of organs of power of the primary level in the solution of problems of sustenance of the population on May, 18th 200615.

In order to characterize the «presidential model» of regional govern-ment, attention should be paid to the following criteria of evaluating its functioning:

• the system of construction of local self-government; • the degree of independence of regional elites; • the policy on financial resource distribution and the formation of

regional budgets.First of all, let us note that the legal basis of local self-government was

defined by the Law on local self-government, accepted by the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Belarus back in February 199116; it was in effect until the new law about local self-government came into force on July, 11th, 201017. The term «local self-government» was fixed in Section V

14 Vlaskin А., Kruglashov А. «Europeanization» of Belarus’ foreign policy: dialogue of the Republic of Belarus — Belarus and its prospects15 The authorities have begun preparing for local elections. // Belarusan News. 18 May 2006. [Electronic document]: http://naviny.by/rubrics/politic/2006/05/18/ic_articles_112_133374/ (visited15 June 2007)16 The Law «On local government and self-government in the Republic of Belarus» d/d February, 20th, 1991 [Electronic document]: http://pravo.by/webnpa/text.asp?RN=v19100617 (visited11 May 2006)17 The Law «On local government and self-government in the Republic of Belarus» d/d 4 January 2010. [Electronic document]: http://www.pravo.by/WEBNPA/text.asp?RN=H11000108 (visited24 February 2010)


of the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus, which was accepted in 199418. Despite the general democratic character of these enactments, they had rather considerable drawbacks.

Thus, for example, in the Law on local self-government, the rigid structure of territorial administration, in which local authorities were defined as bodies of state power, was focused much more on the admin-istrative comfort of the «center» rather than on satisfying the interests and requirements of local communities. The Constitution of the Repub-lic of Belarus initially had a hierarchical model of territorial administra-tion. Councils of deputies, executive-distributive bodies would «solve questions of local importance, proceeding from state interests and the interests of the population, and execute the decisions of higher state structures» 19.

This legal imperfection was successfully used when the presidential model of regional development was formed by Alexander Lukashenka by introducing respective alterations into the legal system of the coun-try. Legal acts of the Republic of Belarus say that local government and self-government is carried out by citizens through local councils of dep-uties, executive and administrative organs, bodies of territorial public self-government, local referenda, meetings, and other forms of direct participation in the state and public affairs.

The activity of councils of deputies is the only form of implement-ing local self-government, which provides for participation of inhab-itants in bodies of local power through elections. Still, the compe-tence of this organ is far from what, is the right of the population to self-government in the majority of European countries, including the post-Soviet ones. Currently, a local council is deprived of the right to have its own executive body. The executive committee in a territory is not elected by the population, but, according to the Law on local self-government, is subordinated to the President, the Council of Minis-ters, and higher executive committees (for the third and second level of management of territories). It is responsible before the council only in questions, which are in the competence of councils (Article 9). Thus, the competence of the council, which is fixed by laws of the Repub-lic of Belarus, can be changed by a decree and edict of the President.

The law on local self-government also provides for the possibility of citizen participation in the management of their affairs through territo-

18 The Constitution of the Republic of Belarus: the Law of the Republic of Belarus d/d 5 January 1994 (with changes and additions d/d 24 November 1996) // the Na-tional Register of legal acts of the Republic of Belarus. — 1999. — №1.19 Ibid.


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rial public self-management. Thus, the law does not contain such a key concept as a territorial association of citizens (community, canton, com-mune, in the Belarusian variant — «hramada»)20.

One more form of direct citizen participation in local self-govern-ment provided for by the legislation of the country is local referenda, but they are also limited by the central powers. The problem is that a referendum is organized for the «questions, which have the greatest im-portance», and this «importance» is defined not by inhabitants of a ter-ritory but the Ministry of Justice or its structures. Thus, in practice, it turns out that in order to carry out a local referendum, it is necessary to receive permission from the same central power.

Belarus’ local councils are almost completely deprived of their basic executive and administrative organs. There is a rather rigid vertical hier-archy of local bodies, both representative and executive-administrative. In addition, there exists a structure of the functions of local regulatory bodies — a structure which is deformed (compared to its Soviet precur-sor) due to the need for a rigidly centralized way of governing the coun-try by its one political subject.

1.3. Conclusions

Thus, during Lukashenka’s rule in the Republic of Belarus, a new sys-tem of administration of local authorities was created as a base of the presidential vertical, accompanied by slogans of returning to the time-tested examples of Soviet building, idealized by propaganda, It is only formally named «local self-government», under the pretext of which Lukashenka has formed a mechanism for his personal control over what happens in various regions. Thus, any possibilities of forming any eco-nomically and administratively independent, i.e. politically active re-gional elites in the country at any point in the future are unlikely. As a side effect of its formation and functioning, this system has deprived not only the elite but also the population of regions of the country of a pos-sibility to directly express their social and economic interests, including through preferences in personnel.

The following important component of the «model of presidential universalism» of regional development is the system of financial resource

20 Informational note of the Leũ Sapieha Fund «About the project of the Law of the Republic of Belarus «On localgovernment and self-government in the Republic of Be-larus» [Electronic document]: http://sapieha.org/news/informacionnaja_zapiska_o_proekte_zakona_respubliki_belarus_o_mestnom_upravlenii_i_samoupravlenii_v_re-spublike_belarus/2010-02-19-94 (visited21 April 2010)


distribution and regional budget formation. In Belarus, local budgets are an integral part of the budget of the entire nation. Their planning and approval are created in the one budgetary process and depend entirely on the decision of the central authorities. Thus, the vector of the local budget formation from above, instead of from below, is very accurately traced in the Law on the budget. The process of approval of regional budgets takes place only after the parliament accepts the law on the budget. Therefore, the budgets of Rajons and cities are accepted only after approval of higher budgets. As a result of such a procedure, at the beginning of each year, the councils of Rajons, cities, and villages have no approved budget. The degree of tax independence of local budgets is very insignificant and is expressed in their limited rights in taxation, is characterized by the absence of local budgetary autonomy and the performance of the function of tax collection in the centralized order.

The general characteristic feature of regional budgets is their high degree of subsidization; after all — more than 80 % of local budgets is deficient. The absence of budgetary independence has led to a system of budgeted financing, instead of budgetary planning21. This means that, already, at the formal-legal level, the regions are deprived of the possibil-ity of receiving and distributing incomes. This in turn leads to a further increase of the dependence of the population’s well-being and its man-agement on the goodwill of the center and the absence of any financial independence from the capital bureaucracy.

In full conformity with the general logic of regional policy, which is carried out by the center, the largest industrial enterprises that perform their activity within the scope of the uniform policy of the «center» are not controlled by local authorities. Due to such measures, regional elites are deprived of all possible financial sources for their independent man-agement of territories. They cannot, and do not dare, oppose the center in either basic or tactical questions.

However, not only the system changes of the «game rules» have led to such a state of affairs in the country’s regions. Right after the Belaru-sian presidential, Alexander Lukashenka, in the course of his creation of the rigid vertical of power, directed considerable efforts towards weakening regional elites and forcing them to fully submit. Thus, for example, in 1994, he issued his Decree approving an interim provi-sion dealing with the order of appointment and dismissal of chairmen

21 Local self-government in Belarus. / V. N. Kivel [etc.]; edited by I. P. Sidorchuk. — Minsk: Tonpik, 2007. — 416 p.


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and members of executive committees22. According to it, chairmen of regional executive committees and the Minsk Executive Committee are appointed by the president personally. But he did not stop here: his activity aimed at creating new institutional and personal architec-ture in different regions. His consent is needed to appoint members of these executive committees as well as chairmen of district executive committees. In this case, even formal and external democracy of the Soviet kind was ignored.

Having received new powers, Lukashenka began to scour for heads of regions. All six heads of regional executive committees and the chair-man of the Minsk Executive Committee had been replaced or «left by their own choice». However, these achievements were not enough for the head of state.

Since 1997, the number of demonstrational trials of representatives of the elite has been increasing. There are arrests and trials of those who dare to go the opposing camp. An integral attribute of the new regional policy is now a public scornful and quite often offensive attitude towards local heads. Populism as management tactics in this case is directed to-wards the exploitation and strengthened formation among the popula-tion of the archetypical paternalistic point of view — «the tsar is good, the boyars are bad».

Belarus’ personnel policy becomes one of the most unpredictable ones on the post-Soviet territory. Who,is appointed or fired by the Presi-dent, where, when and why, is impossible either to analyze or foresee for both experts and, apparently, those surrounding him. Among the things that can be analyzed rationally in his acceptance of personnel decisions, there are the so-called principles of «fellow-countrymen-ness» and «clientalism». The higher state posts are occupied mainly by natives of Mahiloũ Vobłaść where the President was born. Appointment to posts quite often happens as a display of benevolence for services rendered. It is no wonder that in the presidential vertical system, the natives of Mahiloũ and Minsk Vobłaśćs prevail. Some justice, from the point of view of taking into account the interests of the new nomenklatura, was restored by the fact that natives of other regions, who grew profession-ally in the administrations of Mahiloũ Region, the so-called «smithy of cadres», receive a chance for further promotion.

22 About the interim provision for the order of appointment and dismissal of chairmen of executive committees of Regions, Districts, and cities, approved by the decree of the President d/d 28 November 1994. №222 (revised on 14 December 1999. №725).-// the National Register of legal acts of the Republic of Belarus. — 2001. — №1/2074


The explanation of the social-psychological points of view of regional cadres lies in the fact that the average age of state employees in the Re-public of Belarus is 54,2 y.o.23 As these are people of the «before-pen-sion» age, their career growth is, as a rule, already in the past. The pres-ervation of their positions of power up to the moment of their retire-ment becomes a vitally important task. This task assumes the necessity of proving their loyalty to the existing power by all means.

The policy of preventing the concentration of power in the hands of local heads has led to the fact that natives of other regions are system-atically appointed as heads of executive committees, which has in turn deprived regional elites of possibilities for corporate unification and for the independent exertion of influence. The functioning of the presiden-tial vertical of power has actually destroyed regional elites as the major subject of national policy.

Local authorities accumulate and express the support of the masses for the President of Belarus himself. In such a situation, local admin-istrators are compelled to always «look to the top» — to the one who appoints and ousts them — and thus have the option of not being exces-sively distracted by the demands and expectations of the population of the territories entrusted to them.

Both in the center and at the local level, there is a system for the im-plementation of the authorities’ powers — a system that is inherently not public, closed to direct «control from below» by voters. In this system, the regional and sub-regional authorities possess a minimum of financial and functional independence; they are not protected by the legislation from excessive regulation by and administrative-bureaucratic interven-tion from higher bodies. As a consequence, they are not able to realize the full the potential of socio-economic and cultural development of re-gions, including in the sphere of transboundary policy.

2. Transboundary cooperation: the potential for the European-ization of Belarus’ regions

Transboundary cooperation (TBC) is occupying an increasing role in the regional development of European countries. It provides frontier territories with new possibilities to solve problems of a social, economic, and cultural character that are left over from the past or that have aris-en in connection with the challenges of the present. It is an important means of overcoming the narrowness of national markets (if there are

23 Pankaviec Z. Who is in power? // NašaNiva. №.25. — 8 July 2009. — p.5


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ironclad borders generated, first by the cold war epoch and now by the Schengen era) and it minimizes the obstacles that arise during contact between citizens of neighboring countries.

As a whole, this cooperation gives important impulses and presents wide opportunities for a new stage of modernization of the territories, which, as in the case with the post-Soviet (and in the majority — the post-Socialist) countries, are economically problematic, if not depres-sive, burdened with chronic unemployment and the peripherality of their socio-cultural development.

The totality of the functions performed by transboundary coopera-tion is filled with a special meaning and value for the Republic of Be-larus. In its case, we deal with a country which, for a long time, has had only limited, formal cooperation with its neighbors. For Belarus the task of europeanizing the level and quality of life of its regions and their inter-action with foreign partners is still a current task that is far from comple-tion and it is not even considered at the appropriate state policy level.

Belarus possesses a considerable potential for transboundary coop-eration in a format that follows that of other European regions including in the format of euro regions, created with the assistance of its adminis-trative and territorial units. Still, this potential is hardly taken advantage of fully, and it is necessary to discover the reasons for this situation and to work out proposals for overcoming the existing obstacles in the way of optimizing inter-regional interaction.

In this part of the sub-section, the authors consider the basic ele-ments of the development of transboundary cooperation of the Republic of Belarus, including both its external and internal aspects. We take the external aspects to mean acceptance and complete use by the country and its administrative-territorial units of European legal and institution-al mechanisms and the TBC tools corresponding to them; we take the internal aspects to mean the potential for, possibilities of, and produc-tivity of the participation of regions of the country in transboundary co-operation, and, as a consequence of it, its influence on the Europeaniza-tion of the socio-political and economic development of the territories of Belarus.

2.1. Single-vector-ness of regional cooperation

During the last few centuries, the territories of modern Belarus were a part of the Russian Empire and, later, of the USSR. This has led to a uni-directional policy of frontier cooperation, whose development prevails mostly in the eastern direction. Confrontation with the West and closed borders did not permit carrying out a balanced transboundary policy on


the western borders of the Republic. On the other hand, the historical conditions were not only negative for a formation of preconditions and traditions of the country’s modern TBC. In particular, the facts that the western part of Belarus was a part of Poland and that some territories were a part of the buffer state «Lithuanian-Byelorussian SSR» in Febru-ary–August 1919, additionally made Belarusians closer to their neigh-bors, thus forming new and close religious, cultural, and economic ties that still have some influence today.

After the disintegration of the USSR, when Belarus became indepen-dent, there was an urgent necessity to determine its external borders, to have them legally recognized internationally, and to conclude trea-ties and agreements with neighboring states — the latter being one of the most important factors for the stability of transboundary relations. From the point of view of transboundary policy, the signing and ratifica-tion of treaties dealing with the state frontier and its demarcation estab-lished a legal basis for reliable partner cooperation between neighboring countries. The following table shows the development of this process.

Treaties about the state border between Belarus and the neighboring countries24

States Treaties

Belarus — Lithuania The treaty on the state boundary came into force on April, 26th, 1996. Demarcation has been completed.

Belarus — Latvia The treaty on the state boundary came into force on May, 19th, 1995. Demarcation has been completed.

Belarus — PolandThe treaty on the state boundary was signed be-

tween the USSR and Poland on August, 16th, 1945. There is no separate treaty with Belarus.

Belarus — Ukraine

The treaty on the state boundary was signed on May, 12th, 1997. It was ratified by Belarus; however, the protocol for exchanging the treaty ratification creden-tials has not been signed yet. Nowadays, the formalities for crossing the border with Ukraine is defined by the treaty between the Republic of Belarus and Ukraine on friendship and cooperation d/d July, 17th, 1995.

24 The State Committee of Frontier Troops of the Republic of Belarus. [Electronic document]: http://gpk.gov.by/border/ (visited 11 September 2010)


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States Treaties

Belarus — Russia

The treaty on the state boundary does not exist. The border as such is absent, though it is marked. Nowadays, passing the border with Russia is regulated by the treaty on friendship and cooperation between the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation d/d February, 21st, 1995.

The implementation of the agreements mentioned above testifies to the problems with the legal completeness of the external recognition and the necessary registration (according to the norms of international laws) of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Republic of Be-larus. The incompleteness of the processes of ratification of agreements on the state frontier influences the stability of transboundary relations of the country. Currently, nothing has changed from the point of view of overcoming border controls: there are real borders, passport control, and check-points not only with the western neighbor, but also with the northern and southern ones; there is a visa regime with Poland, Lithu-ania, and Latvia.

A special case is the legal regime of the border of the Republic of Be-larus with Russia, which is absent de jure (though physically demarcat-ed). However, periodically arising political and economic conflicts make the Russian-Belarusian border the object of dangerous manipulations. For example, the «milk war» between the two states in 2009 resulted in the appearance of customs posts on the border for a short period of time.25

At the interstate level, in order to implement transboundary and regional cooperation with Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Ukraine, Be-larus has concluded treaties which oblige the parties to provide fa-vorable conditions for the establishment and development of direct contacts, connections, and cooperation of administrative and territo-rial units.

Officially, the foreign policy of the Republic of Belarus in relation to its adjacent countries starts with the principle of being a good neighbor. It declares Belarus’ participation in transboundary cooperation and the implementation of joint projects between administrations, public and private organizations of neighboring countries. Belarus considers that

25 The Viciebsk customs officials have practically started to form customs control posts on the Belarusian-Russian border. // News Agency Interfax-West. June, 17th 2009.


the basic form of transboundary cooperation is euro regions, which ac-tivity is based on principles of self-government and transboundary co-operation26.

It is necessary to remark that in the standard-legal base of the Belaru-sian state, there is no separate document which would precisely define the purposes, tasks, and forms of transboundary cooperation of the Re-public of Belarus. Transboundary cooperation is an object of legislative efforts in Belarus only in its joint documents concerning the CIS and the Eurasian Economic Community. Meanwhile, the European context of the legal regulation of transboundary cooperation is ignored, though some positive steps in this direction have recently been made. For ex-ample, throughout 2009–2010, treaties were concluded about small frontier movement with Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, which will allow citizens in the 30-km zone to freely cross the border. Still, the officials in Minsk have stopped at the stage of ratification of these documents and, in the meantime, do not hasten to «open» the borders; the only exception is the frontier movement with Latvia, which was launched on February 1st, 2012.

In order to coordinate the activity in the sphere of frontier coopera-tion of the Republic of Belarus with its neighboring countries, on De-cember, 18th, 2004,the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus created the Interdepartmental Coordination Council for frontier coop-eration with adjacent countries, which included representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the State Committee on Science and Technologies, the State Committee of Frontier Troops, and other minis-tries and departments. The Council is headed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus27.

In 2005, the president of Belarus signed the law «On the approval of the basic directions of the external and internal policy of the Republic of Belarus»; its Section 37 is dedicated to transboundary cooperation. According to this law, transboundary cooperation is defined as one of

26 TBC [Electronic document]: http://www.mfa.gov.by/rus/publications/issue/facts/2006/06.Economy.pdf (visited 11.12.2006) 27 About the creation of the Interdepartmental Coordination Council for frontier cooperation with adjacent countries. The decision of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus d/d December, 18th, 2004. №1602 [Electronic document]: http://www.pravo.by (visited 11 May 2006)


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the spheres of the implementation of foreign policy of the state28. The practical implementation of the transboundary policy is to be done by some establishments, the most significant of which are the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economics. Such an intricate ad-ministrative scheme allows us to ascertain the unsystematic character and institutional weakness of the transboundary component of Belarus’ regional policy.

An even more important problem of TBC of Belarus is the conflict of the principles and basic values on which the corresponding policy of Minsk and the approaches of its partners — the neighboring coun-tries — to this sphere of cooperation are based. One of the fundamental pan-European ideas of transboundary cooperation between regions is the expansion of powers of regional authorities of different countries beyond the borders of their state.

Obviously, this directly affects the character and possibilities of par-ticipation of Belarus’ regions in transboundary cooperation. When there is actually no system of local self-government, the activities of local au-thorities, especially their contacts with foreign partners, are completely under the control of the central power. For example, joint meetings of representatives of euro regions are to be planned at least half a year in advance. It would seem that it is quite a European tradition of far-sight-edness and systematically organized administrative activity. But, in prac-tice, such events can be constantly postponed or in general cancelled if the Belarusian representatives of local authorities receive no approval for such international meetings from the «center»29.

The most important fact is that, in Belarus, the major principle of transboundary cooperation — the principle of subsidized-ness, the strengthening of regional and local levels of power — is not recognized and is not executed. Besides, local authorities are limited in their use of financial resources, especially if it concerns their participation in the implementation of international projects. All international projects, ac-cording to the Decree of the President, should receive preliminary ap-proval from the Council of Ministers of Belarus; as a result of the dili-gent execution of this procedure, there is a considerable reduction of the number of such projects, i.e. fewer additional means necessary for regional development of the country are spent.

28 The law of the Republic of Belarus «On the approval of the basic directions of the internal and foreign policy of the Republic of Belarus». — 14 November 2005. № 60-3.[Electronic document]: http://www.pravo.by/webnpa/text.asp?RN=h10500060 (visited 12 July 2010)29 Polish Radio: http://www. polskieradio.pl. (aired 08 October 2003)


Frontier regions are deprived of the necessary rights and possi-bilities for their effective participation in the development of trans-boundary cooperation. This contradicts the principles of a developed system of local self-government and maintenance of their financial base, taken as a principle two main international documents on trans-boundary cooperation — the Madrid convention on transboundary cooperation30 and the Local Self-government Charter31. However, Be-larus, unlike all its neighbors, without exception, not being a member country of the Councils of Europe, has not signed these fundamen-tal documents. The strengthening of the authoritarian features of the functioning of Belarus’ power system did not liquidate, but, on the contrary, increased the bureaucratic obstacles for transboundary co-operation.

The aforementioned documents of the Republic of Belarus provide only very general directions for transboundary cooperation, and its basic form is euro regions. Such a position and the refusal of the ap-propriate detailed legal elaboration of TBC testifies, first of all, that the state power tries not only to control, but also to manage the processes of this cooperation «hands-on» as much as possible and, certainly, in a centralized manner. A separate concept of transboundary policy, with its accurately defined purposes, tasks, and methods, has still not been developed and accepted. Despite the fact that the officials in Minsk have acknowledged the importance of transboundary policy many times and have stated that the country is ready to participate in it, it neverthe-less continues to remain a peripheral component in the standard-legal documents of the Republic of Belarus. Transboundary cooperation is relegated to the sphere of foreign policy, which removes it from the ju-risdiction of the authorities of the regions whose population should be engaged directly in the solution of boundary problems.

Despite the statement of representatives of Belarus’ foreign policy department about the use of provisions of the Convention of Trans-boundary Cooperation, the state’s current activity in the sphere of transboundary cooperation is based on the internal national law, which essentially differs from the laws of the neighboring states. Unlike Be-larus, all its neighboring countries that are participants of the EU and the CIS have joined the European framework convention on frontier

30 European Outline Convention on Transfrontier Co-operation between Territorial Communities or Authorities. Madrid. 21 May 1980. [Electronic document]: http://conventions.coe.int (CETS 106) (visited 10 May 2006) 31 European Charter of Local Self-Government. Strasbourg. 15 November 1985. [Electronic document]: http://conventions.coe.int (CETS 122) (visited 10 May 2006)


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cooperation of territorial communities and authorities32. Belarus, as well as in the situation with the European framework convention, has not signed the European Charter of Local Self-government either33.

Belarus, due to its authoritarian course and the policy of distancing itself from the European Union and the Council of Europe, is not a mem-ber of any of the organizations in which frameworks for the legal basis of transboundary activity were accepted. Accordingly, it has not signed any of these legal documents. As a result, the country has been excluded from the pan-European legal sphere in terms of regulating transbound-ary cooperation. This means that it is deprived of possibilities to take advantage of all the opportunities that joining the pan-European legal basis of TBC could provide.

2.2. Prospects of overcoming the deadlock of the lost opportunities

The opportunities which frontier regions of the country lose as a re-sult of such a policy can be estimated differently. But one can hardly doubt that the price and risks connected with its continuation are in-creasing. It becomes especially obvious against the background of the geopolitical and socio-economic changes that are taking place in the Central and Eastern European region.

In 2004,the EU proclaimed a new policy concerning neighboring states — the Policy of Good Neighborhood. Belarus received the right to participate in three EU programs: «INTERREG III A Latvia-Lithuania-Be-larus» 34; «Poland-Belarus-Ukraine INTERREG III A/TACIS CBC» 35, and «Region of the Baltic Sea INTERREG III B» 36. In 2004–2006, the European Union allocated 23 million euro for the implementation of these programs. Of this sum, Belarus, due to the aforementioned reasons, has used only 1 034 282 euro, or 4,5 % of the whole sum meant to be used by the country.

32 European Outline Convention on Transfrontier Co-operation between Territorial Communities or Authorities. Madrid. 21 May 1980. [Electronic document]: http://conventions.coe.int (CETS 106) (visited 10 May 2006)33 European Charter of Local Self-Government. Strasbourg. 15 November 1985. [Electronic document]: http://conventions.coe.int (CETS 122) (visited 10 May 2006)34 INTERREG IIIB. Priority South supports cross-border cooperation on the borders between Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus. Financing. [Electronic document]: http://www.bsrinterreg.net/3a (visited 13.12.06)35 INTERREG IIIA. Program Polska — Białoruś — Ukraina. [Electronic document]: http://www.interreg.gov.pl (visited 13.12.06)36 Baltic Sea Region INTERREG III B Neighborhood Program [Electronic docu-ment]: http://www.spatial.baltic.net/ (visited 21.01.2007)


Let’s review in brief the contents and possibilities of the programs of good neighborhood for Belarus. The program «Poland-Belarus-Ukraine» 37 (Hrodna, Brest, Minsk, and Homiel Vobłaśćs, and the city of Minsk). The program Poland-Belarus-Ukraine is implemented on the eastern EU frontier. Transboundary cooperation within its frame-works mentions a part of the territory of Poland, an EU member, and a part of the territories of Ukraine and Belarus, countries which are not members of the EU. The general budget of the program of neigh-borhood «Poland-Belarus-Ukraine» for participation of Belarus and Ukraine in joint projects with Poland within the scope of this program for 2004–2006 was 37 818 870 euro (from European Regional Develop-ment Fund) and 8 000 000 euro (from ТАСIS). Of these sums, Belarus has used 320 000 euro (Annex 1). For 2007–2013, the program budget is 186,201 million euro (EU contribution) plus its own financing at the rate of 10 %.

The program «Region of the Baltic Sea» 38 (all of Belarus). The pro-gram «Region of the Baltic Sea» covers 11 European countries, both EU members (Estonia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Po-land, Sweden) and Norway, Russia and Belarus. It was accepted by the European Commission on September, 14th, 2001, and added on Octo-ber, 19th, 2004 in connection with the EU expansion (Annex 2). For its financing in 2004–2006 ТАСIS allocated 7500 euro for partners from Belarus and Russia. Belarus used 175 872 euro (Annex 2). Of the nine-teen approved project proposals, within the scope of ТАСIS only four have been carried out with the participation of Belarusian partners. For 2007–2013, the program budget is 22,608 million euro (the EU contri-bution — the means are accessible to partners from Belarus and Russia), plus its own financing at the rate of 10 %.

The program «Lithuania-Latvia-Belarus» 39 (Hrodna, Viciebsk, Minsk, and Mahiloũ Vobłaśćs, and the city of Minsk). The program Lithuania-Latvia-Belarus, priority «South», includes two EU countries — Lithuania, Latvia, and the neighboring country — Belarus. The budget of the pro-gram of good neighborhood Lithuania-Latvia -Belarus for 2004–2006,

37 Program współpracy transgranicznej Polska-Białoruś-Ukraina 2007–2013. [Elec-tronic document]: http://www.interreg.gov.pl/20072013/instrument+sasiedztwa/pl-bl-uk/ (visited 23.07.2009)38 Baltic Sea Region Program 2007–2013. [Electronic document]: http://eu.baltic.net/ (visited 23.07.2009)39 European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument 2007–2013 cross border cooperation program Latvia-Lithuania-Belarus. [Electronic document]: http://www.enpi-cbc.eu/ (visited 23.07.2009)


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financed by ТАСIS, is 7 500 000 euro. Belarus has managed to use 538 410 euro (Annex 3). For 2007–2013, the budget of this program is 41 737 mil-lion euro (the EU contribution) plus its own financing at the rate of 10 %.

Thus, the general efficiency of the use of European funds for these programs by Belarus’ regions does not exceed 5 %, or to be exact — it is 4.5 %. In particular, for the program «Poland-Belarus-Ukraine», this figure is 4 %, for the program «Region of the Baltic Sea» — 2.3 %, for the program «Lithuania-Latvia-Belarus» — 4.5 %. It is obviously possible to leave these indications without any further comments.

As a whole, it is necessary to underline that Belarus’ participation in such projects has faced a number of serious problems. The first of them is connected with the bulky procedure for the approval of projects from the Belarusian party — the necessity of its approval in conformity with several statutory acts. These are the Decree of the President № 8 «On some measures for perfecting the order of reception and the use of foreign free aid»40, the Decree of the President № 460 «On the interna-tional technical help given to the Republic of Belarus» 41, the order of the Council of Ministers № 1522 «On some measures for the implementa-tion of the Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus d/d Octo-ber, 22nd, 2003 № 460» 42, the Decision of the Ministry of Economics № 246 d/d December, 19th, 2003 «On the approval of the Position on the procedure for the registration of projects (programs) of international-technical help to the Republic of Belarus, and control over their imple-mentation» 43.

40 Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus d/d 12 March 2001 № 8 «On some measures for the perfection of the order of reception and use of foreign free aid» // the National Register of legal acts of the Republic of Belarus. — 2001. — №28. 1/246441 Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus d/d October, 22nd, 2003 № 460 «On the international technical help given to the Republic of Belarus» [Electron-ic document]: http://zakon2006.by.ru/part12/doc34078.shtm (visited 8 December 2006)42 Order of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus d/d November, 21st, 2003 № 1522 «On some measures for the implementation of the Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus d/d October, 22nd, 2003 № 460 [Electronic document]: http://www.kaznachey.com/doc/11524 (visited 5 December 2006)43 Decision of the Ministry of Economics of the Republic of Belarus d/d 19 Decem-ber 2003 № 246 «On the approval of the Position for the procedure for the registra-tion of projects (programs) of international-technical help to the Republic of Belarus, and control over their implementation» [Electronic document]: http://zakon2006.by.ru/part08/doc17402.shtm (visited 5 December 2006)


In practice, the implementation of positions of these regulatory legal acts means that after a certain project is accepted for financing by the European Commission, it should pass a registration procedure in the Commission for international cooperation at the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus. The procedure of preparing the documents and their registration takes around one to three months. However, if this project is not recognized as corresponding to the priorities of the de-velopment of Belarus, and the EU means do not fall into the definition «technical help» formulated in Decree № 460 of the Presidents, the EU transfers will be taxed.

As a result of such state vigilance, which is the result of both politi-cal and fiscal reasons, only several out of dozens of applications for the programs «INTERREG III A Latvia-Lithuania-Belarus» and «Poland-Belarus-Ukraine INTERREG III A / TACIS CBC» have been registered. The long duration of the procedure of approval of applications by the Belarusian party in some cases leads to only potential foreign partners who wish to observe the time frameworks established for applicants re-ceiving financing for themselves, while their Belarusian colleagues re-main without financing.

However, this TBC administration system, developed in the 1990s, is not so motionless and self-sufficient as it would like to seem. It is neces-sary to admit that the global financial crisis has made some changes in Lukashenka’s foreign policy. The necessity to search for new credits and the tense relations with Moscow have compelled the officials in Minsk to slowly and unenthusiastically turn towards Europe. Seeing how the state loses financial possibilities because of his confrontation with Eu-rope, President Lukashenka has undertaken a number of political steps, including in the sphere of regional transboundary policy.

First of all, in 2009 Belarus joined the new European initiative «East-ern Partnership», which includes six post-Soviet countries. The budget of the Eastern Partnership will increase from 450 million euro in 2008 to 785 million euro in 2013. Its means are divided into three categories: complex programs of institutional building (175 million euro), support of reforms in the partner countries; pilot programs of regional develop-ment (75 million euro) for social and economic development of the re-gion; multilateral projects (350 million euro)44. In the absence of bilateral agreements with the EU, Belarus can formally participate only in the multilateral projects of the Eastern Partnership. The first two programs,

44 Vademecum on financing in the context of the Eastern Partnership: http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/eastern/docs/eap_vademecum_14122009_en.pdf (visited 06.01.2010)


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which directly cover the regional level and promote the increase of the administrative and legislative independence of regions, their econom-ic growth and social stability, will not be accessible to Belarus. For the implementation of Belarus’ projects for 2007–2010 within the scope of national budgets, the allocation of 21 million euro is planned. However, for a further increase of Belarus’ inclusion in this budgeting, the country has to carry out a number of political and economic reforms45.

2.3. Conclusions

To conclude the effective activity of euro regions on the territory of Belarus, as well as the general state, quality and efficiency of TBC, and its results, are positively dependent on the regional policy implemented by the Belarusian authorities. The Soviet administrative heritage has not lost its actuality in this new independent state, but has also become an institutional, personal, and ideological basis for the construction of the rigid presidential vertical. After the liquidation of the mechanisms and principles of civil self-government that appeared in the late 1980s — early 1990s, the model of management of the state remains the same — severely centralized, administered by nomenklatura methods.

It is obvious that the processes of internal regionalization and the in-vestment of boundary regions with concrete foreign policy functions and rights act as factors of decentralization of the state captured by trans-boundary cooperation. The system of the rigid state vertical built in Be-larus does not allow the decentralization of power and thus the effective development of regions. The prevalence of authoritarian features in the political regime in Belarus and the aspiration of financial streams to bu-reaucratic control, which come from abroad, compel the state to refuse the obvious benefits of transboundary cooperation with the EU countries.

The regional policy of Belarus demands structural system reforms based on European values and principles, including in the administra-tive activity of institutions of the state and local governments. The suc-cess of such reforms is possible only in the context of wide democratic transformations. In the meantime, the officials in Minsk do not show their readiness to share power with regions, as this would lead to the strengthening of regional elites and a change of their roles in relation with the central power.

45 Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council — Eastern Partnership {SEC(2008) 2974}. [Electronic document]: http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/eastern/docs/com08_823_ru.pdf (visited 07.05.2009)


The analysis of the Belarusian state’s regional policy shows that the model for the regional policy of modern Belarus was generated in the conditions of the harsh policy of the centralization of power. Not only the structure of the state but also its regional policy are unitary. In Be-larus, the most Sovietized of the union republics, at the moment of dec-laration of state independence, the national elite was weak, did not pos-sess material means and political experience for the implementation of the national policy. Having come to power, Lukashenka consistently and purposefully struggled against any displays of independence from re-gional elites. Populist tactics, anti-elite methods, and the «fellow-coun-trymen-ness» and «clientalism» principles of personnel selection have led to the fact that regional elites have ceased to exist as independent participants in the political process.

Because of this, the regions of the country, deprived of financial in-dependence and personnel self-sufficiency, could not develop and carry out local policy or take due part in transboundary cooperation with the neighboring states, including the EU countries. The Europeanization of regional policy and transboundary cooperation of the Republic of Be-larus is quite necessary; it should have been done long ago. The question remains: who and when will start to implement these tasks, making up for the missed opportunities in this sphere of national development and state building.


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ANNEX 1

The list of confirmed projects with the participation of Belarus within the scope of the EU program of good neighborhood

«Poland-Belarus-Ukraine»46

№ Title of the project Belarusan partner

Contribution of the TACIS program to the budget of the project (euro)

1

Development of transboundary tour-ism in the region of the BiełaviezkajaPušča (White Tower Forest)

National Park BiełaviezkajaPušča, Pružany district executive committee, Śvisłač district ex-ecutive committee, Kamianiec district executive committee

200 000

2

Biomechanical research and work-ing out of methods of improvement of supporting-motor ap-paratus of children of Białystok and Hrodna Regions

Scientific-Research Center of problems of cost-effective use of resources at the National Academy of Sciences of Be-larus (Hrodna)

120 000

Total 320 000

46 The list of confirmed projects with participation of Belarus within the scope of the EU program of good neighborhood // Received from the Branch of Representation of the European Commission in Belarus and Ukraine — TACIS Office


ANNEX 2


«Region of the Baltic Sea»47

№Title

of the projectBelarusan partner

Contribution of the TACIS program to the budget of the project (euro)

1

Network of inter-national river basin areas of the eastern part of the Baltic Sea

Central Research Institute for Integrated Water Resources Management of the Ministry for the Protection of the Environ-ment and Natural Resources

49 000

2

Evaluation of the development of entrepreneurship in the Baltic space

Minsk Branch of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry 34 500

3

Economic and inter-cultural cooperation between Schleswig-Holstein Land, Hrodna Vobłaść and Kaliningrad Oblast

Hrodna regional executive committee, Hrodna club of entrepreneurs

30 000

4Baltic network of power-saving in homes

Management of housing and communal services of Minsk regional executive committee, Žodzina executive committee

62 372

Total 175 872



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ANNEX 3


«Latvia-Lithuania-Belarus»48


Contribution of the TACIS program to the budget of the project (euros)

1 Fascinating bicycle path in the Lake Land

Miory, Vierchniadźvinsk, Pastavy, Hłybokaje and Brasłaũ regional councils of deputies of Viciebsk Region

103 000

2

Protection and steady management of bio-diversity of the lake Dryśviaty — a trans-boundary water-marsh complex of international value

Institute of zoology at the Na-tional Academy of Sciences of Belarus

49 755

3

Participation of the population in projects and programs on power efficiency within the scope of good neigh-borhood expansion in the frontier regions of Latvia, Belarus and Lithuania

Hłybokaje regional council of deputies 13 460


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Contribution of the TACIS program to the budget of the project (euros)

4

Development of youth entrepreneurship and sociability by the joint establishment of con-tacts and the develop-ment of strategies in the remote frontier areas of Latvia, Belarus and Lithuania

Hłybokaje regional council of deputies 144 000

5

Establishment of Belar-us-Latvia cooperation in the field of children’s palliative help

Public charitable organiza-tion «Belarusian children’s hospice»

153 000

6

Art without borders — development of transboundary cul-tural industry through Marc Chagall and Mark Rothko’s art

Department of culture of the Viciebsk City Executive Committee

75 195

Total 538 410

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The European vector and European integration in the discourses of the authorities and the opposition

pavel usov

The 2004 enlargement of the European Union has radically changed the Belarusans’ conceptualizations of the European Union, which stopped being the «far and abstruse West», having turned into a close neighbor. The EU has become a real geopolitical center of gravity and influence which all political actors in Belarusian have to reckon with one way or another.

The fact that the former socialist countries, including some republics of the ex-USSR, have joined the EU has put Belarus in a special, unique geopolitical position. The approach of the European Union toward Belarus’ borders has made it, on the one hand, some kind of a bridge between the East and the West and, on the other hand, has forced the country to choose between two projects of integration. One of them is to integrate into united Europe; the other is to reconstruct the Union State with Russia. These and other questions concerning the relations with the EU have become one of the important aspects of the speeches of representatives of the ruling regime and in political programs of op-positional parties and organizations. Within the scope of this research, the execution of the pro-European political discourse will be understood as a version of political Europeanization.

It is clear that the prospects of Belarusian-EU relations and the Eu-ropean Union itself are evaluated differently by the opposition and the ruling regime. If for the majority of representatives of the democratic community the European Union is a real chance for the country to in-tegrate in the European space, then for the ruling elite it is a possibility to manipulate the created geopolitical position for their own economic and political benefits. In other words, the opposition, at least on the level of rhetoric, declares the necessity of deepening relations with the EU, while those in power try to keep their distance with united Europe, proclaiming the unsuitability of integration in the European Union.

In order to study what place the «European vector» occupied and oc-cupies in the internal policy of the authorities and the opposition, we


shall review the program documents of political parties and organiza-tions, as well as public statements of officials and leaders of the Belaru-sian opposition.

1. Europeanness as a definition of alterity

In the conceptualizations of members of the Belarusian democratic community — the leaders of political parties and movements — Europe is more than a simply geographical notion and is identified above all with political values such as freedom and democracy1. «The art of com-promises and respect of the opposition’s opinion are the qualities of civi-lized Europe, which are missing in Belarus. We should copy not only the letter of the European Constitution in order to ensure the independence of the judicial system and to accept a procedure for resolving disputes, but also the spirit of pluralism and the separation of power»2. In this sense, Alexander Milinkievič’s words are illustrative: «Here, in Europe, back in the 18th century, the idea that all people were equal before God and the Law was formulated for the first time. Here, Orwell and Popper diagnosed totalitarian states which destroy the individual. Here, the high words about the inadmissibility of religious and political extremism and oppression were pronounced by John Paul II»3. Therefore, when it is said that Belarus has to become a European state, it means that it should be a free and democratic country. «Belarus is not Europe yet; this is a de-formed post-Soviet territory with a slew of various problems. We have not even started to walk towards Europe yet — we are still milling about in the old, socialist time»4.

Thus, it is possible to draw the conclusion that, in the consciousness of representatives of the opposition, there is a strong conceptualization that democratization and Europeanization are identical and interdepen-dent processes5. Accordingly, there is also a fusion of such concepts as

1 Belarus: neither Europe, nor Russia. Opinions of Belarusian elites. Publishing House «ARCHE», Warsaw, 2006, p. 25.2 Belarus and the European Union: variants of a joint future. http://liberty-Belaru-sian.info, 06 Sep 2010.3 To bring Belarus into the European Union. http://by.milinkevich.org/massmedia/data/ic_94/5394/, 05 Sep 2010.4 Belarus: neither Europe, nor Russia. Opinions of Belarusian elites, — Publishing House «ARCHE», Warsaw, 2006, p. 42.5 What are the candidates preparing for us? http://by.milinkevich.org/analytics/data/ic_200/6070/, 03 Sep 2010.

http://liberty-Belarusian.info

http://liberty-Belarusian.info

http://by.milinkevich.org/massmedia/data/ic_94/5394/

http://by.milinkevich.org/massmedia/data/ic_94/5394/

http://by.milinkevich.org/analytics/data/ic_200/6070/

http://by.milinkevich.org/analytics/data/ic_200/6070/

73The european vecTor and european inTegraTion in The discourses...Pavel Usov

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an oppositionist and a person with pro-European views who thinks not only that Belarus is a European state, but that it should also be integrated into the European space. Such a point of view concerning the country’s development differs radically from the official ideology and strategy; accordingly, all those who share this opinion about European integra-tion are automatically considered «members» of the opposition by both those in power and their political opponents. On the other hand, among representatives of both the democratic movement and official power, there is confidence that everyone who is in opposition to the existing regime and its policy should necessarily support the pro-European posi-tions and be adherents of European integration.

Considering the structure of the conceptualizations and views of the oppositional parties and leaders, it is expedient to draw a differentiating line between the notions of the «European vector» and «European in-tegration». For a number of Belarusian oppositional politicians, such as Sergei Kalyakin, Uładzimir Niaklajeũ, and Alexander Kozulin, the «Eu-ropean vector» does not presuppose any integration processes and is considered only as the establishment of friendly economic and political relations between Belarus and the EU.

In the political programs of many oppositional organizations, e.g. the United Civil Party of Belarus (UCPB), the Fair World, the Freedom and Progress Party (FPP), the prospects of profound relations with the Eu-ropean Union seem ephemeral. Contrary to the opinion that the opposi-tion and adherence to the processes of European integration automati-cally coincide, it testifies to the fact that not all oppositional parties have defined which geopolitical choice Belarus should make after changes in the country take place.

Such contradictions mean that:1. For the opposition, the prospect of changing political power in Be-

larus seems distant, while it is this prospect that the opposition links to the further destiny of the country. Nobody in the oppositional camp believes in a fast change of the power and, accordingly, any intentions about integration have no sense.

2. The position of the EU itself concerning Belarus and the EU’s fur-ther expansion is still not clear. Today, the European Union does not consider such a possibility as Belarus’ inclusion in the EU even at the theoretical level i.e. the EU does not act as an initiator of the idea of the necessity of integrating Belarus into the European space. Back in the be-ginning of the 2000s, in the book of the EU Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, F. Bolkestein, «The Limits of Europe», the place of Belarus in the EU’s foreign policy was defined: «Turkey cannot join the European Union, but should be a buffer which cordons off Europe from


Iran and Iraq. Belarus and Ukraine should play the same role — isolating Europe from Russia»6. Not so long ago, this position was confirmed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sar-kozy: «It makes no sense to enlarge united Europe and to add an increas-ing number of new member states, because any misguided expansion might endanger its operational effectiveness»7.

3. The opposition does not believe that, after the power is changed in Belarus, a fast implementation of all processes integration would be pos-sible, while the statements of some political leaders such as, for example, Andrej Sańnikaũ’s statement that «Belarus should be integrated in the EU in 2017»8, are only elements of their campaign.

4. For a considerable part of Belarusian society, European ideas, as well as integration into the EU, are not vital. «These (European) ideas are formulated by a small part of the intelligentsia, , but they are not felt by the common people»9. The concentration of the opposition’s attention exclusively on the «European vector», instead of on social and economic problems, will not be understood by society. This opinion is also shared by Mikałaj Statkievič, the founder of the «European Coalition»: «the slo-gan of European integration cannot be effective enough in today’s condi-tions, since, in comparison with 2006, it is less relevant to the population. Therefore, the slogan of a geopolitical choice needs to be postponed»10.

For this reason, in spite of the fact that all oppositional parties and, technically, the power as well, underline the importance of the Euro-pean vector in Belarusian politics, not all organizations share the idea of European integration as a priority. Accordingly, the «European vector» in the programs of oppositional parties and at the level of their public articulation is being put on the back burner, and popularizing the Euro-pean idea is not an important task. This is also proved by the fact that, on the web-sites of oppositional parties — except for a few initiatives such as «European Belarus» and «Movement for Freedom» — there are no European symbols or pro-European slogans at all.

6 Mukhina Y. Russia and Belarus in the international relations system. http://tdibp.by.ru/0504/muhina/, 06 Sep 2010.7 Closed Doors Day. Leaders of Germany and France are against the EU’s further expansion. http://www.rg.ru/2009/05/12/turcia-es.html, 05 Sep 2010.8 In 2017, Belarus should become a member of the European Union. http://char-ter97.org/ru/news/2010/7/2/30316/, 06 Sep 2010.9 Belarus: neither Europe, nor Russia. Opinions of Belarusian elites. Publishing House «ARCHE», Warsaw, 2006, p. 42.10 Predominating strategy. http://news.21.by/world/2010/09/02/145655.html, 06 Sep 2010.

http://tdibp.by.ru/0504/muhina/

http://tdibp.by.ru/0504/muhina/

http://www.rg.ru/2009/05/12/turcia-es.html

http://charter97.org/ru/news/2010/7/2/30316/


http://news.21.by/world/2010/09/02/145655.html


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Therefore, the oppositional structures’ attitude to the prospect of in-tegration and the European vector as a whole can be divided into three categories:

1. The organizations and political parties which actively used and still use the European idea in internal policy and for their political self-advertisement («European Movement», «European Belarus»).

2. The organizations and political parties whose purpose is to in-tegrate Belarus in the EU into the near future, namely right after the change of the political regime («Movement for Freedom», Belarusian People’s Front (BPF), Conservative Christian Party of the Belarusian People’s Front (CCP-BPF), Belarusian Social Democratic Party «Hra-mada» (BSDP Hramada), etc.

3. The organizations and political parties which support the idea of activating the «European vector» in the foreign policy of Belarus; how-ever, they consider the prospect of European integration to be distant (UCPB, FPP) or oppose it (Fair World, Right Alliance, as well as, pos-sibly, the movement «Speak the Truth»).

Even before the 2004 enlargement of the European Union, some politicians began to actively use the brand «European» to popularize their structures among the population of Belarus. They had to enliven these structures and to pinpoint them among the other oppositional organizations which did not hurry to master the new political reality. It is important to note that, after the 2001 presidential election, the oppositional structures could no longer get the country’s population involved in the democratic movement on the basis of their old rheto-ric. In the late 1990s — early 2000s, there came a wave of disappoint-ment in the opposition’s activity11. There appeared a need to form new ideas, slogans, and prospects. The entry of Belarus’ neighbors into the EU in 2004 gave an impetus to the updating of the old slogans and ideas.

It is important to remark that the percentage of the population sup-porting a rapprochement with Europe, already at that time, was rather high; moreover, the number of pro-European citizens was much greater than that of supporters of the opposition (the situation is still the same today). According to the results of the IISEPS researches, even among adherents of Lukashenka, there are those who share European ideas: for example, in 2006, 11% of those who supported Lukashenka were ready to vote for Belarus’ entry into the European Union12. However, it is

11 Sieviaryniec P. Young Front Generation. http://mfront.net/pakalen.html12 Foreign policy relations and electoral behavior of the population. IISEPS, March 2006. http://www.iiseps.org/data06-01-3.html, 08 July 2010.

http://mfront.net/pakalen.html

http://www.iiseps.org/data06-01-3.html


necessary to underline that the Belarusians’ conceptualizations of what integration entails are vague, therefore, the number of adherents of Eu-ropean integration in Belarus varies constantly.

In general, according to the IISEPS data13, the dynamics of the num-ber of integration supporters in Belarus is as follows:

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

47.2 36.5 33.5 32.4 41.4

In order to obtain the support of this group of people, to increase their importance among oppositional parties and in the international (European) direction, some politicians started to create structures that included the word «European» in their titles. These structures were meant to focus on pro-European citizens so as to attract new supporters. The only problem was the fact that, under the new slogans and behind the new structures, there were the politicians who, by that time, had al-ready lost a considerable part of their authority in the opposition.

2. The «European Movement», in search of a third way

In this respect, a sui generis trailblazer was the chairperson of the BSDP Hramada (People’s Assembly) — Mikałaj Statkievič14. Statkievič’s party had always been outside the general strategy of the opposition, and he himself had always wanted to be the indisputable leader of the opposition which, on the one hand, resulted in the BSDP’s refusal to participate in joint oppositional projects, e.g. the boycott of the 1999 parliamentary elections, and later — its non-participation in the coali-tion project «5+». On the other hand, such a policy discredited the party and its leader both at home and abroad.

To strengthen his positions in the Belarusian political field and to find allies, in 2002 Statkievič became the initiator of the creation of the «Eũrapejski Ruch» [«European Movement»] in Belarus, which included well-known public figures and politicians — Volha Ipatava, Stanisłaũ Bahdankievič, Mikhail Marinich, Georgiy Terazevich, etc. «Propa-ganda among the Belarusians in favor of pan-European values and the

13 IISEPS Data Archive. http://www.iiseps.org/arhdata.html, 08 July 2010.14 M. Statkievič was the chairperson of the BSDP Hramada (People’s Assembly) until 2004; in 2005, the party was renamed in BSDP Hramada; in 2005, A. Kozulin was elected its chairperson.

http://www.iiseps.org/arhdata.html


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preparation of our society for the future entry of Belarus into the Eu-ropean Union was the main objective of the «European Movement»15.

In the future, the «European Movement» had to become a basis for a wider political coalition that would rival another oppositional coali-tion — «5+». That was how Statkievič was preparing a platform to par-ticipate as an oppositional candidate in the 2006 presidential election and to be the joint opposition candidate. In 2003, on the basis of the two initiatives — the «European Movement» and the block «Free Be-larus», which was then headed by Andrej Sańnikaũ, — a wider political coalition was created, called the «European Coalition «Free Belarus». This coalition of the BSDP Hramada and the block «Free Belarus» was joined by 18 various public organizations, including the «Małady Front» [«Young Front»], the Women’s Party «Nadzieja» [«Hope»] and others.

As before, the country’s integration into the European Union was declared as the purpose of the activities of the «European Coalition». At the coalition creation conference, Statkievič said that the «choice of united Europe is a choice of democracy and economic reforms. Today, the government shows its anti-European way. And that is why the public must take the European idea in their hand. This idea will lead Belarus to democracy and prosperity. We wish to unite all those who see Belarus in united Europe»16.

With the help of the «European idea» and the creation of the «Eu-ropean Coalition», Statkievič intended to occupy his own niche in the political space of Belarus — the niche between the power and the op-position — and to represent a «third power», «third way», by using the new idea — «European». «We wish to unite all those who see Belarus in united Europe. We are not creating the Coalition against someone; we do not search for enemies — we search for friends»17.

Here, for the first time, there appeared a stepping stone which the opposition would keep using in the future. In the Belarusian opposition, each political leader, coalition, or organization, especially on the thresh-old of elections, lays a claim to the right to be the mouthpiece of the only one correct political position or idea. Thus, openly or inwardly, it is understood that all those who do not share this idea or do not join the coalition which has proclaimed this idea are automatically defined as enemies. For example, there was an appeal by the presidential candidate

15 In Belarus, the organization «European Movement» is being created. http://news.tut.by/19223.html, 30 July 2010.16 The European Coalition «Free Belarus» is created. 01/11/2003 http://charter97.org/rus/news/2003/11/01/eu, 30 July 2010.17 Ibid.

http://news.tut.by/19223.html

http://news.tut.by/19223.html

http://charter97.org/rus/news/2003/11/01/eu

http://charter97.org/rus/news/2003/11/01/eu


Ryhor Kastusioũ (BPF party) to sign the «Manifesto to protect the na-tional interests». In this manifesto, it was stressed that «this document will be the litmus test which will show the potential candidates’ attitude towards the future election and what they think of Russia … the politi-cians who have not signed it will be declared traitors of the Belarusian people’s interests and henchmen of the Kremlin»18.

In the case of the «European Coalition», the brand «European» had to show the orientation of this political force and to unite all Europe-ori-ented forces in Belarus. On the other hand, the same brand had to draw a line between friends sharing the «European» idea and the enemies, «anti-Europeans», i.e. those who have not joined this coalition.

As a result, the creation of the «European Coalition» did not spur on the dissemination and strengthening of the European idea in society, as the Coalition did not carry out any broad regular actions except for small advertizing campaigns in Minsk19. Besides, the «European Coali-tion» appeared to be an additional counterbalance for the rest of the op-position during the parliamentary elections in 2004 and the presidential election in 2006. This step discredited Statkievič’s activity even more, as well as the Coalition as a whole.

After the opposition failed during the election in 2006 and the Co-alition of the «United Democratic Forces» split up, the European idea began to be actively used again in Belarus’ oppositional space as a po-litical brand for the strengthening of positions, influence on society, and self-advertisement by separate oppositional politicians and organizations applying for the role of the one candidate and the leader of entire opposi-tion. In 2008, the civil campaign «European Belarus» was created; it was headed by Andrej Sańnikaũ. The declared purpose of the campaign was «integration of Belarus into the European Union»20. Nevertheless, the po-litical context of this campaign repeats the previous scenario: 1. To show its exclusiveness against the other oppositional projects, having used the «European» brand for this purpose; 2. To occupy a niche between the opposition and the power on the basis of the same European idea and a strategy based on Belarus’ unconditional integration into the EU.

18 BPF’s Manifesto: not clever and at the wrong time. http://www.belaruspartisan.org/bp-forte/?newsPage=0&news=66210&backPage=1000&page=100, 04 Sep 201019 Among the Belarusians, there are more supporters of Belarus’ entry into the European Union than adherents of integration with Russia. http://www.euramost.org/?artc=12622, 06 Sep 2010.20 «European Belarus» will collect signatures for the country’s entry into the EU. http://www.europeanbelarus.org/?c=sp&i=1, 30 July 2010.

http://www.belaruspartisan.org/bp-forte/?newsPage=0&news=66210&backPage=1000&page=100

http://www.belaruspartisan.org/bp-forte/?newsPage=0&news=66210&backPage=1000&page=100

http://www.euramost.org/?artc=12622

http://www.euramost.org/?artc=12622

http://www.europeanbelarus.org/?c=sp&i=1


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3. The «European Congress» and the «Movement for Freedom»

One more example of how the idea of European integration is used by oppositional politicians in order to receive the support of pro-European citizens and to occupy the position of the joint opposition candidate: the actions of the head of the organization «Ruch za svabodu» [«Move-ment for Freedom»] Alexander Milinkievič. In the autumn of 2009, Milinkievič initiated the implementation of the «European Congress», which was meant to become a representative body of the entire demo-cratic community. The idea to use the brand «European» for an opposi-tional congress was not accidental.

First, this word was not used particularly often in the political cam-paigns of the opposition and, consequently, had a kind of novelty and attractiveness. In this case, the notion of «European» served simply as a replacement for «democratic» — a word that had discredited itself. As a whole, the Congress, its contents, its way of carrying out its plans, and its slogans did not differ (except for its obnoxious name) from the previous congresses organized by the opposition. The goals of the congress were completely the same as the ones already declared by other «European» movements in Belarus. «Our strategic target is the European future of Belarus. We are told that nobody is waiting for Belarus in Europe, but it is really us who do not want it. We are ready to act now so as to bring together Belarus and EU as much as possible»21.

It proves that the brand «European» and the emphasis on the move-ment toward Europe as a central strategy of the forces standing behind the congress is not new, but is one of mechanisms of the internal strug-gle between the oppositional structures and leaders.

Second, this project, with such an obnoxious name, had to revive the attention of foreign partners who were very disappointed with the previous oppositional campaigns and strategies that had brought no re-sults.

Third, with the help of the Congress, Milinkievič tried to intercept the political initiative on the eve of the forthcoming presidential election from his opponents from the oppositional block, including those who had already tried to «patent» the right to use the name «European» in their strategic campaigns — mostly Statkievič and Sańnikaũ. Not with-out reason, before the Congress, Milinkievič was accused of stealing this idea from Statkievič22.

21 Official Internet page of the «European Forum». http://euraforum.info/bel/22 Kłaskoũski А. Under the European flags there is a fight for «Indians», Naša Niva. http://nn.by/?c=ar&i=26401, 30 July 2010.

http://euraforum.info/bel/

http://nn.by/?c=ar&i=26401


Keeping in mind what was said above, it is possible to draw the con-clusion that the aim of the convocation of the «European Congress» was to solve political tasks, one of which was to nominate the «joint candi-date» on the eve of the forthcoming presidential election. The «Euro-pean Congress» should become a wide forum representing the entire democratic pro-European public as it was, regardless of movement or organization. It allowed Milinkievič to create a socio-political basis for his nomination as a joint candidate for the presidential election. The Congress was carried out with obvious manipulative aspects as well. One’s refusal to participate in the «European Forum», which had to be a symbol of all pro-European forces in Belarus, meant that the politician or organization in question did not share European values.

In order to make the Congress look politically significant, representa-tives of the European Parliament were invited to it, and messages from European politicians were read. However, as was already noted, the Con-gress dealt mostly with political tasks, while the European context had only a ceremonial value. For example, not all participants of the Con-gress, mainly the members of the Belarusian Independent Block (BIB)), shared European values and considered the European direction to be priority. For example, such independent organizations as the «Right Al-liance» completely rejected the reasonableness of some European values for Belarusian society, «Any economic and political unions, as well as anything else, must be considered through the prism of national inter-ests. If the entry into the EU is economically profitable for Belarus, if it helps to unite our historical regions, but will not make us observe hyper-trophied western «democracy» with their monuments to homosexuals and unmanageable migration, then we shall support it. However, we do understand that those who rule our country must have a national vision of Belarus, otherwise the entry into the EU will be one more step to the Belarusians’ denationalization and their loss of statehood».23

The «European Congress» and several political organizations’ union under its slogans were only a formal step and did not lead to any practi-cal results either in the sphere of popularizing «European ideas» or in the sphere of consolidating the opposition before the presidential elec-tion. There was a conflict among the members of the BIB. This conflict concerned the nomination of a joint candidate, a position Milinkievič intended to get. As a result, on the threshold of the 2010 presidential election, the majority of the BIB members nominated their own candi-dates for the post of the president of the country.

23 Program provisions of the «Right Alliance». http://aljans.org/?page_id=679, 29 July 2010.

http://aljans.org/?page_id=679


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Thus, the European vector, as well as the European idea, is used by a number of oppositional organizations to achieve their short-term politi-cal purposes and to wage their internal political struggle not only against the regime, but also against other oppositional centers. As a matter of fact, the created structures hardly help to popularize the European ideas in Belarusian society. The functioning of the «European movements» in Belarus is strictly linked to political processes in the country, mainly the elections, and does not leave these frameworks. After election cam-paigns are over, more often than not, the «European projects» initiated by the opposition are ended.

4. The «European vector» in the programs of oppositional parties

On the subject of different oppositional parties, as it was noted above, not all organizations accurately defined what Belarus’ relations with the EU should look like in the future. For such parties as the BPF «Adradžeńnie» (Revival), BSDP Hramada, CCP-BPF, and the «Move-ment for Freedom», integration into the EU is the basic priority of for-eign policy. The BPF insists that the prospects of integration should be defined by the EU itself at this point, connecting it with the future of democratic changes in the country. «The BPF Adradžeńnie tries to in-clude Belarus in the EU enlargement strategy and considers such a step as a stimulus for democratic changes and market reforms in our country. Our practical purpose is to make Belarus quickly reach all the state-legal and economic criteria needed for a country’s entry into the European Union»24.

Other oppositional parties stick to the formula of good relations with the EU, i.e. they recognize the importance of the «European vector» for Belarus, however, the question of integration is treated according to the principle «let’s wait and see». Thus, the UCPB considers that «entry into the European Union is a long-term strategic target of Belarus. Mem-bership in the EU is only possible when a candidate is able to assume the obligations connected with membership and to correspond to the required political and economic conditions»25. It means that integra-tion into the EU should not be Belarus’ end in itself, but a result of its further development in the future. The same positions are shared by the

24 Program of the BPF Party. http://narodny.org/bnf/partyja/prahramabnf/86.shtml, 29 July 2010.25 Program of the UCPB. http://www.ucpb.org/index.php?page=documents&open=5, 01 Aug 2010.

http://narodny.org/bnf/partyja/prahramabnf/86.shtml

http://www.ucpb.org/index.php?page=documents&open=5


FPP: «We, liberals, support stage-by-stage, deliberate integration into the united European structures with the unconditional priority of good relations and cooperation with all our neighbors»26.

Such a distinction in the question of integration between national-ist organizations positions and liberal parties is due to the fact that the liberal oppositional organizations try to occupy a balanced position between Russia and the EU, without considering Russia as a threat to Belarus’ national safety. Keeping such a position, the UCPB and FPP would like to receive political support from both Russia and Europe. On the other hand, the majority of nationalist parties and organizations — CCP-BPF, BPF, the Belarusian Christian Democracy Party, The «Move-ment for Freedom» — consider integration into the European Union as the only possibility of preserving Belarusian’ national sovereignty: «The anti-Belarusian regime of dictatorship in the second half of the 1990s and the direct threats to Belarusian independence and the very state existence have vividly shown the necessity of distancing the country from Russia’s imperial politics, from unions with Russia and its interests. History and events have confirmed once again the need to develop the western vector of Belarusian politics and cooperation with the European political and economic structures».27

In its turn, such oppositional parties as the «Fair World» (the former Belarusian Communist Party) adhere to the traditional views of develop-ment of the integration processes with Russia. Despite the fact that the «Fair World» declares itself as an oppositional party, its program affirms that it is necessary to normalize diplomatic intercourse with foreign states. On the other hand, it affirms the necessity of continuing integration with Russia and Ukraine and even a possibility of creating a Union State28.

Thus, despite the fact that the «European vector» is considered as significant in the state foreign policy, not all oppositional parties con-sider it expedient to use it in their programs and propaganda among the population. The role of the «European vector» is reduced, more likely, to the function of a mechanism of inter-party and inter-coalitional struggle among the opposition, as well as the political advertising of separate oppositional structures. The rhetoric of some oppositional parties and movements — «Speak the Truth» or «Fair World» — is similar to the rhetoric of the authorities who also consider the European vector a criti-cal one, but do not see the prospects for integration.

26 Program of the FPP. http://www.cf-by.org/static-programma.html, 01 Aug 2010.27 Program of the CCP-BPF. http://www.pbpf.org/art.php?cat=0&art=4, 01 Aug 2010.28 Russia and the Russian language in programs of political parties. http://www.imperiya.by/authorsanalytics19-7297.html, 01 Aug 2010.

http://www.cf-by.org/static-programma.html

http://www.pbpf.org/art.php?cat=0&art=4

http://www.imperiya.by/authorsanalytics19-7297.html

http://www.imperiya.by/authorsanalytics19-7297.html


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5. The «European vector» in political programs of pro-state or-ganizations

In spite of the fact that the pro-state political parties support Lukash-enka’s course in internal and foreign policy, their views of how relations with the EU should look like frequently differ from the position of the president. It means that in the pro-state party camp, there are both op-ponents and supporters of the «European vector». Certainly, this divi-sion is conditional and, essentially, it means nothing: these parties do not influence the processes taking place in the country. Besides, the activity of some pro-state parties on the political scene of Belarus is even lower than that of oppositional ones. For example, in 2009, the Ministry of Justice of Belarus warned the two pro-state parties — «Republican» and «Agrarian» (in total, there are 7 parties in this camp), which had not provided any information on their activity according to the legislation29. Therefore, the place of the «European vector» in the policy of these par-ties can be considered only conditionally.

For the majority of politicians in the pro-state structures, integration as a process in general and integration into the EU in particular seems to be an amorphous phenomenon, which is proved by an excerpt from the program of the «Republican Party» that proposes simultaneous integra-tion with Russia and the EU: «In its international policy, the Republican Party supports the strengthening of cooperation with the former repub-lics of the USSR, with countries of on continents, their unions and com-munities, international organizations, participation in the pan-Europe-an integration process, and the development of multilateral cooperation in the Asian region»30.

Thus, integration is understood as a never-ending process which should not necessarily lead to the formation of a certain geopolitical space where Belarus occupies a certain place. In other words, integra-tion is understood as an equal rapprochement both with Russia and the European Union while maintaining an equal distance from both. There-fore, such a party as «Republican» can integrate with anybody without expecting any end result. Such provisions reflect the aspirations of pro-state politicians to legitimize the authorities’ official position of remain-ing between the EU and Russia.

29 The Ministry of Justice of Belarus has warned in writing two political parties — the Belarusian Agrarian Party and the Republican Party. http://naviny.by/rubrics/politic/2009/06/15/ic_news_112_312946/, 01 July 2010.30 Program of the Republican Party of Belarus. http://rprb.narod.ru/program.htm, 10 July 2010.



http://rprb.narod.ru/program.htm


It is possible to understand in the same way the program provisions of the «Liberal-Democratic Party of Belarus». On the one hand, the LDPB considers relations with the EU much more widely than the other pro-state parties — as activation of «relations with all European countries and the leading European institutions — EU, OSCE, Council of Europe, etc. — in order to make Belarus join the pan-European integration processes»31. On the other hand, these «integration processes» do not necessarily mean the entry into the EU. Nevertheless, such a statement of the pro-regime LDPB marks it out among the other pro-state and even oppositional organizations.

Such parties as the Communist Party of Belarus and the Patriotic Party of Belarus do not mention the «European vector» at all and are aimed at in-tegrating with Russia, restoring the «updated Union of the Soviet Nations», and strengthening its political independence and economic self-sufficiency by restoring the traditional interests and positions in the world32.

One way or another, the «European vector» is not important in the programs and activities of the pro-state parties, and any statements and provisions have a declarative character and are aimed at improv-ing their image inside the country and at rivaling the opposition. The LDPB’s statements about the intensive development of relations with the EU can be considered as synonymous with the statements of the same politicians and organizations about the development and strengthening of democracy in Belarus.

6. The European vector in the authorities’ policy

A significant influence on the Belarusians’ attitude to Europe and their perception of the European Union is rendered by the state-run mass media, propaganda, and the authorities who define the internal and external priorities in Belarusian politics33. In the official rheto-ric, questions about the nature of mutual relations with the European Union, especially recently, occupy one of the central places. In this con-nection, president Lukashenka’s statements and a certain transforma-tion, which has been seen in his speeches concerning Europe and the «European vector», seem quite interesting.

The texts of the president’s annual messages to the National Assem-bly and the Belarusian people can be an illustrative example of these

31 Program of the LDPB. http://www.ldpb.net/programm.html, 30 July 2010.32 Program of the CPB. http://www.comparty.by/programma.php, 05 Aug 2010.33 Compare the mass media analysis in A. Sarna’s article.

http://www.ldpb.net/programm.html

http://www.comparty.by/programma.php


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dynamics. Recently, the president’s attention towards the EU and EU-Belarus relations has considerably increased in comparison with what it was earlier. Thus, if in 2004 in Lukashenka’s speech the European Union and Europe were mentioned only 10 times and exclusively in the context of its expansion, then in his message in April 2010 Europe as a synonym for the EU was mentioned 19 times, the adjective «Eu-ropean» — 8 times, and the European Union — 5 times. It is impor-tant to note that Lukashenka mentioned Europe throughout his entire speech, i.e. not only in the section dedicated to foreign policy, but also in the questions connected with internal policy. Nonetheless, the fre-quent mention of Europe and the EU and the use of the adjective «Eu-ropean» likely have a purely practical value, and these notions began to define the quality of internal policy of the regime, which we will discuss below.

Of course, the frequent mentions of the EU in Lukashenka’s perfor-mance are not indicative of a change in the ruling regime’s attitude to-wards or perception of Europe. The European Union has never been a political ally of the Belarusian regime and is not one now. The configura-tion of EU-Belarusian relations, as well as the contents of the Belarusian president’s internal rhetoric and official propaganda, depends above all, on the way his relations with Russia are developing.

During periods of economic standoffs and conflicts with Russia, Lukashenka’s pro-European rhetoric heightened and the importance of Belarus as a European state was underlined34. The April 2010 mes-sage of the president was made during an acute conflict with Russia, and it explains such attention towards the EU and the «European vec-tor» as a natural alternative for Belarus. «The leaders of Russia are sometimes convinced that «we have no other place to go». We do have... We have a place to resort to. A country in the center of Europe will not be left alone. But we will not allow anybody to push us or order us about»35.

When the relations with Russia improve or there are important politi-cal events in the country, such as elections, whose results are criticized by the European states, the image of Europe becomes once again dark and hostile. Thus, for example, in the president’s message in 2006 — an election year — the «European vector» remained without his attention, and there were practically no mentions of Europe. The only exception

34 President Lukashenka’s message to the Parliament 14.04.2004. http://www.presi-dent.gov.by/press29160.html#doc, 03.08.2010.35 President Lukashenka’s message to the Belarusian people and the National As-sembly. 21.04.2010. http://www.president.gov.by/press10256.html, 03.08.2010.

http://www.president.gov.by/press29160.html#doc


http://www.president.gov.by/press10256.html


was his sharp criticism of the West for the reason of its «unprecedented pressure upon our country, constant threats to use sanctions and other inadequate and even absurd measures»36.

The state propaganda, whose core is the president’s discourse, presents Europe simultaneously as partner and enemy. Certainly, in this sense, the EU is not an exception, as the relations with Russia are similarly described during conflicts. It means that Russia is brotherly and friendly, but its policy can be hostile and threaten Belarus. However, despite some negative mo-tives of Lukashenka’s «pro-Russian» rhetoric, there are also strong positive and emotionally-colored categories: «our», «close», «native», «brotherly». In Lukashenka’s «European» rhetoric, there are no emotions; moreover — he emphasizes that Europe is «THEY». In the picture painted by Lukash-enka, Europe remains a distant place, not connected with Belarus at all. For him, the EU is an inconvenient neighbor, but a neighbor we have to tolerate and with whom we have to have good pragmatic «partner» relations.

«We should have not simply good, but very good relations with unit-ed Europe. Today, the European Union is our closest neighbor, and with neighbors, as they say in Belarus, «it is necessary to live as with relatives — in peace and concord»37. Lukashenka underlines every time that, despite the importance of the «European vector», for Belarus, Europe remains a hostile and foreign country for us. The following words are indicative: «And today I am compelled to thank not Russia, our native mother, our native Russia. But who do I thank? I say this in quotation marks — «my enemies»: the IMF, Europe, and the West. They gave us these billions so that the country could survive. THEY have supported us»38.

It is also necessary to pay attention to the fact that in order to under-line the European Union’s «alterity and distance» for the Belarusians as a particular civilization and culture, Belarusian propaganda and in par-ticular Lukashenka often uses the general category the «West». Here, Lu-kashenka follows the tradition of the Soviet Union, for which the «West», with its democracy and capitalism, had always been an enemy. For a con-siderable part of the population, this category is conveniently built on the old stereotypes. To strengthen even more the aversion towards and fear of the western way of life and the West as such, a whole system of infor-mational, political, and economic templates is regularly used:

36 President Lukashenka’s message to the Belarusian people and the National As-sembly. 23.05.2006. http://www.president.gov.by/press43748.html#doc, 03.08.201037 President Lukashenka’s message to the Parliament 14.04.2004. http://www.presi-dent.gov.by/press29160.html#doc, 03.08.201038 President Lukashenka’s message to the Belarusian people and the National As-sembly, «SB Belarus Today». http://sb.by/post/99365/




http://sb.by/post/99365/


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1. The West (including the EU) imposes its alien way of life on Be-larusian society, finances the opposition, wants to overthrow the re-gime, and to destabilize the situation in the country. In this respect, the EU (the West) acts as a mechanism to discredit the opposition, which is ostensibly sponsored by the West and does not represent society’s interests. On the other hand, with the help of the negative image of the opposition, those in power also discredit Europe itself. «The op-position asks, ‘why do you yourselves have to think, try and work? It is better to change the country as the West says, and at once everyone will become rich and happy’. I will tell you frankly: the opposition that exists thanks to foreign money is not the opposition at all; these are fighting groups aimed at carrying out somebody else’s interests and policy in our country»39. «These are dregs who earn their money in the West; they receive their money from there and then do what they are told to do... Isn’t it really clear to everybody that our so-called «nation-al» opposition is living in clover — they say they are all «bomzh» [i.e. homeless people], all unemployed, — but they live in mansions, drive prestigious foreign cars; moreover, I do know what they are up to»40.

2. The European Union is purposefully said to have negative social, for example, a high rate of unemployment, the necessity of paying for all services, etc. «Public health services. Do you know how much you have to pay for visiting a doctor in this Europe where they want us to be?! God forbid somebody becomes ill... Who can pay so much? In such advanced countries, basically only rich people can be healthy»41. Opposed to this are the Belarusian authorities’ successes in internal policy and the state’s care for a person are underlined.

The Belarusian authorities create a paradoxical myth: «it is good to live in Europe, but it is worse than in Belarus». The purpose of this paradox is to show the population the advantages of the Belarusian model of econ-omy and politics, which has considerable advantages even if compared to the European Union, which has reached a high level of social and eco-nomic development. Integration into Europe, according to the Belarusian president’s statements, means a deterioration of the standard of living in Belarus, a collapse of the economy and the system of social guarantees. «In Europe, they do understand that the Belarusian economy is similar to the European economy. Tell me what Europe does not produce from

39 President Lukashenka’s speech at the meeting with the BSU students. http://www.president.gov.by/press55946.html, 28.07.2010.40 President Lukashenka’s message to the Belarusian people and the National As-sembly. http://www.president.gov.by/press10256.html, 03.08.2010.41 Ibid.





that is produced in our country? So what, they will accept one more com-petitor with outspread arms? No! We do know their «outspread arms», «Cease your manufacturing including your atomic power stations [i.e. Ig-nalina], then we will accept you». Well, all is destroyed, Europe has come, what do they have today? The crisis has shown what. So? Here is your European vector. Therefore, we should not go there»42.

7. Conclusions: «passive» Europeanization and its enemies

The ruling regime’s desire to create and strengthen the image of Eu-rope as an enemy in the Belarusians’ consciousness is not surprising. For authoritarian regimes, an enemy is needed to increase their control over society, to manipulate, and to justify themselves. Any failures and fiascos in internal policy, such as crises in the economy or a growth of public discontent, are explained by the external and internal enemies’ underhand dealings. On the other hand, the fact that the authorities turn Europe into an enemy means that they do not want the population to have a pro-European outlook.

Nevertheless, despite criticism of Europe, the power considers it to be a certain social-economic and political standard to which Belarus should aspire. For Lukashenka, it is important to show that life in Be-larus reaches the European level without any democratic transforma-tions and without a political rapprochement with Europe. «Today, we set a new ambitious goal: to make our country join the list of advanced European states».43 «Achievement of the European level and quality of life of our people in the nearest future».44

In his speeches, Lukashenka underlines that, in Belarus, all is being done to make it like in Europe, and it is done the way Europe does it. He draws people’s attention to the fact that Belarus is «a European state», and it acts like some kind of a psychological stabilizer for society, like a direct proof that, in Belarus, all is good and quiet, and that is why there are no prospects for political change and further revolutions.

On the other hand, Europe acts not only as a «standard» guarantee-ing the quality of Belarus’ social and economic system, but as a form justifying unpopular steps in internal policy. In his «in absentia» dis-

42 President Lukashenka’s message to the Belarusian people and the National As-sembly. http://www.president.gov.by/press10256.html, 03.08.2010.43 President Lukashenka’s message to the Belarusian people and the National As-sembly. 23.05.2006. http://www.president.gov.by/press43748.html#doc, 03.08.2010.44 Ibid.




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cussion with the opposition, which constantly criticizes Lukashenka, he considers Europe and European policy as an authority with whose help he justifies his own decisions. For example, in the question of building an atomic power station, which has caused a storm of indignation, Lukash-enka has said that «Our opposition flurry the people, «We do not need any nuclear power plant!». Lithuania needs it, Kaliningrad needs it. And it is near our borders. Poland will build 2 or 3 atomic power stations; Bulgaria has already started to build one. Europe will, probably, build fifty such reactors... And «we do not need to do it».45

The authorities’ policy in regard to entrepreneurs can be another ex-ample: «Now there are a lot of conversations about individual entrepre-neurs. But who knows what is really happening as a matter of fact? Here, recently, one of heads came to me with a report. Our good supporters in the European Union say, «Well, why are you doing it? Let this small business develop. What for are you killing it?» This is how they in Eu-rope perceive it. And when our head told them, they ask, «Is it really so?! What, you still have such relations?»46.

Thus, if the categories «European» and «Europe» are used by the op-position only as juxtapositions of the regime existing in Belarus, then the authorities use them in their discourse to strengthen the positive evaluation of the existing order of things in Belarus and the policy car-ried out by the regime. As a result, the population, especially who have never been to European countries, is sure that, in Belarus, the political and economic situation is not worse than in Europe.

For Lukashenka’s regime and for himself, Europe will always be an enemy; however, the geopolitical situation, in which Belarus happened to be after 2004, forces it to reconcile itself with the EU’s position and influence, on the one hand, and, on the other hand , to reduce the EU’s influence on society and political processes in Belarus to a minimum. Nevertheless, despite the authorities’ desire to become separated from the EU’s political influence, the proximity to the European Union pro-motes substantially «passive» Europeanization, i.e. Belarusian citizens’ acceptance of cultural and social patterns47. It is desirable for opposition to apply more force to use this situation in order to popularize European ideas during the periods of its activity between elections.

45 Ibid.46 President Lukashenko’s speech at the meeting with the BSU students, — http://www.president.gov.by/press55946.html, 28.07.2010.47 Compare A. Vlaskin and A. Kruglashov’s reflections in this respect in this book.



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II The European values inside and outside

of the EU institutional frameworks

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Value dimension of the Europeanization of Belarus: Europeanization as a form of the reflection upon the continuing transformation of modernityolga shparaga

In what sense is it expedient to talk about the Europeanization of Belar-us? Is Europeanization a certain external process, or is this process insepa-rable from our historical and contemporary destiny, as we are Europeans, geographically? Is it possible to understand Europe in terms of only ge-ography, or is there something else that unites contemporary Europe and does it in such a way that Europe does not happen to be in a position that would allow it to dominate over other cultures and communities? Lastly, if the commonality of Europe is not just of a geographical character, but is a question of values, then does this commonality include Belarus as well? If yes, then what is the significance of this commonality for us?

1. Europeanization during the epoch criticizing Eurocentrism

Europeanization is mainly spoken about with reference to those countries which have just joined the EU, and in this case it is a ques-tion of providing their further integration within the boundaries of the European community. On the other hand, it is a question of Eu-ropeanization also with reference to the countries of Europe in the geographical sense of this word in general, and in this case it means a definition of the idea and «project of Europe» as a historical, cul-tural, political, etc. communion with its own distinctness. In both cases, Europeanization is understood as a process or a certain variant of collective self-determination, or collective identity.

However, in the beginning of the 21st century, the conversations about the «European project» face a number of difficulties, which are a result of Europe’s self-conceptualization after World War II, due to the

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93value dimension of The europeanizaTion of Belarus: europeanizaTion as a form...Olga Shparaga

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disintegration of the European empires and the fall of the Berlin Wall.The first difficulty: Europeanization should not mean Eurocentrism. It

means that individual and collective self-determination, which is taking the form of Europeanization, should not be considered as dominating over other forms of self-determination. It means that those who choose Europeanization as a form of self-determination choose it not because they want to aggrandize themselves, but because they want to under-stand themselves better and believe that it is more effective to do it to-gether with other Europeans rather than only by themselves. The refusal from the position of domination means that the benefits of the «Euro-pean project» are not obscured, but can be discussed and admitted.

In order not to raise Europeanization to the rank of a dominating strategy of self-identification (collective self-determination), it is neces-sary, according to post-colonial researcher G. Bhambra, to understand that «the reinterpretation of [European] history is not just a different interpretation of the same facts (modern Europe) but the bringing into being of new facts (postcolonial Europe)»1. It means that «Europe is placed in a frame of interconnections of networks of peoples and places that transcend the boundaries, both historical and geographical, established within dominant approaches and typical representations»2.

The second difficulty: Europeanization should not mean homogeniza-tion because, according to German Europeanist Stefan Garsztecki, after new members joined the EU, it became clear that if one builds the EU being based only on institutions, i.e. from above, and considers Europeanization exclusively as a formal process, which does not take into account historical and cultural contexts, then it becomes an obstacle for the integration of new countries. If one addresses not just Europeanization from above, but considers historical and cultural processes, then the very notion of integra-tion changes, too. The task of integration is now seen not in its homogeni-zation, but in the establishment of a connection between various projects or modi of Europeanization, which, of course, interlace with discourses of the Europeanization of the old EU members and with a special discourse about Europe (Stefan Garsztecki. Actual dimensions of Europe in Central and Eastern Europe — Europeanization from below?), p. 1).

However, the introduction of such a definition of integration draws attention to the value dimension of Europeanization because, para-phrasing F. Fukuyama, it is necessary to admit that several (and par-

1 Bhambra K. Gurminder. Postcolonial Europe, or Understanding Europe in Times of the Postcolonial // The SAGE Handbook of European Studies. Rumford Ch. (Ed.) London, Sage, 2009. P. 81.2 Ibid, p. 81–82.


ticularly cultural) characteristics of these projects can hamper the establishment of such a connection3. It leads to the crucial question of how to establish such a connection between various projects of Eu-ropeanization, which would allow the development of desirable values, e.g. trust and a desire for mutually beneficial cooperation, and would create obstacles for the undesirable values, e.g. the use of each other by the governments of the European countries in order to defend purely private, national interests.

Behind this question, however, there is an even more fundamental question of how, on the basis of what, to differentiate between the first and second kinds of values? It is clear that this question is more fun-damental for such countries as Belarus, where both the government and the representatives of civil society have very different and often contradictory opinions about the «European project», which is proved by the ease with which both of them accuse Europeans of their imple-mentation of a double standard policy. In that case, the task is to try to formulate a conceptualizations of the «project of Europe», which challenges Eurocentrism and homogenization on the one hand, and relativism on the other hand, and to try to understand what precondi-tions for participation Belarus already possesses and which ones it can start forming.

And the first thing that, in my opinion, must be taken into account while initiating the conversation about the value dimension of the Eu-ropeanization of Belarus is the fact that Belarus belongs to Europe geo-graphically, which means that, from a geographical point of view, we are Europeans. To have such a point of view, however, means not only to start to lay a claim to certain rights the other Europeans also have, but also to assume certain obligations, or to feel responsible for the past, the present, and the future of Europe together with other Europeans4.

Such a position allows us to get rid of a criticism of Eurocentrism from outside Europe, which usually includes such statements as «they do not need us» and «they do not recognize us», i.e. it is based on the opposition of «us» (Belarusians) and other (Europeans) people. Never-theless, to refuse criticism from the outside does not mean at all to re-fuse criticism in general, because problems with recognition and mutual respect really exist in Europe. The transformation of external criticisms into internal ones means that we should ask the question of what it is in

3 Fukuyama F. Trust. Social virtues and a way to prosperity. Moscow, 2004. p. 521.4 Compare this position with that formed by the official mass media and whose essence is to divide rights and obligations when it concerns the Belarusians in the European context. See Chapter 3.3. of this monograph.


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Europe as a whole (i.e. in Europe that includes Belarus) that hampers the implementation of interaction on the basis of mutual respect, which is today defined by the notion of «European solidarity».

Considering criticism of Eurocentrism, we shall note at once that soli-darity does not presuppose respecting each other within the boundaries of one community, that its people oppose themselves or their communi-ty to other communities, because, according to Józef Tischner, solidarity is addressed to everyone, instead of against someone. It expresses people’s longing for each other not because of fear or despair, but because they hope to overcome fear and to jointly realize freedom5.

European self-criticism in this aspect is criticism of what is in the way of European solidarity, both on our own part and on the part of the other Europeans. It means that we, the Belarusians, are also responsible for the failures of European solidarity and should think, no less than other Europeans, of a possibility and ways of securing it today.

In that case, Europeanization turns for us into the self-determination of the pan-European destiny and a search, together with the other Eu-ropeans, for the solution of pan-European, including purely Belarusian, problems. It means that we can and should present to ourselves and the other Europeans the requirements which would allow us to achieve the desirable changes.

However, the question of solidarity is only one of the questions of actual European self-determination. Being involved in its discussion, we occupy a position inside Europe and we consider the problems (includ-ing the well-known problems of (post) colonialism, intolerance, the defi-cit of democracy and publicity, etc.) as ours, shared with other Europe-ans. However, does it lead us to the understanding of the very «project of Europe» as a whole, which could act simultaneously as the basis and the reference point of European, including Belarusian, self-determination?

2. «Reflection upon the continuing transformation of moderni-ty» as the core of the whole «European project»

The question of the whole «project of Europe» bothers not only the Be-larusians. Per se, reflections upon it are the core of Europe’s self-concep-tualization today. I reviewed various versions of understanding generality

5 See about the notion of solidarity by Józef Tischner in: Shparaga O. Political topography of Belarus: solidarity, communities, university // Philosophical-cultur-ological magazine «Topos». — 2005. — № 1. — p. 74.


of Europe in my previous text about the idea of Europe6. In one version, the origin of rationally understood politics in Greece is accentuated, in another one — Christianity, and in the third one — secularization. Here, it is possible to add the idea of nations-states and national culture as an «invention» of Europeans, that of Europe as a civilization, and one of Eu-rope inside whose heart there is «a deconstruction of European culture»7.

It is necessary to note that these definitions quite often contradict each other. Thus, Europe as «a unity in division», which is grounded on a deconstruction of European culture through an emphasis on multi-culturalism, conflicts with an understanding of Europe on the basis of common European culture.

As a result, according to Bhambra, the most productive way is to con-sider the entirety of Europe through «similarity in values», which allows to go beyond the limits of a national communion created according to a cultural-linguistic sample. It is expressed in the reflection upon the con-tinuing transformation of modernity (G. Delanty), which allows to speak, on the one hand, about the universal bond of the European space, whose paramount importance, unlike that of the other bonds, e.g. Christianity or nation construction, is still current; on the other hand, to consider this bond from a critical point of view that requires a transformation of the very theory of modernity on the basis of recognizing such phenomena as, for example, a colonial policy or the two last world wars, as modernity.

According to its adherents, reflections upon the continuing transfor-mation of modernity should refer, first of all, to the idea of European political modernity, as it is its sequential historical implementation that led to the birth of the European Union, which, in its turn, is an embodi-ment of the unity of Europe. However, as reflections upon Europe fall outside the limits of reflections upon the EU, the EU is understood not simply as a certain institution, but plays the role of a symbol of the po-litical, economic, and cultural unity of Europe. Even though this symbol does not include all varieties of the «European project», it nevertheless stands out among other symbols, as it acts as a determinative bond for the «project of Europe».

According to sociologist P. Wagner, the concept of European politi-cal modernity includes three narratives. The first narrative is the liberal history of the civil rights distribution from the Magna Carta in 1215 to

6 Shparaga O. In search of Europe, or the «idea of Europe» in the dialogue space // European prospect for Belarus: intellectual models; compiled by O. Shparaga. Vilnius, 2007. p. 9–42.7 Compare: Bhambra K. Gurminder. Postcolonial Europe, or Understanding Europe in Times of the Postcolonial. Op. Cit. Р. 75.


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the French Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen in 1789 and to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. This history was started in Europe, though it was made universal and inspired standard frameworks.

The second narrative is the beginning of the system of modern states, which originates in Hobbes’ and Bodin’s concept of sovereignty and is then embodied in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Lastly, the third nar-rative is the formation of democracy, which was started in the Ancient Greek polis, transformed into first the Roman Republic, then the Floren-tine and Venetian Republics, and which made itself known during the American and French revolutions8.

If to speak about the substantial side of European political modernity, Wagner links this project with a release from restrictions, which is car-ried out for the sake of individual and collective self-determination9. The major achievement of this release was autonomy defined by Wagner as «an appeal to people to themselves establish the rules of both their indi-vidual lives and those they shared with others»10.

Another Europeanist and social theorist, Gerard Delanty, sees in this appeal a determination to solve the problem of social integration in new conditions. These new conditions were defined by the refusal (which signified the advent of modern societies) to restrict the mechanisms of integration to the traditional forms of power or traditional public insti-tutions, such as the Church or commune11. As a result, the formal right and democratic rule, instead of the self-identification of the authorities with the will of the people or the self-evidence of public establishments, started to serve as a means of legitimizing social integration.

However, understanding the reflections upon the continuing trans-formation of modernity as the core of «general European values» also means a determination to criticize modernity in the face of new chal-lenges. It leads to a transformation of the theory of modernity which

8 Ibid. Р. 78.9 Wagner, Peter. Über Politik sprechen // http://www.boell-bremen.de/veroeffentli-chungen.php?npoint=1,0,0&lang=ger#47 A fragment of this text in Russian: http://belintellectuals.eu/publications/228/ This text of Wagner’s, of course, would be impossible without his more complex studies of modernity, presented in the book «A sociology of modernity. Liberty and discipline» (New York, Routledge, 1994). See more details also in my book «Awakening of political life: An Essay about the philosophy of publicity», Vilnius, 2010. p. 35–48.10 Wagner, Peter. Über Politik sprechen. Cit. op.11 Delanty, Gerard. Citizenship in the global age. Society, culture, politics. Open University Press, Philadelphia 2000. P. 69.

http://www.boell-bremen.de/veroeffentlichungen.php?npoint=1,0,0&lang=ger#47

http://www.boell-bremen.de/veroeffentlichungen.php?npoint=1,0,0&lang=ger#47

http://belintellectuals.eu/publications/228/

http://belintellectuals.eu/publications/228/


would allow the preservation of a unity of values — of the idea of mo-dernity — and would simultaneously consider the originality of any pub-lic and cultural conditions during the transition from a traditional to a modern way of life. The reflection upon the continuing transformation of modernity allows us to temper the rigid theory of modernity and to oppose to it new theories, in which, according to Inglehart, the logic of modernization is supplemented «with dependence on the method of de-velopment of the country»12 and, in Fukuyama’s interpretation, presup-poses that it is grounded in «pre-modern» cultural skills13.

It consequently leads to the necessity of reconsidering the role and contents of tradition, which, instead of being rejected, now has a dif-ferentiated approach that permits, according to Fukuyama, to take into consideration one cultural characteristics and to criticize others during a modernization analysis. It allows us to avoid relativization when con-sidering Europeanization as the coexistence of its various modi, because such coexistence is not a mechanical aggregation of value worlds, but a coordination of these worlds on the basis of revealing and distinguishing those values which make such coordination possible and which interfere with it.

As a result, modernization appears a more difficult process of social and cultural change which does not comply with the logic of a linear determination14. It makes it possible to place such countries as Belarus in this process, as it allows us to speak about a specific Belarusian form of European modernity — a contemporary form, defined by Belarusian philosopher Vladimir Furs as a «specific experience of globalization in the post-Soviet context»15.

3. Belarus as a modern Soviet hybrid

If one considers Europe being grounded in reflections upon the con-tinuing transformation of modernity, then there are certain restrictions to understanding modernity itself. It happens due to the necessity of

12 Compare, for example, Halman L., Moors G. Exploring Europe’s Basic Values Map. Measuring and Comparing Values in 16 Countries of the Western World. // Sociology, 4/2004, Minsk, BSU, p. 45. 13 Fukuyama F. Trust. Social virtues and a way to prosperity. Moscow, 2004. p. 28–2914 Ibid.15 Furs V. Belarusian project of «modernity»? // European prospect of Belarus: intellectual models; compiled by O. Shparaga. Vilnius, 2007. p. 48.


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understanding modernity multi-dimensionally, i.e. at once in its politi-cal, social, and cultural aspects. It means that the progressive process of the transformation of traditional agrarian societies into industrial ones, which is the basis of the traditional understanding of modernity, cannot be understood only as an economic process, i.e. cannot be reduced to industrialization or industrial modernization. In other words, the em-phasis, on its political component, which appears as a result of reflec-tions upon the continuing transformation of modernity, places the ways, essence, and results of transformations of a political dimension in the center of attention. Ultimately, it finds its expression in the formation of democratic or authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, a distinction be-tween which is crucial for different kinds of modernities.

Researchers of Belarusian modernity, which will be presented in more details in the following subsection of this book dedicated to «historical politics», consider it, however, more often in connection with industri-alization, the considerable results of which it is possible to mention with reference to 1960. It is necessary to remember that it was started in the early 1920s in eastern and 1950s in western Belarus16. It finds its expres-sion in the fact that, up to World War II, the BSSR had been an agrarian country — in 1950 only 21% of the population lived in cities (in 1879 this indicator was 13.5%, which allows us to note the very low rates of modernization of the pre-war period). During the post-war years, the picture began to change. Thus, by the year when Belarus became inde-pendent, the urban population had increased 4.3 times17. It is clear that these changes were caused by the accelerated post-war industrial build-ing, as a result of which the BSSR «turned from an agrarian-industrial country into an industrial one». The industrialization and urbanization processes were also accompanied by a change of the educational and communicational infrastructures, which is typical of any process of modernization.

When considering Belarus’ modern society, the definition of indica-tors of industrialization, urbanization, and various social transforma-tions, of course, corresponds to the analysis of processes of moderniza-tion in other European societies. However, distinctions between these processes come to light when considering the methods of their imple-mentation or the political dimension of modernization in Belarus.

These ways are noted by French historian Nicolas Werth when he draws a parallel between the source and the method of modernization in the USSR and in European countries. Thus, the modernization processes

16 Bogdan S. BSSR and Belarusian nationalism // Perekrestki, № 1–2, 2009. p. 112.17 Ibid.


of the Soviet period in the 1930s and 1950s, according to Werth, comply with the logic of the processes of modernization which took place in the Russian Empire at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. For these processes, it was crucial that «if in other European countries their industry developed in a natural way and independently of the state, then in Russia […] it was completely under the control of the state and developed rather non-uniformly, depending on the strategic tasks of the government»18. The same model of «modernization from above» worked in the USSR, first in the 1930s and then in the 1950s. It resulted not only in the necessity of constraining any attempts of mod-ernization from below, both political — the formation of civil society and self-government institutions, and economic — the formation of a market economy, but also in the use of regressive social measures — from the introduction of the «employment record books», which tethered a person to his/her workplace, to the stiffening of criminal liability — up to the death penalty for one’s bad performance of his/her employment duties19.

As a result, according to Werth, 1930s Soviet society appears as a «so-ciety of destroyed structures», where social life is regulated chaotically and with the help of reprisals, which hamper its full-scale development. The casual character of the incipiency and instability of social struc-tures led to the degradation of trust between various social groups (for example, between townspeople and villagers) and between individuals who were forced to become adjusted to constant wanton fangles of the authorities.

In this sense, Bogdanov’s thesis about the completion of the Belar-usian nation within the borders of the BSSR seems questionable, be-cause the formation of the nation accompanied by «regressive social-ity» (Furs) could not contribute at all to the completion of an imagined commune and the appearance of brotherly feelings, which are thought by this researcher, referring to B. Anderson, to be crucial for modern nations. In this case, is it necessary to interpret special (in comparison with the other republics) conditions — e.g. the inclusion in the BSSR of almost all territories, «whose population had any steady foundations of the Belarusian identity», the inclusion of the BSSR in the structure of the united economic region, the presence of the BSSR in the unit-ed military district, and the BSSR’s participation in the creation of the United Nations — as indicators of the Soviet authorities’ confidence

18 Werth N. Histoire de l’Union soviétique, 1900–1991. Moscow, 2000. p. 9–10.19 Ibid, p. 259.


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that even these measures would not lead to national independence?20 This hypothesis can be proved by the fact that, according to the results of the poll carried out by the Russian Public Opinion Research Cen-ter (VCIOM) in 1991, literally a few months prior to the disintegration of the USSR, the Belarusians had the highest indicators of identifying themselves as «citizens of the USSR» (in comparison with citizens of the other Soviet republics) — 69% versus 24% who self-identified as «citizens of the BSSR»21. It means that the «special conditions», which are described by Bogdan, promoted the formation among the Belaru-sians of a Soviet identity, or at least a Belarusian identity whose charac-ter was Soviet.

As for the «national consolidation of political and administrative elites» defined by Bogdan, following Urban, as «new clientalism», if we return again to Werth, in the Soviet conditions, it was guided by the task of preserving their own positions of power and found its expression in well playing the role of intermediaries «between the higher echelons of power and the masses». In other words, these intermediaries were «im-portant mediatory institutions to which instructions sent from above and society’s requirements could meet; to put it briefly — «a place where conflicts could find the beginning of their solution»22. However, the ac-cepted decisions should not encourage the comprehension of their in-terests by professional or any other groups, up to the biggest «imagined community», i.e. they had to keep society in its regressive condition.

For this reason, when referring to Soviet and other totalitarian forms of modernization, Dahrendorf uses the notion of «incomplete moder-nity» as a synonym of «modernization from above»23. Thus, it is pos-sible to note that this completeness is understood in this case not in the evaluative sense: it is more likely a question of the asynchronism of various dimensions of modernization, for example — industrial devel-opment, on the one hand, and social regress, on the other hand, which is expressed in a limitation of the development of new forms of social life and self-organization.

20 Of course, if not to consider the previous, pre-Soviet period of Belarus’ history that testifies to an even a more pitiable condition of the Belarusians’ collective self-determination. Compare: Tereshkovich P. Ethnic history of Byelorussia of the 19th — early 20th century in the context of Central Eastern Europe. Minsk, 2004.21 Titarenko L. National identity and social values of the population in contempo-rary Belarusian society. Minsk: National Institute for Higher Education, 2006. p. 7622 Werth N. Histoire de l’Union soviétique, 1900–1991. Moscow, 2000. p. 44323 Dahrendorf R. Modern social conflict: essay on the freedom policy. Moscow, 2002. p. 113.


In this sense, it is possible to agree with the fact that the BSSR’s mod-ernization marked the formation of a new type of state building and modern society, based not on an ethno-centered but on a formally civil principle, which does not presuppose any adherence to pluralism and which is focused «on the Soviet understanding of the role and status of citizens as obedient executors»24. Leaving aside once again the ques-tion of whether it is possible in this case to speak about the notion of a «political nation» — it is a subject of a separate discussion — we will concentrate on additional characteristics of this form of «moderniza-tion from above». As it was already noted above, «regressive sociality» is crucial for this form, as «regressive sociality» results in the public separateness or inability to cooperate at the initiative of below. In the words of social theory, it is a question of the deficits of trust and so-cial capital — when people want to act together, but they do not know how to do it: they are not able to agree and to carry out their agree-ments, to be responsible and to compromise, i.e. they cannot partici-pate in the common cause at their own initiative. They are not able to show social solidarity, which should be something like an end in itself for a community25.

For this reason, atomized individuals are considered by Dahren-dorf — in his dispute with Hannah Arendt — not as preconditions, but as a consequence of the totalitarianisms of the early 20th century. The basis of these totalitarianisms was the people «who got stuck halfway between the old and the new, who lost the former and did not find the latter, and, probably just for this reason, were trapped by the false prom-ises of all the best that both worlds had. The components totalitarianism consists of are incomplete modernity, the treachery of intellectuals, and the sweet siren song of one leader»26.

In other words, totalitarianism became a fruit of the combination of accelerated industrial «modernization from above», with an interdiction of various forms of «modernization from below» and economic devel-opment ruled from above with depoliticization or, according to Furs, «regressive sociality». Irrespective of whether we call this form of soci-ality a nation or the Soviet people, we shall have to admit the presence of the deficits of trust and social capital which characterize this form and which became the main property of «independent Belarus». In new, post-Soviet conditions, this form of sociality, however, has acquired new

24 Bogdan S. BSSR and Belarusian nationalism // Perekrestki, № 1–2, 2009. p. 129.25 Fukuyama F. Trust. Social virtues and a way to prosperity. Moscow, 2004. p. 24.26 Dahrendorf R. Modern social conflict: essay on the freedom policy. Moscow, 2002. p. 113.


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characteristics which can be expediently opposed to the new form of European modernity, defined by A. Giddens as reflexive modernity, em-bodied in the phenomenon of European socio-liberalism.

4. European socio-liberalism and aloof Belarusian society

Along with the already designated characteristics of modern Euro-pean societies such as industrialization, urbanization, democratization (in the absence of interdictions of modernization from below), secu-larization, bureaucratization and professionalization, researchers also specify a special modernization ethos, characterized by instrumentalism and individualism27. Individualism is revealed in the growth of personal autonomy and a transformation of one’s attitude towards public institu-tions which accompany modernization. It means that members of mod-ern societies are basing decisions more and more on their own value perceptions, opposing them to the institutionalized values of the system. Instrumentalism is an expression of increasing rationalization of life at all levels — from daily to institutional.

However, these dimensions characterize the first stage of develop-ment of modern societies, which comes to an end with the origination of post-industrial societies grounded in informational, communicational, and bio-technologies, as well as in the processes of the globalization of markets and in increased flexibility of labor. This new epoch, accord-ing to Inglehart, has resulted in essential value transformations — post-materialistic values or the values of self-expression have come to the forefront. Sociologist and social theorist Anthony Giddens has called this new epoch «reflexive modernity», whose main feature is a trans-formation of the character of risks people face during life. Leaving aside a detailed description of the theories of this new phase of modernity, which a number of theorists also call a postmodern epoch, we will note the consequences of these theories, which are important when clarifying the transformations of values.

According to Giddens, the conditions of the postindustrial epoch led to a transformation of the nature of trust as globalization challenged its local contexts. The belief in post-traditional relations interwoven into the global system of interactions became important. Similarly, German sociologist U. Beck proposed a model of risk society, having opposed this society with a class society and having defined as crucial to it a new

27 European values at the turn of the millennium. Wil Arts, Lock Halman (edit). Leiden, 2004. P. 27.


form of solidarity — not the solidarity of need, but solidarity of anxiety28. This kind of solidarity cannot be based on a stable identity and demands new flexibility from its members’ behavior.

As a result, trust became an important element of arriving at deci-sions which have long-term consequences for the future, such as mar-riage, emigration, or divorce. However, the character of trust changed: it became more fragile as relations between various social statuses and roles (for example, work and marriage) became complicated. Thus, the «credibility gap» has touched not only the interpersonal level, but also the level of institutions. It means that «modern institutions are and need be more adaptable and less binding than in the past»29.

Sociological researches on European values have partially confirmed the conclusions of theoretical reflections upon reflexive modernity; how-ever, the picture appears to be more complex. An important role in un-derstanding the value unity of Europe was played by the political trans-formations in 1989. Their conceptualization also allowed the sociologists who participated in the international cross-cultural studies of European values (1981 and 1990) to come to the conclusion that individual free-dom and personal independence as contemporary basic European values should not be identified with narcissism, hedonism, or ethical relativism30.

As Turner remarks, «personal liberty and personal independence require comprehension and acceptance of the right to act and behave the way an individual would like to, and accordingly — recognition of the existence of diversity in the world»31. The combination of these two components also finds its expression in one’s propensity for protest and readiness for personal sacrifices in order to preserve one’s environment. It means that European individualism is supplemented with public spir-it and finds its expression in autonomy, non-materialism, and involve-ment in social life, which was defined as European socio-liberalism32.

What place is occupied by Belarus in the value space of European socio-liberalism? According to researches on European values, Be-larus, along with Russia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia, is in the group

28 Ebd, p. 34.29 Ebd.30 Hagenaars J., Halman L., Moors G. Exploring Europe’s Basic Values Map. Mea-suring and Comparing Values in 16 Countries of the Western World. // Sociology, 4/2004, Minsk, BSU, p. 49.31 Ibid.32 Compare with the list of the values defining the all-European identity, presented in the text «Stefan Garsztecki. Actual dimensions of Europe in Central and Eastern Europe — Europeanization from below?».


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of countries with the fewest indicators of socio-liberalism33. Simulta-neously, this group is also a group of «non-religious» countries, where the people do not support strict moral values, do not appreciate social norms and institutions, and in which there is no place for social solidar-ity. In countries with a strong «religious» component, on the contrary, civil virtue is highly appreciated and personal interest and illegal behav-ior are rejected; abortions are not approved of and an important place is occupied by marriage and the professional qualities of a worker.

It is clear that various combinations of the components of «socio-liberalism» and «religiousness» allow one to specify more groups of European countries. Thus, Sweden and Denmark are the countries that support the socio-liberal and non-religious values, while Poland and Ro-mania belong to the more typical, less socio-liberal and more religious group. For socio-liberal components, an important role is also played by a division between the countries of Western and Eastern Europe which takes into consideration the recent Soviet experience of life in these countries.

What conclusions concerning the condition of Belarusian society and its affinity to other European countries can be drawn if comparing them from the socio-liberalism point of view? Do other sociological studies confirm the presented conclusions?

Addressing the analysis of Belarusian society in the context of re-flections upon the continuing transformation of modernity, which today finds its expression in the phenomenon of European socio-liberalism, it is possible right away to conclude about some essential changes that Belarusian society underwent during the post-Soviet period. The first thing that comes to the forefront is a considerable strengthening of the value of individualism in Belarusian society. Both official and indepen-dent sociological researches prove it34. Thus, according to official socio-logical researches, in 1990, 76% Belarusians preferred the values of fam-ily, 54% — work, 48% — equality, 43% — order, and 40% — freedom;

33 Ibid, p. 50.34 While preparing this part of the research, I based it on the data of official sociological researches, whose results are presented in L. Titarenko’s two mono-graphs (Value world of contemporary Belarusian society: gender aspect, 2004, and National identity and social values of the population in contemporary Belarusian society, 2006) and in the Belarusian magazine «Sociology», as well as on the data of independent sociological researches, carried out, by the BISS center (e.g. «National identity viewed by the Belarusians: who are we and what will we be?» and «Belarus and the world: a geopolitical choice through the economy and culture prism»); I tried to draw conclusions by comparing the official and non-official data.


thus, only family got in the integrating value core35. In 2000, the value of family, which was chosen by 78% Belarusians, was complemented in the integrating value core by two more values — freedom (personal in-dependence) and order (social stability or discipline), which were cho-sen each by 62% of people polled 36. (Analysis of the results of the 2009 sociological research «National identity viewed by the Belarusians: who are we and what will we be?». Vital Silicki has also noticed that the Be-larusians of the post-Soviet time «appreciate their own individuality»37).

However, if the choice of the value of family, according to L. Tita-renko, unites the Belarusians with other Europeans, then individual freedom and the social order, or discipline, viewed from the position of complementarity, separate them from other Europeans who oppose per-sonal independence with a certain the attitude towards the authorities. That is to say, the value of individualism in the majority of European countries is supported by a critical attitude to the authorities, without denying public spirit, which is also formed through criticism of the au-thorities. It also means that the state is not identified with society: the former is exposed to criticism; the latter is understood in correlation with solidarity. Besides, these are values of a different order: individual freedom belongs to the values of self-expression, i.e. non-materialistic ones; the social order — to the values of survival, i.e. materialistic ones.

Some other results of the sociological studies of the last 20 years also help to understand why the Belarusians consider the values of «indi-vidual freedom» and the «social order» to be complementary. Thus, L. Titarenko notes notices that, during the ten years elapsed since 1990, the population’s level of trust in the most important social institutions, including institutions of power, had considerably grown. That said, the hierarchy of trust does not change: the three most significant positions (decreasing the importance) are occupied by the President, Orthodox Church, and Army. The hope the population has in regard to the role of the state in economy and social sphere has grown as well: in 2000 «more than 86% of respondents hope the state will help them to achieve

35 The «value core» unites the values shared by no less than 60% of those polled. Besides the «value core», there are also the «integrating structural reserve» (values shared by not less than 40–59% of those polled) and the «periphery» (values only significant to 20% of those polled). Compare: Titarenko L. Value world of contempo-rary Belarusian society: gender aspect. Minsk, 2004. p. 39.36 Titarenko L. National identity and social values of the population in contempo-rary Belarusian society. Minsk: National Institute for Higher Education, 2006. p. 39.37 15 expected and unexpected facts about the Belarusians // http://budzma.org/budzma/15-nyechakanykh-i-chakanykh-faktaw-ab-byelarusakh.html

http://budzma.org/budzma/15-nyechakanykh-i-chakanykh-faktaw-ab-byelarusakh.html

http://budzma.org/budzma/15-nyechakanykh-i-chakanykh-faktaw-ab-byelarusakh.html


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a higher standard of living and to solve other everyday problems»38. Thus, concludes Titarenko, the Belarusians still hope more for external factors rather than relying on themselves.

That is to say, if citizens of other European countries appreciate their independence along with the common cause, then in Belarus we have another picture: taking care of oneself and one’s relatives is combined with consigning caring for society as a whole to the state. It means that the personal independence of the Belarusians turns into an asociality that probably explains such a high level of trust in the powers that be: be-cause each person feels responsible only for him/herself, it is the power that should be responsible for society as a whole, i.e. public institutions, values, the policy carried out by the state in various spheres, etc. For Eu-ropeans, the responsibility for oneself correlates with being responsible for society, whose destiny cannot be blindly consigned to the state.

More detailed consideration of trust placed in the institution of the Church confirms the pronounced assumptions about a discrepancy be-tween individual and public values among the Belarusians. As research-ers demonstrate, about half of Belarusians usually identify themselves with a religious faith (in 2004 — 56, 6%)39. However, the majority of those who identify themselves as believers equate their religiousness with a personal belief and an individual choice (in 2000, according to a poll of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus, 59% Belar-usians considered that everyone has their own God in their soul, and 8% of those polled understand God as a kind of a spiritual force; the others could not express their understanding of God at all), ignoring an exter-nal expression of faith (only 15% of responders go to church regularly)40.

That is to say, there is dissolution of the traditional understanding of religiousness as a unity of faith, confessionality, and behavior. According to L. Titarenko, «faith becomes a product of the individual choice of a person, his/her socio-cultural (instead of religious) self-identification»41, and one’s eagerness for the Church and, in particular — Orthodoxy — is «only the sublimation of other cultural identities» «in the conditions

38 Titarenko L. National identity and social values of the population in contempo-rary Belarusian society. Minsk: National Institute for Higher Education, 2006. p. 45.39 Ibid, p. 81.40 The picture is pretty much the same today. Compare the IISEPS’ recent (Septem-ber 2010) research «Religiousness and the morals of the Belarusians» http://www.iiseps.org/press10.html41 Titarenko L. National identity and social values of the population in contempo-rary Belarusian society. Minsk: National Institute for Higher Education, 2006. p.85.

http://www.iiseps.org/press10.html

http://www.iiseps.org/press10.html


of the fast growth of social-cultural incertitude of post-Soviet society»42. Besides, this choice is combined with other choices that come into con-flict with it, whose a person’s resort to horoscopes, superstitions, etc.

The emphasis on an individual choice of one’s belief and on ignoring its institutional objectification allow us to return to our earlier conclu-sion about the deficit of socially significant values of those polled: the religious Belarusians look to themselves or to metaphysical forces for protection. That is to say, Belarusians do not understand the importance of public solidarity, of society (as an institution), or of the church (as a sub-institution), either for self-realization or for the fulfillment of collec-tive actions. It means that communality exists for them at the individual and super-social levels, but excludes sociality: even though they trust the Church as an institution, they do not feel that they need it. The same can be said about the evaluation of the social system as a whole; only 40% Belarusians are satisfied with it43. In this connection, there is a fair ques-tion of what makes up this trust of the state. Is it just exclusively formal, allowing people who have hidden in their private sphere to avoid their responsibility for what is going on in society?

Such indicators as the 8% increase of young people’s understanding of the value of obedience during the last 8 years, the 10% decrease of the importance of personal independence, and the 17% decrease of resolute-ness and persistence (!)44 only confirm the relevance of the asked ques-tions, which finds its expression in the growth of young people’s political apathy : if in 2000, 52% were not interested in politics, then this number increased to 62% by 2008. Here, it is possible to recall the value relativ-ism inherent to the citizens of Belarus, expressed by the fact that 39,5% of respondents are convinced that there is no precise line between good and evil, and 31,5% of those polled say that there is a line, but that it is sometimes possible to cross it45.

To summarize, it is possible to state that during the post-Soviet pe-riod, Belarusian society’s individualization took place and the values of taking care of one’s own life and that of one’s family came to the forefront.

42 Ibid, p. 83.43 Ibid, p. 70.44 Danilova E. A. The Socio-dynamics of the values of young Belarusians // Sociol-ogy 4/2008. p. 102. The author is based his work on the sociological research imple-mented in the project «European Values» in 2000 and 2008.45 Levitskaya I. V. The deterrence of values in the deviantization of contemporary Belarusian society:a sociological analysis // Sociology 3/2009. p. 124. The author based his work on the data of the international comparative research «European Values» (1990, 2000, and 2008).


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However, this value transformation has not been accompanied by the transformation which took place with a varying degree of success during the last 50 years in other European countries: a transformation of the structure of social solidarity which could coexist with the situation of a globalization of labor, politics, and everyday life. It has resulted in an understanding of the citizens of Belarus, in the strengthening of the role of the state in the sphere of solving public problems and defining public values: when people are separated and have no common values, it leads to mistrust in each other, and there is a need for a strong state that would supervise everything.

Nevertheless, according to the BISS’ recent research «Belarus and the world: a geopolitical choice through the economy and culture prism»46, the situation changes a little if we split the political and cultural value dimensions of Belarusian society. Thus, as applied to the sphere of labor relations, education, and civil and political rights as a whole (the «politi-cal sphere»), the Belarusians would like to limit the role of the state while at the same time supporting the expansion of its powers in the field of regulating the mass media — a religious and sexual choice («cultural sphere»). This fact confirms F. Fukuyama’s conclusion that social capital is not spread out evenly and also allows us to consider Belarusian society not through the lens of homogenization47, but through differentiation, a distinction between areas where there are already preconditions for the formation of social capital and where this formation becomes too complicated48.

However, the differentiated approach does not invalidate the conclu-sion that the strategy of depoliticizing Belarusian citizens has been suc-cessfully applied on the soil of the deficit of public trust, which was in-herited from the Soviet period: for the Belarusians, society was and still remains a metaphor, an empty form whose contents should be filled in by the state, as they believe it is the state’s responsibility, no matter how badly it might perform this task. The interpretation of society as an emp-ty form also leads to a misunderstanding of the importance of creating

46 The results of the research can be seen here: http://www.belinstitute.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=762%3A2010-10-25-07-10-26&catid=4%3Arussiamain&Itemid=28&lang=ru47 Compare A. Bratochkin’s conclusions about the policy on the homogenization of Belarusian society implemented by the authorities in the following subsection of this book.48 On the task of a differentiated approach to Belarusian society, which should now be formulated from the prospect of «historical politics», see A. Bratochkin’s article in this book.

http://www.belinstitute.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=762%3A2010-10-25-07-10-26&catid=4%3Arussiamain&Itemid=28&lang=ru




new public institutions, which do not need to be supported by the state, but do need autonomy — existence according to rules set by those who need these institutions. The creation of autonomy is impossible without the ability to cooperate or participate in the common cause, i.e. without a conceptualization of common goals and values, on the one hand, and trust, or the presence of social capital, on the other hand.

5. Conclusions: Europeanization as society’s structurization on the basis of the formation of social capital

Let’s sum up the reflections of the final chapter. The reflections upon the continuing transformation of modernity in Europe have led to criti-cism of individualism and to the necessity of supplementing individual freedom with the upkeep of public values and norms. It also corresponds to the idea of Europeanization from below (Garsztecki), for which vari-ous public, cultural and other initiatives, and not just the policy imple-mented by the government, are determinative. European socio-liberal-ism can also be considered as a reaction to criticism of Eurocentrism, because it gives weight to the concept of social solidarity, for which the refusal of the «friend-enemy» opposition is instrumental.

The orientation towards a reflection upon the continuing transforma-tion of modernity, as I have tried to show above, can also be productive for Belarus’ self-conceptualization. First, it sets a task for historical stud-ies in this area, which allow one to speak about the originality of Belarus’ modernity in the European context. Second, this orientation allows one to draw attention to the present, as both ethical and institutional forms of Soviet modernization, once they have undergone a number of essen-tial changes, are still important in Belarus.

These changes concern, first of all, Belarusian society’s individualiza-tion, in considering which we can analyze the processes of changing the form of the «regressive sociality» inherited from the Soviet period, for which the deficit of social capital is decisive. As I have tried to underline, social capital is understood not as a desirable image of social interaction, but as the ability to socially interact, i.e. the ability to formulate common aims, to work together, and to have communality, which is impossible without one’s readiness to subordinate his/her interests to the interests of a group. It is possible to assume that it is social capital that Euro-pean socio-liberalism is grounded in, and that it is the clarification of the notions of autonomy, common cause, community, and solidarity that is crucial for Europe’s contemporary self-conceptualization in reflecting upon the continuing transformation of modernity. The Europeanization


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of Belarus, in this case, can be understood as the task of overcoming «regressive sociality» and eliminating the deficit of social capital. This can be achieved if we refer to the pan-European horizon for reflections upon the continuing transformation of modernity.

However, based on the research presented in the final chapter, it is possible to propose more detailed tasks for the Europeanization of Be-larus in a designated, value-oriented sense. And it is necessary to begin with a specification of the notion of socio-liberalism, which, in its turn, leads to the necessity of specifying the notion of public spirit and partici-pations in the common cause.

It is impossible to surmount «regressive sociality» without a state-ment of the value and practice of autonomy, on the one hand, and the value and practice of interaction, on the other hand. Autonomy means, in this case, Kantian self-legislation, which means that an independent person or community establishes the rules of their existence instead of obeying the rules that are imposed on him/her/it by the state or another group. The fact that autonomy is supplemented with interaction speci-fies that autonomy can not only motivate one to take action, but also separate: if the rules of life in a community question the rules of life of another community. Interaction specifies the limits of any autono-my, which are, however, not absolute: today we do not agree with state policy; tomorrow, as a result of its transformation, we can change our attitude towards it. However, to change our attitude does not mean to refuse criticism, as without criticism, one form of autonomy becomes indistinguishable from another.

For an analysis of Belarusian society’s Europeanization, it is neces-sary to consider the possibility of autonomization, not denying inter-action. The formulation of such a task leads to the notion of trust, or social capital. The following questions, which arise due to it, are — first, «Are there already preconditions for the formation of social cap-ital in Belarusian society?» and, second, «Through what agents can it occur?»

The first thing that comes to mind at once is the statement of the task of studying these possible preconditions. Can they be found in the spheres where they are usually found: culture, organization of family and business? The answer to this question can be found only with the help of studies in these areas aimed at searching for the answer to this ques-tion. In other words, it is a task that requires explaining the features of culture and the organization of family and economic life, which correlate with dimensions of social capital such as the ability to agree and to keep one’s word, to bear responsibility and to stick to the established rules. Researches on Belarusian culture from this point of view can also play


an important role for the construction of culture construction, because the features that are crucial for its support and expansion will be re-vealed and studied.

The second thing: such preconditions are already being established by researchers, e.g. the distinction between the Belarusians’ attitude towards civil and cultural rights. A high degree of disagreement with the powers that be in the field of labor relations can be a basis for the formation of social capital in the sphere of these very relations. Other examples are the already existing autonomous practices in the field of culture and civil society. Their players should understand that the long-term success of their activity and the expansion of their influence in so-ciety depend on the formation of social capital, i.e. interactions on the grounds of mutual trust.

And, third: considering the transformation of post-Soviet values in the direction of individualization, it is difficult to simply reject the task of articulating the understanding of sociality on the basis of trust in the field of the cultural rights, since, according to Lev Gudkov, in the situa-tion of social transformations, the key role is played by the «mechanisms of semantic transitions or ties between separate spheres of public life, sectional or institutional barriers, the origin of flexible structures of gen-erating meanings, which provide an interpretation of current events, an evaluation and definition of what is going on in society and the world».

In other words, the place of declining institutions must be occupied by «institutions of an essentially different kind — the elite, public sphere with its diverse forms of intergroup communication, fashion, art, mass culture, and other public formations that deal with a code conversion, a re-interpretation of the meanings of a plan with the help of the catego-ries of other plans, and that reveal what meaning the professional suc-cess (of a manager, scientist, writer, soldier, etc.) will have in the catego-ries of social stratification (social status, socially recognized position) or economy (income level), or cultural authoritativeness, publicity, etc.»49

However, considering the Belarusians’ certain cultural conservatism, revealed by sociologists and social theorists, it is necessary to begin with the institutions, such as the institutions in the sphere of labor and educa-tion — a necessity already felt and noticed. In this case, the task is fol-lowing the logic of Gudkov’s reflections, making this feeling visible, giv-ing it a public character, and doing it so that it can deal with the problem of the formation of social capital which we mentioned above.

49 Gudkov L. Transformations of Homo Sovieticus (about one research project of the Levada Center) // http://www.odysseus.msk.ru/numbers/?year=2007&id=18#_edn8

http://www.odysseus.msk.ru/numbers/?year=2007&id=18#_edn8

http://www.odysseus.msk.ru/numbers/?year=2007&id=18#_edn8


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The public articulation of the feeling of an institutional crisis plays another, additional, role, which is to interpret the contents and signifi-cance of the institutions themselves as major components of social life. It is necessary to discuss publicly the importance of interaction based on mutual trust, but not in the form of consigning one’s destiny to state institutions or to other family members, but in the form of participating in the common cause together with other members of society. It is this kind of trust that generates another understanding of the institutions, which will work to broadcast and fix confidential relations instead of reproducing the models of obedience and passive submission.

Its role can be played with reference to mass culture and the culture of consumption, which allows one to simultaneously articulate one’s origi-nality and show that one belongs to a particular «taste community». It is probably the coexistence of various «taste communities» that can be-come something like an example for the coexistence of other cultural and political communities — , supporters of heterosexual and homo-sexual marriages, for example. The crucial moment for this example can be the idea formulated by I. Berlin — the idea of value pluralism, i.e. «not to understand» does not mean «not to recognize» or «not to allow» others to exist50.

However, this last remark about the use of the potential of mass cul-ture returns us again to the problem of criticism, without which mass culture can hardly be used for the formation of social capital. As I wrote at the very beginning of this text, it must be a question of criticism from within Europe, which sets before us the task of becoming responsible for the common fate of the «European project», on the one hand, and for the definition of our own autonomous place in this project, on the other hand.

Based on the presented idea of the reflections upon the continuing transformation of modernity and socio-liberalism as its current form, it is possible to draw the conclusion that, today, the statement of the «social solidarity» values and the social capital values in Europe is deci-sive when one takes all this responsibility. Such a statement presupposes that one takes into account the specificity of the historical, political, and cultural contexts of each separate country and establishes connections between these various contexts. The importance of the latter is due to the fact that modernity remains an open process and is susceptible to regress, which can only be escaped by relentlessly overcoming it.

50 Berlin I. In search of the ideal // True purpose of cognition. Selected essays. Moscow, 2002.

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III «Europeanization from below»:

memory, identity, representation

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The genesis, basic problems, and the European dimension of the «politics of history» in Belarusalexei Bratochkin

In the late 1980s and particularly after the disintegration of the USSR in 1991, the topics of Belarus’ history, memory, and identity became one of the most discussed themes in Belarus. Simultaneously, there was a dis-cussion of the topic of Europeanization, which was gradually becoming a probable political project. The desire to consider these problems together became the basis of the research task of this article: to what extent can that which is understood today in Belarus as its memory, history, and identity, be conducive to or impede the process of Europeanization of Belarus?

1. Memory, history, and identity in Belarus: the beginning of a new landscape

The starting point of this research will be the period of the late 1980s — early 1990s, when, after the dissolution of the socialist states bloc, «dis-putes about identity and historical memory became a new phenomenon; people’s interest in national history, free from communist ideologies ,s began to increase, and there was a necessity to internationally legitimize the countries of the Eastern Bloc»1. On post-Soviet territory, during this period, there was a crisis of collective identity, i.e. «a reduction of indi-viduals’ identification with … the reality they had supported before»2.

The characteristics of this situation were common for many countries of the socialist bloc, but, nevertheless, there was some variability in the configuration of the factors that defined the further trend of events and affected the formation of a new landscape of memory, history, and iden-

1 The report on the seminar «Politics of memory» and its various national versions in the post-socialist countries»; 5–6 March 2010 (Kazan, Russia) http://carnegieen-dowment.org/files/Kazan_summary.pdf2 Hösle V. The individual and collective identity crisis. Philosophy Questions, 1994, № 10, p. 112–123. http://sociologist.nm.ru/articles/hesle_01.htm

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117The genesis, Basic proBlems, and The european dimension of The «poliTics of...Alexei Bratochkin

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tity in Belarus. These major factors, as it will be shown below, include:• the problem of how the modern nation project developed and how

it was understood in the newly created countries at that time;• the «topographical» and historical problem of the interrelation of

the «center» and the «periphery»;• the influence of the political system, which appeared during the

post-communist transformation, on the formation of new models of memory, history, and identity.

The first section of this article studies the configuration of these fac-tors, which conditioned the specificity of the emergence of such models of memory, history, and identity in Belarus, in which not only new traits, but also some continuity with what had taken place back in the Soviet epoch, are observed.

1.1. The Belarusian variant of a «modern nation»: from a «socialist nation» to another kind of community?

After the breakdown of the USSR, the Belarusians’ self-determination was happening one way or another within the framework of the idea of «nation-building», which started to transform from the idea of a «so-cialist nation», which appeared back in the Soviet epoch, to the idea of a national community which differed from the previous one. The results of this transformation (which is not yet complete) are one of the most discussed topics in Belarus today.

The BSSR was created in 1919; from 1922 to 1991, it was a part of the USSR. In his article «The BSSR and Belarusian nationalism», Ser-gei Bogdan advances the thesis that the «modern Belarusian nation was undoubtedly formed in the conditions of the country’s modernization implemented during the BSSR epoch. And it was this epoch that created the basic characteristics of the contemporary Belarusian nation and Be-larus’ politics of the times of its independence».3

Indeed, the «Soviet project» was not a project which completely denied the «national» component; within its scope, «they tried to re-sist the tendency of the disintegration of the continental empire … by institutionalizing that which was perceived as an enemy of the em-pire, i.e. the nations»4. For this reason, in the USSR, there appeared

3 Bogdan S. The BSSR and Belarusian nationalism // Perekrestki, №1–2, 2009, p. 1024 Kotkin S. New times: the Soviet Union in the interwar civilizational context // Michel Foucault and Russia: collected works / edited by М. O. Kharkhordin. — St. Petersburg; Moscow: European University in St. Petersburg: Summer Garden, 2001. p. 239–316 http://krotov.info/lib_sec/21_f/fuk/o_40.htm


«national republics», the number of which, however, did not coincide at all with the quantity of ethnic groups living in the USSR.

Nevertheless, within the framework of the USSR, there was a rather specific variant of nation-building, whose essence was defined by Kath-erine Verdery while characterizing the notion of a «socialist nation»: «Instead of emphasizing political rights or ethno-cultural similarity, so-cialist paternalism accentuated the moral bonds connecting the citizens with the state; these are their rights to a share in the redistributed social product. It was supposed that the nationals were neither politically ac-tive citizens nor similar in the ethnic sense — they were required, like small children in a family, to be grateful consumers of the benefits cho-sen for them by their rulers. It led to the citizens’ feeling of dependence, instead of participation, which is cultivated in civil society, or solidarity, possible when there is ethnic nationalism»5.

In the «early post-war years» (after World War II), according to Michael Urban, the BSSR’s local political elite managed to create a «separate model of a national myth», in which «the ideals of the Be-larusians’ heroic national resistance movement were combined with the more broad context of the Soviet people’s heroic self-sacrifice»6. Thus, it was possible to openly spread this «special Belarusian iden-tity» in a «form which was not antagonistic to the Soviet conditions», and such a form of the myth allowed it to escape the irritation of the Soviet «center«7.

The formation of the «special Belarusian identity» in the USSR dur-ing the later years, by the 1970s, did not contain, however, any «real na-tional self-comprehension» and did not leave the «limits of the percep-tion of nationality through of language and folklore»8. By the end of the Soviet period, having lived through the Soviet modernization process, the majority of Belarusians perceived themselves in the context of «So-viet patriotism» and the «socialist nation» idea, which was «socialist in its contents, internationalist in its spirit and character, and presented in a concrete historical form»9. These conceptualizations were inher-

5 Verdery K. Where are the «nation» and «nationalism» going to? http://www.antropotok.archipelag.ru/text/a197.htm6 Urban M. An Algebra of Soviet Power: Elite Circulation in the Belarusian Republic 1966 to 1986. / Translated from English. Vilnius: EHU, 2010. — p. 297 Ibid.8 Lindner R. Historians and Power: the nation-building process and the politics of memory in Belarus in the 19th — 20th centuries / Translated from German. — St. Petersburg, Nevsky Prospect, 2003. p. 3749 Ibid., p. 371


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ent in the mass consciousness (exposed to indoctrination) and were propagandized, including, by means of academic discourses10. Even though, as Michael Urban considers, «Soviet federalism was a not pure fiction»11, nevertheless, it is necessary to note that the incipiency of ele-ments of the «special Belarusian identity» within the framework of the USSR can be viewed as a display of «unpremeditated effects of the em-pire’s functioning»12.

The devalorization of the notion of the «socialist nation» became ob-vious for some groups of the Belarusian intelligentsia back in the Soviet period and entered public discourse in the late 1980s — early 1990s. It was expressed in the popular idea of the necessity of «reviving» the na-tion and the «desire for a national identity» — «despite their frequently inconsistent distinctions, all the ways of constructing national Belaru-sian statehood are based on the presupposition that Belarus «lacks» a national identity»13. During the same period, reflections upon the notion of the «nation» in Belarus did not receive the form of a critical analysis based on contemporary theories of nationalism, and, as a result, the con-cept of the «socialist nation» was replaced by the primitive conceptual-izations characteristic of the beginning of the 20th century.

1.2. The Belarusian variant of decolonization and understanding relations between the «center» and the «periphery»

The late 1980s — early 1990s were the period of the socialist coun-tries’ decolonization, whose essence Pierre Nora tried to express while describing «the third type of decolonization characteristic of coun-tries which have left the oppression of the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century, whether it be communism, fascism, or simply dictator-ship: ideological decolonization that makes the freed nations address their old, traditional memory, which had been taken away, destroyed,

10 Ibid., p. 367–388 (Section «Politics and historiography in the BSSR in 1955–1980» describes in detail the influence of the ideology on the contents of academic discourses)11 Urban M. An Algebra of Soviet Power: Elite Circulation in the Belarusian Repub-lic 1966 to 1986. / Translated from English. Vilnius: EHU, 2010. — p. 15912 Kotkin S. New times: the Soviet Union in the interwar civilizational context // Michel Foucault and Russia: collected works / edited by М. O. Kharkhordin. — St. Petersburg; Moscow: European University in St. Petersburg: Summer Garden, 2001. p. 239–316 http://krotov.info/lib_sec/21_f/fuk/o_40.htm13 Pershai A. Problematizing the hegemony of the national state in Belarus http://n-europe.eu/content/?p=1262


or deformed to advantage by a corresponding regime. This is the case of Russia, Eastern Europe, the Balkan countries, and the countries of Latin America and Africa»14.

In Belarus, understanding this process and its course had its appli-cability. Throughout a long historical period, the country (not being an independent subject) was a part of larger states and was under the influ-ence of various types of civilizational systems. In the late 1980s — early 1990s, the discussions of the «historical topography of the intermediate space and border zone» inherent in Belarus became one of the factors that influenced the formation of a new landscape of memory, history, and identity15.

During these disputes, the problematic of «center» — «periphery» relations were touched upon as well; they included not only a practical comprehension of a quite real geopolitical situation, but also an analy-sis of this situation in a wider context — it was necessary for Belarus’ society and its elite to find «variants of solving the problems of ref-erence-correlation between themselves and the «big neighbor»16. The disputes over the character of decolonization in Belarus had to do with the fact that in then political rhetoric there appeared an idea of Belarus’ «colonial» past, which did not become anything bigger than a slogan aimed at destroying the Soviet identity. This idea, which has almost disappeared today from political and academic discourse in its origi-nal form, was discussed during attempts to master the methodology of «post-colonial studies» that have not been duly developed so far17.

The peripheral position of post-colonial discourse in Belarus was conditioned by the specificity of the «imperial» characteristics of the USSR — «the Soviet Union was similar to an empire because it politi-cally dominated a geographically large territory and imposed a hier-archical structure of management (with the center in Moscow) on the ethnically diverse population. But this state, in many respects, did not

14 Nora P. Realms of Memory // «Emergency Ration» 2005, №2–3 (40–41) http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2005/2/nora22.html15 Lindner R. Historians and Power: the nation-building process and the politics of memory in Belarus in the 19th — 20th centuries / Translated from German. — St. Petersburg, Nevsky Prospect, 2003. p. 43416 Shutova O. Historiography and post-modernity: a question of the identity in the late 20th — early 21st centuries. — Minsk: Publishing Center of the Belarusian State University, 2008. — p. 23917 Kazakevich A. About a colony // Perekrestki №3–4 / 2005. http://www.case-border.org/magazine-crossroads-3-4-2005.php


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resemble other European empires — its most considerable difference was its aim of modernizing and politically mobilizing the periphery»18.

The impossibility of theoretically solving the above-mentioned problem of the a typicality of colonial practices during the Soviet modernization period was in many respects caused by the peripherality of post-colonial themes in Belarus in the beginning of the post-communist transforma-tion. The discourse of «Creolity», which later appeared in Belarus, within the framework of which one tried to speak about the influence of Belarus’ «colonial» past on the formation of images of identities, has not received its development yet, also because it has been concentrated not so much on researching of basis for the establishment of the thesis on Belarus’ post-colonial position, but rather on studying the consequences of this posi-tion (the question of the nature of the correlation between the notions of «post-Soviet» and «post-colonial» has not been answered conclusively).

The absence of reflections upon the post-colonial transformation in Belarus led to the fact that one began to consider the «colonial» Soviet past in the context of «denouncing some practices or attitudes, but not the special system of domination as a whole»19. Besides, the fact that the «colonial question» was not solved and that, in mass consciousness, there was a positive perception of some aspects of Soviet life connected with modernization was proved by the success of the partial re-Sovietization of Belarus’ internal policy, which was begun in 1994 (less than three years after the country became independent and launched democratic reforms).

The absence of full-blown post-colonial discourse in Belarus also led to a specific perception of the «idea of the Other», which is one of the central ones in this discourse. For a long time, the Soviet identity was in many respects formed in view of the image of «enemies» — «the «ene-mies» are one of the key factors in forming the Soviet identity»20. In case the image of the «enemy» was changed, the structure of the collective consciousness and the mass identity did not change — «the stereotype structure remained the same — only its attitude sign changed»21. Such institutionalization of the identity presupposed the presence of a binary consciousness and practices of «distancing» from the West (representing

18 Adams L. Is post-colonial theory applicable to Central Eurasia? // «Emergency Ration» 2009, №4(66). http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2009/4/am5-pr.html19 Ibid.20 Gudkov L. Ideologeme of the «enemy»: «Enemies» as a mass syndrome and a mechanism of socio-cultural integration // the image of the enemy: Collection / Compiled by L. Gudkov. Moscow: United Humanitarian Publishers, 2005. p. 43.21 Ibid., p. 69.


one of the «external enemies» of the USSR22) as if «from something abso-lutely alien», but did not assume the practices of «restricting» and «dif-ferentiating», which lead to the incipience of the image of «the Other«, instead of the image of the «enemy«23.

The preservation of the «socialist nation» model and the weakness of post-colonial discourse in the late 1990s were supplemented with a transformation of the political system, during which there was an actual refusal to carry out full-blown democratic reforms.

1.3. The Belarusian variant of the post-communist evolution of the «state-party»

First of all, it is necessary to pay attention to one theoretical problem which became obvious during the existence of the USSR and which con-cerned the relations of the state and society in the USSR — «the Marxist view of a communist society as free from conflicts and power relations leaves out the analysis of such problems as that of the limits of the power of «the new socialist state»» that conditioned the impossibility of «work-ing out a concept of a socialist civil society and constitutional state»24. It meant that, during the epoch of «real socialism,» the «absence of civil society was quite a tangible fact of everyday Soviet life»25; the authorities interfered practically with everything that happened in society; they also «staged» the creation of public structures, in particular — trade unions and youth organizations.

The form of power developed in the USSR was called the «party-state» by Dominique Colas26; and it was the party that would send its «ideological message» to the Soviet citizens in order to form the images of the collective identity, within the framework of which the institution-alization of relations between the state and society took place.

During the late-Soviet epoch, the «state-party» structure evolved — there appeared «institutional pluralism», during which «the highest par-ty organs represented power institutions, public organizations, and even

22 Ibid., p. 57.23 Shparaga О. «Awakening of political life: Essay about the philosophy of public-ity», Vilnius, EHU, 2010. — p. 191.24 Kivinen M. Progress and Chaos in Contemporary Russia / Translated from the English — St. Petersburg: Academic Project, 2002 — p. 40.25 Ibid., p. 40. 26 Colas D. Sociologie politique / Dominique Colas; Translated from the French; preface by А. B. Gofman. — Moscow: «Ves Mir»: «Infra-М», 2001. — p. 308.


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the interests of some republics»27. Besides, there was a growth of public activity and the incipiency of «micro-autonomy centers», which were able to become a basis for civil society28. The authorities tried to control all these forms of activity by using their repressive forms and trying to direct public activity into the channel necessary for the authorities. The situation was influenced by social changes: a transition towards organi-zational , demographic processes, and changes in Soviet society’s socio-professional structure29.

During this period in the BSSR, the authorities were engaged in the formation of a collective identity, which included a national component as well, because «party ideologists and historians created a potential for mobilization in the national pathos», but still the «definition of the na-tion that was subdued and freed from all nationalist idealizations had an exclusively political value»30. It was important, as, in the end of Brezh-nev‘s epoch, «the economy slowed the rates of its increase, and promises of a higher consumption level happened to be only words; the ruling ideology started to lose its support, and instability began to grow»31.

In 1985, the Perestroika policy was launched, during which there was a vivid increase of the collective identity crisis in the USSR, including during the polemic over the «white spots» in Soviet history. In 1986, the Cher-nobyl catastrophe occurred, and in the Soviet republics that had suffered from it (including the BSSR), it caused a public reaction that involved both political and national requirements32. This accident was also one of the fac-tors that spurred the increase of the collective identity crisis in the BSSR.

The attempts to carry out reforms in the USSR actually resulted in the disintegration of the USSR in 1991. The «ruling class» in the BSSR re-mained in many respects in the grip of the earlier developed conceptual-izations of the state, the nation, and society. This «ruling class» survived the further transformation of power in Belarus and kept its positions

27 Werth N. Histoire de l’Union soviétique, 1900–1991. Translated from the French. — 2nd ed. — Moscow: «Ves Mir»: «Infra-М», 2003. — p. 443.28 Ibid., p. 461.29 Ibid., p. 456–463.30 Lindner R. Historians and Power: the nation-building process and the politics of memory in Belarus in the 19th — 20th centuries / Translated from the German. — St. Petersburg, Nevsky Prospect, 2003. p. 376.31 Kivinen M. Progress and Chaos in Contemporary Russia / Translated from the English — St. Petersburg: Academic Project, 2002 — p. 40. Ibid., p. 71.32 Essay on the history of Belarusian statehood: the 20th century / M. P. Kostyuk [and others]; National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus, History Institute. — Minsk: Belarusian Science, 2008. — p. 519–520.


up to the beginning of the 2000s33. In 1991–1994 Belarus was a parlia-mentary republic; notwithstanding, the basic organs of power had been formed during the last years of the existence of the USSR, even though election procedures were implemented34. During the same period, the structures of civil society began to appear spontaneously and legally in Belarus, but their institutionalization received a specific character after the country became a presidential republic in 1994.

In 1994, the Constitution of the Republic of Belarus was accepted and the presidential election was carried out; Alexander Lukashenka (Alyak-sandr Lukashenka) won. It is possible to expound the further course of events with the help of the authorities’ legitimating «self-description» presented in the «Essay on the history of Belarusian statehood: the 20th century» published in 2008. One of the sections of this book describes the «formation and development of the presidential form of government» (also called «presidentialism») as follows: the parliamentary republic, even though it provided a «high level of democracy», appeared to be «inviable in the conditions of the economic crisis» of the first half of the 1990s, and therefore the transition to «presidentialism» was justified35.

According to the authors of this section, the formation of «presi-dentialism» covers the period from 1990 (the acceptance of the BSSR State Sovereignty Declaration) to 2004 (when the referendum re-moved all restrictions on the number of presidential terms occupied by one person) and includes the formation of the «power vertical» (since 1994, when the Presidential Administration was created) and the formation of the «ideological vertical» by a «territorial and branch principle» since 2003 (when the project of the «ideology of Belaru-sian statehood» started to be implemented, though already back in 1994 Lukashenka had appointed the editors of the most influential mass media in the country)36.

The authors of the Essay also state that, during this period in Be-larus, there appeared «civil society», which should be considered not within the framework of the «neo-liberal model,» because «it is not created anywhere in the world», but within the scope of the al-

33 Editor A. Kazakevich’s comment to the book: Urban M. An Algebra of Soviet Power: Elite Circulation in the Belarusian Republic 1966 to 1986. / Translated from English. Vilnius: EHU, 2010. — p. 163.34 Essay on the history of Belarusian statehood: the 20th century / M. P. Kostyuk [and others]; National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus, History Institute. — Minsk: Belarusian Science, 2008. — p. 554.35 Ibid., p. 588.36 Ibid., p. 568–570.


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ready existing in Belarus «political system and traditions of political culture»37. In their opinion, «the main direction in civil society’s de-velopment is the citizens’ collectivistic-corporate activity, on the basis of which there occurs a formation of civil society’s infrastructure», which includes the emergence of the Belarusian Republican Youth Union (BRSM) and other «associations and organizations» created by the power38. According to the authors of the Essay, all these processes (including the transition to «presidentialism») led to the fact that «the Belarusian people have created a really sovereign and independent state, which is a condition of society’s historical movement toward civil society»39.

It is only necessary to add to the above-mentioned that the beginning of the consolidation of the political regime, which appeared after 1994, was accompanied by acute anti-western rhetoric and the incipiency of the in-tegration project with Russia40, as well as the struggle against the political opposition, which was declared to be «nationalist» in the negative sense.

1.4. Specificity of the formation of a new landscape of memory, history, and identity in Belarus: preliminary conclusions

In the late 1980s — early 1990s in Belarus, a new landscape of mem-ory, history, and identity started to be formed, but the conditions of its formation had their specificity. Before the beginning of the post-com-munist transformation in Belarus, a certain variant of the «socialist nation» had been formed. There are still disputes whether this variant corresponded to the notion of a «modern nation», though it is obvious that the use of the word «nation» in the word combination «socialist na-tion» is the result of the influence of modernity. In the late 1980s — early 1990s, there was a transformation of this «socialist variant» of the nation into a community of another type and, as it will be shown below, in inde-pendent Belarus this model of the «nation» in many respects defined the formation of a new landscape of memory, history and identity.

After the disintegration of the USSR, the process of the decoloniza-tion of Belarus (if one uses the terms offered by Pierre Nora) acquired some peculiar features — the restoration of historical memory happened

37 Ibid., p. 590.38 Ibid., p. 591.39 Ibid., p. 600.40 Snyder T. The Reconstruction of Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus 1569—1999 / Translated from the English; science editor H. Sahanovič. — Minsk: Medisont, 2010. — p. 383.


to be dependent on the reproduction of the former relations between the «center» and the «periphery», but in a new geopolitical prospect.

At the same time, the weak presence of post-colonial discourse con-ditioned the specific «structure of referentiality» during the creation of new models of memory, history, and identity. This specific «structure of referentiality» in the context of a new geopolitical prospect is under-lined by Olga Shutova — whether Russia or Europe is used as a refer-ence point, the same discourse practices are used every time, within the framework of which there is a search for identification with «Russia» or «Europe», and «the structure of referentiality» remains the same and does not consider more difficult configurations (earlier, we were a part of «Russia«, and now we belong to «Europe«, but one of these «two» turns not into the «Other«, but becomes the next «enemy«)41.

The defining role was also played by the evolution of the late-Sovi-et «state-party«, which resulted in the formation of a political system reminiscent of the late-Soviet regime in the organization of its relations between the power institutions and society are «organized» and which gradually incorporated the new conditions («sovereignty«, a more diffi-cult social differentiation of society, etc.) developed after the dissolution of the USSR.

The political regime that appeared after 1994 (after the disintegration of the USSR and during the economic crisis of the late 1980s — early 1990s) also faced the need to overcome the collective identity crisis in order to politically mobilize citizens. Using the existing «socialist na-tion» model implanted in the mass consciousness during the USSR ep-och and the peripheral position of post-colonial discourse, this politi-cal regime began concentrating all its effort on the formation of a new landscape of memory, history, and identity, thus wishing to legitimate the new political system and to partially restore the Soviet practices of relations between society and power, but under new conditions. This process acquired the form of the «politics of memory», whose contents and the consequences of whose implementation will be described in the following sections.

41 Shutova O. Historiography and post-modernity: a question of the identity in the late 20th — early 21st centuries. — Minsk: Publishing Center of the Belarusian State University, 2008. — p. 247.


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2. Specificity of the «politics of history» (Geschichtspolitik) in Belarus

2.1. Theoretical disputes over the term «politics of history»

In her article «Germany and France: Past Studies», Jutta Scherrer de-fines the «politics of history» as something «aimed at forming socially significant historical images and images of identity which are imple-mented in rituals and discourse, undergoing changes due to the alterna-tion of generations or in the process of the evolution of the social envi-ronment»; still, the «politics of memory» should not be reduced only to the official treatment of history at all42.

According to Jutta Scherrer, «in democratic societies, the politics of history are not limited at all by the political sphere; along with politicians and publicists, they also include actors from different professional groups with various interests and strategies. Thus, the very nature of pluralis-tic societies assumes the formation of various interpretations of the past there»43. In Germany, the concept of the «politics of history», at the mo-ment of its inception, almost became one of the ways of «normalizing» the national-socialist past, but thanks to democratic institutions such a concept of the «politics of history» did not manage to get implemented44.

Russian historian Alexei Miller offers his interpretation of the notion of the «politics of history,» saying that this term reflects the new situa-tion which has developed in the countries of Eastern Europe45.

The «politics of history», continues Alexei Miller, «truly defines the relations which arise between politics that acts here as a noun and his-tory — which is only an adjective here»; «it is a question of a political phenomenon that should be studied as a part of politics, and as that which differentiates it from the politicization of history and the politics of remembrance …»46.

The specific model of the «politics of history» began to be imple-mented after the breakdown of the communist bloc in a number of the countries that belonged to this bloc and where «there are external

42 Scherrer J. Germany and France: Past Studies // Pro Et Contra, 2009, №3–4, p. 90.43 Ibid.44 The report on the seminar «Politics of memory» and its various national ver-sions in the post-socialist countries»; 5–6 March 2010 (Kazan, Russia) http://carn-egieendowment.org/files/Kazan_summary.pdf45 Ibid.46 Miller A. Russia: power and history // Pro Et Contra, 2009, №3–4, p. 8.


signs of democracy, but one group uses history for political purpos-es»; «in these new conditions» (when democracy is only quasi-pres-ent) «there appears a set of practices with the help of which separate political forces try to posit certain interpretations of historical events as dominating ones». Actually, according to Miller, «by using the ad-ministrative and financial resources of the state, the political forces which are in power carry out the ideological indoctrination of society in the sphere of historical consciousness and collective memory. It is a question of such historical events and processes, about which no consensus has been reached in society and which are the subjects of discussions»47.

Miller’s conclusions are based on the experience not only of Russia, but of other countries as well, including Poland. Polish historian Robert Traba also notes the disagreements concerning the application of the term «politics of history», proposing to start using the terms «policy in regard to memory» or «policy in regard to history» — because of the amorphism of the common understanding of the term «memory«48. Robert Traba suggests «developing new, safe rules of the political game, which … can be called «the code of behavior in the field of policy in regard to history». The autonomy of some communions of memory, whose memoirs and experience of their communication with «others» must be respected, should become the basic point of this code»49.

Summing up this small review of the disputes over the politics of his-tory, it is necessary to note that, within the framework of this research, the term «politics of history» will be used in the sense proposed by Alex-ei Miller, because, in Belarus, as it will be shown below, the «politics of history» has turned into a power discourse.

At the same time, the very presence of inconsistent treatments of the term «politics of history» means there is also the necessity of go-ing beyond the limits of the current Belarusian situation and expanding the treatment of this term within the framework of Jutta Scherrer’s idea about the «politics of history» in «pluralistic society« — in the case of the democratization of Belarus, there will again be a need to return to an analysis of this notion and to achieve conventions about its application.

47 Ibid., p. 10.48 Traba R. Polish disputes over the history in the 21st century // Pro Et Contra, 2009, №3–4, p. 60.49 Ibid., p. 61.


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2.2. The situation of 1994–2002 in Belarus: from the «historization of politics» to the «politics of history»

The disputes over identity, memory, and history, which have entered the public space, began in Belarus practically in the late 1980s, a few years prior to the dissolution of the USSR. In many respects, these dis-putes were a part of the political struggle that had begun and played a certain role in the deconstruction of the images of the Soviet identity. Gradually, a new narrative of the history of Belarus started to be formed; in many respects, it was romanticized and mythologized. The same pro-cesses also took place in Ukraine, where Ukrainian publicists, writers, and intellectuals often outstripped historians and created a new, «na-tional image of the history» of Ukraine50.

The professional community of historians of the BSSR started to acti-vate their discussions in 1988–1991 following civil activists; simultane-ously, a crisis of official historical education began — during this period, the majority of students had no official textbook on Belarus’ history51. The new narrative of national history, which was being created from scratch, should also be «decolonized«, «not Russian«, which led to the «updating» of historical memory about the Grand Duchy of Lithuania52.

In the discussions that took place at the time, the main position was occupied by «criticism of Stalin as a person and Stalinism — as a way of displaying his individual qualities and power interests»53. In 1988, Z. Paźniak and E. Shmygalyov‘s article «Kurapaty — the death road» was published; it specified the place of mass executions during Stalin’s ep-och, after which Kurapaty turned into the main «place of memory» of the new «culture of memoirs». In 1993, Kurapaty received the status of a «historical and cultural value of the first category».

Gradually, in Belarus, the «national-historical school» started to be formed, within the framework of which school textbooks on the history of Belarus of the first generation after the country became independent were printed in 1993. In her research «Genealogy of historical memory in Belarus in the context of educational practices», Tatiana Ostrovska-ya notes that «the school history of this period is characterized not by

50 Kasianov G. The Holodomor famine and nation-building // Pro Et Contra, 2009, №3–4, p. 25.51 Lindner R. Historians and Power: the nation-building process and the politics of memory in Belarus in the 19th — 20th centuries / Translated from the German. — St. Petersburg, Nevsky Prospect, 2003. p. 396.52 Ibid., p. 392.53 Ibid., p. 399.


a critical, but by historicist and even essentialist attitude, which categor-ically connects tribes and ethnic communities with the nation, repre-senting them as the stages of natural development…»54.

In the late 1980s — early 1990s in the BSSR and then in independent Belarus, there began a kind of critical «examination of the past»; how-ever, this examination of the past did not acquire the form of «politics of the past» (in Jutta Scherrer’s treatment) because there were no scale judi-cial and legislative decisions concerning the Soviet past (except for some cases that had to do with the rehabilitation of the victims of political repressions and the decision to liquidate the former status of the Com-munist Party of Belarus in the public and political system accepted right after the August events in 1991)55. Such a succession of events was also caused by the change of the political regime in 1994 and geopolitical fac-tors (the appearance of the integration project with Russia).

As German historian R. Lindner marks, after Alexander Lukashenka came to power in 1994, the process of the «historization of politics» began, and «history became a reservoir of political argumentation for all political forces»; simultaneously, a new «politicization of history» began56. In the section of his book «Historians and Power: the nation-building process and the politics of memory in Belarus in the 19th — 20th centuries», dedicated to the politics of memory in Belarus at the time of Alexander Lukashenka (the review covers the period from the early 1990s to 1999), Rainer Lindner focuses on a number of important ten-dencies of that time, among which it is possible to outline the revival of the understanding of history based on the Soviet myths. In the context of this tendency, there is the «ambivalent partisan myth», which «com-bines the national and Soviet-patriotic motives»57 (Lindner notes that, during this period in Belarus, there was a re-Sovietization of the myth of the war, unlike Ukraine, where its «Ukrainization» has begun)58.

Simultaneously, according to Lindner, there is «a partition of history into national and non-national,» accompanied by a partition of the «cul-

54 Ostrovskaya Т. The Genealogy of historical memory in Belarus in the context of educational practices http://www.belinstitute.eu/images/doc-pdf/sa012010ru.pdf, p. 6.55 Essay on the history of Belarusian statehood: the 20th century / M. P. Kostyuk [and others]; National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus, History Institute. — Minsk: Belarusian Science, 2008. — p. 552.56 Lindner R. Historians and Power: the nation-building process and the politics of memory in Belarus in the 19th — 20th centuries / Translated from the German. — St. Petersburg, Nevsky Prospect, 2003. p. 402–403.57 Ibid., p. 406.58 Ibid., p. 407.

http://www.belinstitute.eu/images/doc-pdf/sa012010ru.pdf


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ture of memories» and the incipiency of special anniversary calendars (different political forces celebrate different dates connected with the his-torical past of Belarus)59. Lindner also remarks that, in Belarus since the middle of 1995, there has been a union of «the authorities and ideology», which has led «to the existence of neo-Soviet historiography that does not conduct its own research, but understands its function as follows: grounded in the postulates of the BSSR’s historiography, it fights against the works of the national-historical school»60. It resulted, in its turn, in an attempt to put under control the professional community of historians, including by means of dismissals, thus promoting the creation of an en-vironment in the academic community which is loyal to the new course61.

These changes also led to changes in the field of school education — the textbooks on the history of Belarus of the first generation were re-placed by the textbooks of the second generation. The textbooks of the second generation are characterized by the «total absence of any inten-tion to generate the national idea either in its ethnic or its civil variant»62. Tatiana Ostrovskaya concludes that, based on Andrei Kazakevich‘s the-sis that during the period from 1996 to 2001 in Belarus the «revolution-ary» Pan-Slavic / Russicist ideology, with elements of the Soviet restora-tion, dominated». She also notes the characteristic feature of the text-books of the new generation — «to deny the value of Belarus’ history, its standardization and relativization. The authors do not try to present the interesting and memorable facts from the history of Belarus, but do their best to debunk all its heroic myths»63.

The advent of the textbooks of the new generation, initiated by the head of the state64, meant a transition from Lindner’s «historization of politics» to the «politics of memory» understood in the context of Alexei

59 Ibid., p. 407.60 Ibid., с. 419.61 Lindner R. Historians and Power: the nation-building process and the politics of memory in Belarus in the 19th — 20th centuries / Translated from the German. — St. Petersburg, Nevsky Prospect, 2003. p. 416–422; Also, see the information about the «employment ban in Belarus» concerning historians http://community.livejournal.com/zabarona_na_prf/1062.html ; the article in Naša Niva «Historians’ Employment Ban» (http://nn.by/?c=ar&i=7344).62 Ostrovskaya Т. The Genealogy of historical memory in Belarus in the context of educational practices http://www.belinstitute.eu/images/doc-pdf/sa012010ru.pdf, p. 6.63 Ibid.64 Lindner R. Historians and Power: the nation-building process and the politics of memory in Belarus in the 19th — 20th centuries / Translated from the German. — St. Petersburg, Nevsky Prospect, 2003. p. 441.

http://community.livejournal.com/zabarona_na_prf/1062.html

http://community.livejournal.com/zabarona_na_prf/1062.html




Miller’s theses when the state started restoring its «monopoly on histo-ry», having touched, first of all, the institution of mass school education. Besides, during the period since 1994, fierce disputes over «the Soviet past» began to be eliminated from the public space due to the launched re-Sovietization of the political system, which tries to legitimate itself by referring to a number of aspects of the Soviet past, including the memo-ry of the Great Patriotic War (the beginning of this tendency is observed in educational literature as well)65.

Thus, it is possible to draw the conclusion that, during the period from 1994 to 2002, against the preservation and strengthening of the geopolitical orientation toward Russia, the idea of sovereignty in Be-larus had not been incorporated completely by the political system that had developed. In this situation, the authorities based themselves on the part of the ideological heritage of the «socialist nation» which al-lowed them to ignore the idea of national self-determination connected with the activity of more radical political forces (it also allowed them to isolate these forces). The consolidation they launched of the political regime that had developed was characterized by attempts to legitimate itself not by referring to the full-blown idea of national sovereignty, but by restoring a number of practices and memories of the «Soviet past».

In his book, Rainer Lindner comes to the following conclusion: «In Be-larus, not in a lesser degree than in other peripheral countries of Europe, national history was constructed and deconstructed. At the end of the 20th century, there is a divided image of history, in which the complexes of memories and myths confront each other»66. Such a situation is caused by the fact that «in the small nations of Eastern Europe, there is a discrepancy between the national concepts of their history and myths as integral parts of the collective self-portrait and the official interpretation of history», and by the fact that in Belarus «till the end of the 20th century, the state and the nation had not converged»; «Belarus lived through the epoch of national states as a «periphery», because due to the fact that it belonged to various empires and state formations, the process of creating a nation in Belar-us was constantly interrupted»67. Also, Lindner predicts the preservation of the «synchronism of the existence of the national and «integrational» variants of Belarus’ historiography» because «the ruling authorities’ po-

65 Ostrovskaya Т. Genealogy of historical memory in Belarus in the context of edu-cational practices http://www.belinstitute.eu/images/doc-pdf/sa012010ru.pdf, p. 23.66 Lindner R. Historians and Power: the nation-building process and the politics of memory in Belarus in the 19th — 20th centuries / Translated from the German. — St. Petersburg, Nevsky Prospect, 2003. p. 478.67 Ibid., p. 478.



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litical interest will keep choosing one image of history or the other image, as they want history to remain a function of the political aspect of life»68.

2.3 After 2003: the birth of the state ideology, a new attitude to-ward the «Soviet past», and the strengthening of control over edu-cation

In the preface to his book published for the Belarusian reader in 2003, Rainer Lindner says there have been no changes in the situation described by him for1994–1999, noting that the «political, economic, and cultural heritage of the imperial past is still here now», even though «Belarus is now formally an independent state during an epoch of globalization», and «its geopolitical position between «Russia» and «Europe» is rather an additional chance than a burden»69. It is necessary to note that the period since 2003, nevertheless, has become to a certain degree differ-ent if compared to the previous epoch, and the «politics of history» have acquired new traits that are linked to the influence of the geopolitical factor (the changing relations between Russia, Belarus, and the EU) and the birth of the project of the state ideology in Belarus in 2002–2003. To-gether with the ideology project, there appeared corresponding concepts of history (in particular, Yakov Treschenok’s «pro-state» ideas)70.

This ideology began to be implemented in the sphere of school edu-cation, where the state finalized its monopoly even earlier, which was reflected in the new approach to the contents of educational literature on the history of Belarus. Tatiana Ostrovskaya speaks about «the third period» connected with the «creation of Belarusian state ideology», characterized by «a partial return to the topics that had been «forgot-ten» in 1998–2001 and the rehabilitation of the pre-Soviet, more inde-pendent from Russian, history of Belarus». She recalls Andrei Kazakev-ich‘s thesis that «the central place in the new attempt to construct the ideological doctrine was occupied by the problems of «state» and «Be-larus» — «Belarus’ model of development», «Belarus’ political system«, «Belarus’ way«, «Belarus’ experience of constructing statehood«, etc.»

In the new textbooks on the history of Belarus, their authors try «to accumulate the pre-Soviet events of Belarus’ history, to confirm the an-cientness of the Belarusian nation, and to find deeper roots of Belarus’ statehood». Also, the textbooks on the history of Belarus started to be

68 Ibid., p. 483.69 Ibid., p. 7.70 Sahanovič H. Politics of history in post-Soviet Belarus. http://www.russkiivopros.com/index.php?pag=one&id=278&kat=5&csl=42


published in Russian, which «testifies to the instrumentality of the turn toward Belarus’ history». During the period since 2003, the «formation of historical memory is becoming more supraliminal and purposeful which, certainly, is connected with the construction of Belarusian state ideology»; the textbooks are increasingly aimed at «forming a new indi-vidual who can be built in the frameworks outlined by the state system». However,, there is some eclecticism in the contents of the textbooks, which is due to the specificity of the contents of the Belarusian ideology itself, which is not a monolithic idea71.

Since 2003, the state has paid its attention to the strengthening of control over the dissemination of historical knowledge; the functions of such control were transferred to the conservative part of the profession-al community of historians, which acted with such initiatives. In his «Es-says of Belarus’ newest historiography» published in 2007 by the History Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus, academician Pyotr Petrikov declared that «historians, writers, and all those who are interested in history can argue, express, and publish their understanding of various facts and events. But as for the state consump-tion of history, from the point of view of state ideology, in textbooks for students, in the statements of official state bodies and persons, there should be credible, scientifically substantiated conclusions and estima-tions of the official scientific state structures — first of all, of the History Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus as the highest and most complex scientific organization in Belarus»72.

During the period after 2003, there has also been a strengthened «nor-malization» of the «Soviet past» — above all, of the traumatic periods of the Soviet history. It is reflected in the contents of educational literature (in 2006, in the school course of the history of Belarus, the notion of «to-talitarianism» was replaced with the notion of «the Soviet state-political system»)73 and the appearance of specific «memory places» (the creation of «Stalin‘s Line» in 2005)74.

71 Ostrovskaya Т. Genealogy of historical memory in Belarus in the context of edu-cational practices http://www.belinstitute.eu/images/doc-pdf/sa012010ru.pdf, p.7.72 Petrikov P. Essays of Belarus’ newest historiography (the 1990s — early 2000s) / National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus, History Institute. — Minsk: Belarusian Science, 2007. — p. 291.73 Sidortsov V. N. History of Belarus, 1917–1945: textbook for the 9th grades / V. N. Sidortsov, S. V. Panov; edited by N. S. Stashkevich. — Minsk: BSU, 2006. — (Section ІІ. Belarus during the interwar period: the formation of a new way of life). http://www.adu.by/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=125874 Official web-site of «Stalin‘s Line» (http://www.stalin-line.by/).


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All the above-mentioned changes that have happened since 2003 have been caused in many respects by the political situation — the political system has been sufficiently strengthened while the integration project with Russia has already ceased to be considered in its initial form, due to which the idea of sovereignty became definitively incorporated. In its turn, it has led to the usage of the part of the ideological heritage of the «socialist nation», which included a specific model of the national identity. Besides, during this period, due to the generational changes and the changed social and economic conditions, the appeals to the «Soviet past» have stopped being the basic way of legitimation. A selection of the memory of the «Soviet past» has begun; it has helped to choose the facts that can become a basis for the model of identity formed by power, in particular — the Great Patriotic War that, in its turn, can be used to internationally legitimize the new political system75.

2.4. The new «politics of history» in public discourse: the problem of «communicative reticence»

The analysis of the traumatic periods of Soviet history in the 2000s fell to the share of independent discourse groups, which try to discuss this problematic76. The «oblivion» situation is also caused by the fact that the topicality of problematizing the period of Stalin’s repressions can com-pete in public discourse with other topics whose which seem particularly relevant for society (or the authorities) — in particular, the topic of the memory of the Great Patriotic War. This situation, when various versions of memories struggle «for the limited resources of public attention», is typical not only for Belarus, even though it does have its specificity here77.

However, it is impossible to say that the topic of the «Soviet past» remains absolutely outside of public discourse; it is rather possible to affirm that the Belarusian authorities try to direct this discussion into a certain channel. In the article «Kurapaty — peace under the pine trees» published in October 2009 (the title itself is symbolical, as it refers

75 Lastovsky A. Specificity of historical memory in Belarus: between the Soviet past and the national prospect. http://www.polit.ru/research/2010/07/19/belorus.html76 This problem was raised during the round table «The Problem of historical memory of the period of Stalin’s repressions in Belarus». http://www.n-europe.eu/article/2009/03/31/prablema_gistarychnai_pamyatsi_peryyadu_stalinskikh_represiyau_u_belarusi77 König H. Die Zukunft der Vergangenheit. Der Nationalsozialismus im politischen Bewußtsein der Bundesrepublik // «Emergency Ration» 2005, №2–3 (40–41). http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2005/2/ke11.html

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to Z. Paźniak and E. Shmygalyov’s already mentioned article), whose au-thor is the editor-in-chief of the newspaper «Soviet Byelorussia. Belarus Today» Pavel Yakubovich, it is said that «it is time for public opinion, whatever views people have, to understand the axiom: Kurapaty is not a place to seek f the historical truth! Kurapaty is a tragic lesson for soci-ety — if aggressive doctrines, whatever noble purposes they may declare, lead to people’s death, they are immoral»78.

This article not only demonstrates the «normalization» of the So-viet past that is occurring through the assertion of the tragedy of some of its episodes and even through determining the «causativity» of this tragedy, but it is also accompanied by a variety of the ideas that reveal the mechanisms and purposes of such «normalization». One of the basic theses of the article is that all lessons of history are already learnt, and the «present responsible (!) political elites are no longer tormented by the 20-year-old question — hundreds of books and monographs, memoirs and researches are written! — all is already clear». Simulta-neously, the article outlines one more purpose — to ban anybody ex-cept for the authorities from using the memory of the past in political struggles79.

Similar ideological discourse about the past has to be considered within the framework of the idea of «communicative reticence» char-acteristic of Germany, where the authorities [?} tried to avoid ana-lyzing the national-socialist regime. And, by analogy, the character-istic feature of such a situation, if applied to Belarus, is not just the exception of the traumatic episodes of the «Soviet past» from «con-temporary individual consciousness», but the «exception of the in-dividual and collective past from public communication»; here, this very period «does not pass into oblivion, but is considered as politi-cally irrelevant», and «the further public debates» become «simply unnecessary»80.

The presence of «communicative reticence» is characteristic not only of the description of the period of Stalin’s repressions in Belarus, but also of discussions about the Great Patriotic War, the specifically processed memory of which became a basis for the model of the na-tional identity, which the authorities try to carry out in Belarus with the help of a power discourse. In his research «The Specificity of histori-

78 Yakubovich P. Kurapaty — peace under the pine trees. http://pda.sb.by/post/93010/79 Ibid.80 König H. Die Zukunft der Vergangenheit. Der Nationalsozialismus im politischen Bewußtsein der Bundesrepublik // «Emergency Ration» 2005, №2–3 (40–41). http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2005/2/ke11.html

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cal memory in Belarus: between the Soviet past and the national pros-pect», Alexei Lastovsky (Alaksiej Łastoũski) specifies that «the Great Patriotic War has negative sides as well… these negative moments were sharply discussed in the mass media in the late 1980s — early 1990s, but recently they have practically disappeared from public discourse in Belarus»81.

In fact, it is the «communicative reticence» on a number of topics of the historical past that today provides the «successful» formation of the national identity in Belarus , which has become possible also thanks to the «politics of history» turned into power discourse. According to Alexei Lastovsky’s conclusions, «the major historical myth constituting the contemporary Belarusian national identity is the memory of the vic-tory in the Great Patriotic War; the consistency and simplified nature of this memory only promotes the consentaneity of conceptualizations of the past». The topic of the war, which «pushes aside other events», prevails in the memory of the history of the Soviet period, even though the «Belarusian inhabitants’ negative (or inconsistent) estimation of the political leaders of this period, except for Pyotr Masherov, testifies to the fact that Soviet history cannot be the uniting factor for complete his-torical memory». The cultivation of the memory of the Great Patriotic War also overshadows the events of Belarus’ history prior to the early 20th century because, according to Lastovsky, mass consciousness attributes such characteristics as «vacancy» and «positive-neutral perception» to this period82.

2.5. Results of the «politics of history» in 1994–2010 and the origin of a specific model of identity in Belarus

Thus, in 1994–2010, in Belarus the «politics of history», within the framework of which the authorities became its basic subject and with the help of which the corresponding model of identity, the historical narrative, and the model of historical memory were formed, began to be implemented.

After 2003, the formation of the collective identity basically became a state-run «enterprise»; this very identity was defined as follows: «the national identity as a scientific category is a concrete emotional-psycho-logical, political-ideological, and cultural position of separate individuals

81 Lastovsky A. The Specificity of historical memory in Belarus: between the Soviet past and the national prospect. http://www.polit.ru/research/2010/07/19/belorus.html82 Ibid.




and an ethnic group as a whole in their perception of themselves in the world, which is manifested in their acceptance of decisions in all spheres of historical activity»83.

According to the official vision, this «national identity» of the Be-larusians is characterized by the «absence of aggression and the pres-ence of hospitality in relation to their historical neighbors (tolerance); they do not fight evil with evil, but with good (or soft-heartedness, kindness, which is similar to obedience to destiny), perception of the world in the form of passivity, deliberateness, and the absence of a pro-pensity to make fast decisions, the adherence to conservatism in the form of honoring the historical customs and traditions of ancestors («not to destroy the old, not to introduce the new»), an unwavering determination and fidelity to the idea of their own statehood, pater-nalism; a propensity to make state decisions in collectivist forms, an aspiration (at the archetypal level) toward freedom and social equal-ity». And, accordingly, the present «course chosen by the authorities and aimed at creating the socially-focused economy corresponds to the national interests … the people’s mentality and the historical con-tinuity principle»84.

It is obvious that in this model of identity offered by power discourse, the modern ideas and values (freedom, national statehood, political participation, egalitarianism, etc.) are interpreted in a particular way, proceeding from the features of the course of the modern processes in Belarus; also, these features (the state domination and paternalism con-nected with it, the absence of political subjectness at the level of indi-viduals, general collectivism institutionalized during the Soviet epoch, etc.) are essentialized and turned into a legitimating basis for the new political system. Also, there is a substitution of the relation of cause and effect: the model of identity imposed «from above» (including the new characteristics favorable to the authorities) is declared to be caused by the Belarusians’ former historical experience.

One more aspect of the situation appeared after 2003 — the attempts to homogenize identity models in Belarus by a power discourse that ap-peals to its own understanding of the idea of national concord.. In his «Annual message to the Belarusian people and the National Assembly» in 2008, the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenka said that «inter-

83 Essay on the history of Belarusian statehood: the 20th century / M. P. Kostyuk [and others]; National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus, History Institute. — Minsk: Belarusian Science, 2008. — p. 5.84 Ibid., p. 5. Compare these evaluations to the statements about the Belarusian identity in the state-run mass media (Section 3 of this monograph).


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national concord has always been a distinctive feature of the Belarusians. The Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, Armenians, and other nationali-ties have been living here as a united family for centuries… We are the most international country in the world»85.

A particular case of this attempt to homogenize identity models is the story published by some of the mass media about the memorial sign established in Mazyr and devoted to the memory of victims of the Holocaust. In 2003, the inscription on the memorial stone (in Hebrew, English, and Belarusian) said, «Belarusian Masada. On this spot, there will be a monument to Mazyr-based Jews who burned themselves in the autumn of 1941. They preferred to die rather than to obey the enemy. The World Association of the Belarusian Jews…», but in 2010 the Mazyr City Executive Committee established a new memorial stone on the spot where several Jewish families had burned themselves, which said, «The spot where civilians of the city of Mazyr burned themselves in the au-tumn of 1941»86.

The attempts of the homogenization of identity models by power dis-course are also coordinated with the counter process revealed thanks to the population census in Belarus in 2009. It turned out that representa-tives of some nationalities living in Belarus began to self-identify them-selves as Belarusians. But, according to sociologist Alexei Lastovsky, this process hardly testifies to the strengthening of the national identity in the country; it is rather connected to the «minimalist» character of the Belarusian identity itself: «as it turned out, the Belarusians do not have to know their native tongue; their knowledge of their history is limited to the fact that the Belarusian people have won the Great Patriotic War; the Belarusians do not need to preserve their cultural traditions and to show public activity. To be a Belarusian in contemporary Belarus is to have a slew of symbolical privileges and almost no obligations, except for abstract love to the country»87.

One more aspect of the development of the situation after 2003 is the formation of a specific image of the «Other» in the power model of the Belarusian identity — «for the Belarusians, the Others are, first of all, the neighbors, among whom the main Other is the Russians who are not always «Others», but also «Ours». It is the nation with

85 President Lukashenka’s annual message to the Belarusian people and the Na-tional Assembly. http://www.president.gov.by/press57289.html#doc86 The Holocaust in the throat. http://charter97.org/ru/news/2010/5/25/29271/87 Program of the Radio Liberty «The Belarusian nation in the mirror of the linguistic-ethnic results of the census». http://www.svaboda.org/content/tran-script/2156104.html



http://www.svaboda.org/content/transcript/2156104.html

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which the Belarusians were ostensibly united once (the concept of the so-called one Old Ruthenian (Russian) nation [which in fact had never existed])». «The sworn enemies of the Belarusians, if one be-lieves the textbooks, have always been the crusaders and then fascist Germany»88. In addition to this, it is possible to say that, eventually, the school course on the history of Belarus will pay more and more attention to the image of Europe, with the help of which the pres-ence, instead of the «absence«, of the Belarusians’ important qualities is proved. Thus, the story of how the West broke the USSR (and the Western threat still exists) is combined with the story that Belarus is a part of Western civilization89.

The «minimalist» model of the Belarusian identity that appeared includes, in its personal and social component, the characteristics that spur on the formation and preservation among individuals of those traits which the developed political system needs.

The model of collective historical memory, which is based on «com-municative reticence», is aimed at enabling the functioning of this «min-imalist» identity, including with the help of the corresponding historical narrative. In its turn, it includes not just a reflecting description of the Belarusians’ history, but also a legitimating description of the formation of Belarus’ statehood, whose basic hero is the authorities presented in various forms.

The narrow-mindedness of the «minimalist» identity model gener-ated in Belarus becomes obvious when one tries to review this model of identity in a wider, including European, context. It is possible to assume that the «politics of history» implemented today in Belarus, within the framework of which a certain model of identity, the historical narrative, and the model of collective memory were formed, will be an obstacle to the Europeanization of Belarus (as a political project), though, if one places the Belarusian situation in the space of pan-European reflections upon the problems of memory, history, and identity, it can specify some possible strategies of action during the implementation of plans for the Europeanization of Belarus.

88 Ostrovskaya Т. The Genealogy of historical memory in Belarus in the context of educational practices. http://www.belinstitute.eu/images/doc-pdf/sa012010ru.pdf, p. 34–35.89 History of Belarus. 19th — 20th centuries: textbook for 11th grade / J. K. Novik [and others]; — Minsk: BSU, 2009. — p. 5 and p. 193.



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3. About the European dimension of the «politics of history» in Belarus

3.1. The Belarusian situation in the context of creating a European landscape of memories and searching for the European identity

In one of his articles, famous historian Timothy Snyder expresses his surprise at the fact that the contemporary history of Europe almost does not mention the events that happened in Belarus, «Most Europe-ans would be surprised if they learned that Belarus was the epicenter of mass murders in Europe and the main area of anti-Nazi partisans’ activ-ity, which contributed to the victory of the allies. The fact that such a country is forced out from Europe’s memory is remarkable»90.

If to try to expand the sense of Timothy Snyder’s explanation, pro-ceeding from the context of this research, it is necessary to note that the «non-recognition» of Belarus and its «absence» in the history of Europe is also caused by the way Belarus itself is building its models of identity, memory, and historical narratives. World War II in Be-larus, for example, is not being historized, but rather (while refer-ring to the image of the Great Patriotic War) turned into a «religion of memory» based on the «communicative reticence» of some aspects of the history of this war. This very example means, in its turn, that the attempts of coordinating the local (Belarusian) version of collective memory, the historical narrative, and the models of identity, created by means of the «politics of history» implemented by the authorities, can conflict with the way these or other historical events are perceived in the European Union.

However, before reviewing the problem of this coordination, it is nec-essary to consider the way United Europe itself discusses the problems of searching for the European identity. According to S. Garsztecki, the «cultural-historical dimension» of European integration today is being problematized within the framework of the idea of a possible incipience of «European memory, a European landscape of memories together with … general signs of the European history of culture, whose univer-sal presence in all European national historiographies is disputable»91.

Today, there are obvious distinctions in what historical narratives and models of memory and identity are being built in different parts

90 Snyder T. The Holocaust: ignored reality. http://www.provid.org/2009/11/29/golokost-ignorovana-realnist-timoti-snayder91 Garsztecki S. Actual dimensions of Europe in Central and Eastern Europe — Eu-ropeanization from below?


of Europe — «in the pan-European context, there are two groups of events-symbols, which divide Europe into Eastern and Western. These are «Holocaust» / «Gulag» and «Stalingrad» / «Yalta»».92

At the same time, something that looks like a dividing factor can si-multaneously be a uniting factor, if one addresses these historical events as something that «reflects the Europeans’ will to overcome nationalism and to strengthen democracy and the rule-of-law state, and these are negative examples of the two totalitarianisms of the 20th century»93. Still, at present, according to S. Garsztecki, it is only possible to affirm, pro-ceeding from the aforementioned, that, first, the conversations about the formation of European memory are today «intellectual games» against the essential differences between national historiographies and between the East and the West; second, today there is no alternative to the free incipiency of the European landscape of memories; the culture of mem-ories cannot be created artificially «from above»; it can only appear «from below».94

The creation of the pan-European space of memory presupposes that any country could «reveal for everybody each of its own important his-torical events or places of memory and hope for recognition», but these «European places of memory» can only be such if they show «transna-tional influences» and are signs of European generality and the Euro-peans’ aspiration towards unity, i.e. if they are already initially focused on «European»95. Finally, it can foster the formation of the European identity, understood in the range from its «minimalist» treatments to «maximal» ones.

Against this backdrop of the discussions about memory, history, and identity, which take place in United Europe, the Belarusian situation has its specificity. In Belarus, there has been no critical processing of the past; the «minimalist» model of the Belarusian identity created with the help of power discourse did appear and is supported «from above», not «from below»; it is also being homogenized, and the historical narra-tive includes such conceptualization of national statehood that does not coincide with the post-national forms of the historical narrative that is appearing in United Europe.

92 Logvinov M. The Politics of memory on the post-Soviet territory, or No changes on the eastern front. www1.ku-eichstaett.de/ZIMOS/forum/docs/forumruss11/a17Loginov.pdf93 Garsztecki S. Actual dimensions of Europe in Central and Eastern Europe — Eu-ropeanization from below?94 Ibid.95 Ibid.


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Thus, the already mentioned problem of coordinating the local (Be-larusian) version of the existing model of identity, collective memory, and the historical narrative, created thanks to the implemented «poli-tics of memory», with what is happening in United Europe presupposes activity, which includes various aspects. However, before passing to the description of this possible activity, it is necessary to say that this co-ordination should not result in a complete leveling of the Belarusian version of identity, collective memory, and the historical narrative; it is more necessary to speak about a search for the «optimum of distinc-tions» (to use Claude Lévi-Strauss’ term) between cultures, includ-ing cultures of memory, models of identity, and historical narratives in Belarus and Europe.

An incorrectly understood process of coordination can turn Belarus’ culture into a «self-colonizing culture» (by Alexander Kiossev’s defini-tion), in «which symbols and models … are symbols of absence»96, in this case, of the absence of «history«, «memory«, and «national identity», which can «disappear» again during the Europeanization process. It is necessary to remember that the success of the intervention in the for-mation of memory, historical narratives, and identity, which was started by the Belarusian political regime in 1994, was conditioned by society’s desire to avoid this «absence«, but in order to solve this problem, it chose commemorative strategies, which did not solve it, but preserved the threat of this «absence«. In this sense, all actions should consider a possible threat of «self-colonizing» Belarusian culture, as it is one of the strong arguments of opponents of the Europeanization of Belarus. In her article «Eastern Europe as a new subordinated subject», Almira Usmanova outlines all signs of the discourse of the opponents of Belarus’ Europeanization, which also exist in the intellectual community, thus assuming the possible consequences of the Europeanization for Belarus, including disputes over its «dependence» / «subordination«97.

3.2. Practical actions in relation to memory, identity, and history in Belarus in the context of its probable Europeanization

First of all, while speaking of Belarus’ probable Europeanization and its inclusion in the space of the European disputes over memory, history, and identity, there appears the problem of providing the notion «politics

96 Kiossev А. Self-colonizing Cultures // Perekrestki №3–4/2005. http://www.case-border.org/magazine-crossroads-3-4-2005.php97 Usmanova А. Eastern Europe as a new subordinated subject. http://belintellectu-als.eu/library/book/228/


of history» with a standard dimension The above-written article makes it obvious that the specific model of the «politics of history», which his-torian Alexei Miller speaks about and which is now being implemented in Belarus, needs a broad interpretation within the framework of Jutta Scherrer’s idea about the «politics of history» in «pluralistic society». It has to do not only with the efforts of the professional community of historians, aimed at preventing the «history monopolization» by some political force, but also with the creation of structural political condi-tions, within the framework of which this monopolization will cease to be possible. In other words, the professional community’s efforts should ideally be implemented in parallel with the democratization of Belaru-sian society and its political life. The topic of the democratization of Be-larus is certainly a separate subject; therefore, we will not touch it, but will only mention the question of the state of affairs in the professional community of historians and a number of other problems.

The professional community of historians in Belarus is split today, in-cluding by the principle of loyalty in relation to the existing political sys-tem. Analyzing Belarusian historiography, historian Sergei Tokt speaks about this split, as there are two fields of historical science, «official» and «informal». In his opinion, «it is hardly possible to consider the tenden-cy of the appearance such parallel worlds in Belarusian historiography as a positive phenomenon».98

For Belarusian historians, the experience of their colleagues on the post-Soviet territory and beyond is important today. Alexei Miller, describing the state of affairs in the professional community of his-torians in Russia, specifies that «in Russia, there is no professional community of historians» because «the culture of professional reviews is destroyed; professional magazines are in a catastrophic condition; there is no significant national award for historians», besides, today «Russian historians have no precise conceptualization of the models of productive behavior both at the level of organizations and at the level of individuals»99.

The tendencies described by Miller are present in Belarus, too. In the 1990s, the historians’ possibility to resist the negative tendencies was supported by the professionalization and internationalization of the historical community, and these two strategies should also be used today, even though there are certain difficulties in the way of their

98 Tokt S. Review of the Belarusian historical periodical press for 2008. http://net.abimperio.net/ru/node/38199 History Test: memory, civil society, and politics in contemporary Russia. http://www.carnegie.ru/events/?fa=2918


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implementation100. Within the framework of these strategies, it is neces-sary to note the EHU’s activity, A. Smolenchuk‘s yearbook «Homo His-toricus», the project «Historical Workshop», publications of historical materials of Belarusian and foreign historians by the ARCHE magazine, attempts at carrying out joint conferences with Belarusian and Lithu-anian historians, the activity of historian H. Sahanovič, who publishes the «Belarusian Historical Review», and other projects.

In the context of the idea of Europeanization, the contents of Be-larusian historiography itself are important, into which new tendencies gradually permeate, even though, again ,the situation here has its speci-ficity. Historian Olga Shutova, speaking about this specificity, defines a number of vital issues: in Belarus «the rapprochement of epistemology and historiography is perceived negatively»; in Belarusian historiogra-phy, a tendency to create the «modernity» concept of history is observed today (within the framework of François Hartog and Jörn Rüsen’s idea about «Régimes d’historicité»), and though, thanks to the efforts of some historians, «the creation of the national concept of history» («master narrative») has lately advanced far forward, this «modernity» concept of history does not dominate yet in historical consciousness, «especially without being supported by the ruling circles»101.

Besides, according to Olga Shutova, in contemporary Belarusian historiography, there is no «post-modernity«, though «there is a grow-ing researching interest to study both gender relations and everyday life«, «but the main thing — recognized stories, which would show the Belarusians not as an object, but the subject of history» are lack-ing In historiography, socio-political subjects dominate today, «mi-cro-level» research has only begun, and the «macro-level narrative» is still not comprehended «historiosophically», «not banalized» (that is, «it is not recognized» by the society itself where Belarusian his-torians work)102. In the 1990s, the «methodological weakness» of Be-larusian historiography (formed during the Soviet epoch)103 becomes

100 Lindner R. Historians and Power: the nation-building process and the politics of memory in Belarus in the 19th — 20th centuries / translated from the German. — St. Petersburg, Nevsky Prospect, 2003. p. 414 and 432.101 Shutova O. Historiography and post-modernity: a question of the identity in the late 20th — early 21st centuries. — Minsk: Publishing Center of the Belarusian State University, 2008. — p. 221–223.102 Ibid., p. 224.103 Lindner R. Historians and Power: the nation-building process and the politics of memory in Belarus in the 19th — 20th centuries / translated from the German. — St. Petersburg, Nevsky Prospect, 2003. p. 480–481.


obvious — it started to gradually surmount its signs of the so-called «derivative discourse», within the framework of which there is the «nationalist and primitive thinking, deeply rooted in the categories and preconditions of Soviet historiography» (the situation typical for many historiographies of the post-Soviet territory).104 A closer inclu-sion of Belarusian historical science in the European space would help solve these problems.

Analyzing the possible strategies of action within the framework of the professional community of historians, aimed at developing the idea of Europeanization, it is also necessary to consider the problem of the correlation between the «national» and the «post-national», the solution of which is a step on the way towards the Europeanization of Belarus. In this context, it is interesting to note Olga Shutova‘s remarks concern-ing the criticism voiced by German historian Rainer Lindner concerning the «national concept of Belarus’ history» that appeared in the 1990s, which offers, as he says, an important, but «rather dark interpretation of the past».

According to O. Shutova, the historians’ choice of the subjects con-nected with nation-building is not casual (though it may seem archaic to the western researcher) because it corresponds with the needs of Belar-us, and therefore Lindner’s words make a «double impression»105. Today in Belarus, we cannot avoid the creation of the «master narrative» be-cause «until we become clear to ourselves», we cannot speak about any development of other topics, including those connected with post-mo-dernity106. Still, these political and other needs should be comprehended critically. The problem described by Olga Shutova and Rainer Lindner can be treated as a problem of the «contemporaneity» of Belarus’ histo-riography, the «contemporaneity» of the «master narrative» that is be-ing created, and this problem can be solved in the context of the idea of the Europeanization of Belarus.

It means that we need the European experience of overcoming the «national«, but not by its destruction (and consequently — «self-coloni-zation«), but by its transformation into post-national forms. While ori-ented towards these «post-national forms», we again face the problem of studying the past, including, above all, the Soviet past.

104 Adams L. Is the post-colonial theory applicable to Central Eurasia? // «Emer-gency Ration«. http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2009/4/am5-pr.html105 Shutova O. Historiography and post-modernity: a question of the identity in the late 20th — early 21st centuries. — Minsk: Publishing Center of the Belarusian State University, 2008. — p. 222.106 Ibid., p. 228.


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The experience of one of the European countries, the Federal Re-public of Germany, which went through the initial stage of denazifi-cation, but then tried to avoid its national-socialist past with the help of «communicative reticence» and to begin its history as «a political organism with the memory of a teenager»107, is illustrative. During the difficult process, West Germany managed nevertheless to become the first country in Europe where, «since the mid-1980s, the critical, post-national orientation of the culture of memory has not belonged only to outcasts, but has been apprehended by the political class», and this «political class» became an adherent of the thesis that «the criti-cal remembrance of the national-socialist past and of the Nazi regime’s barbarities does not undermine the collective identity of the Federal Republic of Germany» and that «it should be included in its normative foundation»108.

According to Helmut König’s description of this situation, «in the world of national polities of the 19th — the first half of the 20th centu-ries, identity originated in the idealized past, ruthlessly erasing all dark stains in it. The national era in the Federal Republic was over when there appeared the self-reflecting memory of the national-socialist bar-barities in the political consciousness of this state, which entered the post-national epoch from the point of view of the development of the culture of memory», and all these have only strengthened identity in Germany109.

The problem of the correlation between the «national» and the «post-national» have been faced not only by the «old» democracies of Europe in its western part, but also «new» democracies in its eastern part — «self-understanding discourse», which appeared there after the disintegration of the socialist bloc, includes an «estimation, a new in-terpretation and revision of history», and there is «a danger of national megalomania»110. In today’s Poland, which is Belarus’ closest neighbor, there are, for example, disputes, whose essence is the opposition be-tween the «national homogeneity» and the «glorification of history»

107 Boroznyak A. Federal Republic of Germany: waves of historical memory // «Emer-gency Ration» 2005, №2–3 (40–41). http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2005/2/boro6.html108 König H. Die Zukunft der Vergangenheit. Der Nationalsozialismus im politi-schen Bewußtsein der Bundesrepublik // «Emergency Ration» 2005, №2–3 (40–41). http://magazines.russ.ru/nz/2005/2/ke11.html109 Ibid.110 Garsztecki S. Actual dimensions of Europe in Central and Eastern Europe — Eu-ropeanization from below?


and a «renewal of negotiations» and an «expansion of prospects»111. Polish historians try to leave the narrow national prospect by the fol-lowing paths: «1) the deepening of prospects (that is «to leave provin-ciality»); 2) comparativistics; 3) the emphasis on studies of phenomena, instead of separate facts of the national past; 4) transboundariness, or immersiveness in the civilizational space»112. A considerable role in the development of this problematic was played by the fact that Poland joined the EU because «it is the EU that can become a correcting fac-tor» as «through its legal and political requirements to democracy, pro-tection of minorities and human rights» it can help «civilize national memories»113.

It means that as, a result of the transition from the national to post-national level, the subjects of Belarusian historiography can become interesting not only for ourselves, and that Belarus would start to «be present» in European history, if said history is focused on studies of phe-nomena whose presence is characteristic of us, but the analysis of which, because of its r importance, goes beyond the borders of Belarus. The idea of the «socialist nation» in its Belarusian variant, mentioned, for example, in this research, can be interesting in the context of the general history of the development of nationalism on the territory of Europe.

Thus, in the context of the idea of Belarus’ Europeanization, it is pos-sible to formulate a number of practical tasks concerning not only the professional community of historians.

One of these tasks is critical reconsideration of our past. It can be-come one of strategies of forming a culture of memory that is not a result of a specific power policy, but the result of society’s critical reflection upon the problem of memory and the preservation of the heteroge-neous space of memory in Belarus. Simultaneously, it will also be a way of overcoming local (in this case, national) restrictions, and, due to the dominant orientation in Europe towards such reflection, our potential openness to external criticism in our overcoming of the past gives us a way to the European space.

Critical reconsideration of the past also presupposes not preserving the situation of «communicative reticence», which allows one to carry out commemorative strategies for the sake of the authorities’ interests. Besides, the absence of critical studies of the past makes it impossible

111 Traba R. Polish disputes over the history in the 21st century // Pro Et Contra, 2009, №3–4, p. 56.112 Ibid., p. 58.113 Garsztecki S. Actual dimensions of Europe in Central and Eastern Europe — Eu-ropeanization from below?


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to create any model of identity in Belarus focused not only on inter-nal use. Europe’s experience (and not only Europe’s) testifies to the instability of such «closed» models of identity and of such an attitude toward the past114.

Also, it is necessary to develop the problematic of post-colonial re-searches and researches of the «idea of the Other» in Belarus in order to get rid of the aforementioned specific «structure of referentiality», whose preservation in today‘s form will only preserve the problem of «self-colonizing» Belarusian culture. The attempts of our direct and non-critical identification with «Europe» can lead us to the «absence» of any historical events or «phenomena» in our history, but in case we comprehend and correct our perception of this erroneous structure of referentiality, we can overcome this «absence«, or, at least, try to explain it. Still, the purpose of these explanations should be not the creation of a precarious foothold for our «closed» national identity focused on the past and built on the basis of leveling all problems, but reflection upon overcoming these problems and the creation of more «open» (including to the «Other«) identity models.

Besides, it is possible to try to resist the homogenizing model of iden-tity, created today in Belarus by power discourse, with the help of his-torical researches. In Belarus’ history of the past and the present, there are enough «groups» which have not received yet their recognition, and revealing these groups would help not only the process of Belarusian society’s internal decolonization, but would also create a necessary basis for the prevention of any attempts of the homogenization of models of identity, which are carried out by means of violence.

One more practical task is to create «memory places» and to establish other historical phenomena, which would be focused on the European and «transnational» contents. In this sense, we cannot avoid a certain revision of our history and collective memory, within the framework of which it will be necessary to analyze the experience of World War II and other events that include two dimensions, local (Belarusian) and European. The revision of history should include the analysis of «phenomena» instead of «separate facts of the national past». In this sense, studies of events whose treatment is still a problem for Belarusian society seem interest-ing. Almost all topics specified in Tatiana Ostrovskaya’s research as «the

114 Groppo B. What to do with the «dark» historical past. Reflections upon memory, impunity, and justice while passing from dictatorship to democracy. http://www.polit.ru/lectures/2005/02/25/groppo.html


most significant fields of the struggle for identity»115, e.g. the Belarusian lands in the structure of the Russian Empire, the 1864 revolt, the Belaru-sian People’s Republic of 1918, etc., include the Belarusian and European dimensions.

The complete orientation towards reflectivity will make the Belaru-sian situation contemporary, because it is reflectivity that has become one of the most essential traits of the modern era116. Today’s disputes over the way the Belarusian nation is developing, whether it is formed or not, how to solve the contradictions between the post-national pros-pect and the national forms which have developed in Belarus, can only be solved with the help of an orientation towards critical reflection. In this sense, the Europeanization of Belarus should be perceived today not only as a possible political project, but also as the already existing pos-sibility of analyzing the Belarusian situation in the European context, carried out not «for the sake of Europe», but for our own sake.

115 Ostrovskaya Т. The Genealogy of historical memory in Belarus in the context of educational practices. http://www.belinstitute.eu/images/doc-pdf/sa012010ru.pdf, p. 23116 Compare to the reflection upon the continuing transformation of modernity as the core of contemporary Europe’s self-conceptualization published in Section 2 of this book.

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The significance of the idea of «central Europe» and of the imperial legacy for Europeanization of Belarusalaksiej Łastoũski

Since its birth, the idea of Central Europe has existed an on and off... There is a Central Europe. There is no Central Europe. Is it Middle or Central Europe? Where are its borders? Is it dead or is it still alive? «Does Central Europe exist?» — was the title of one of the first mani-festos of this region, written by George Konrad in 1986. «Has Central Europe died?» asked Maria Todorova, one of the most ardent critics of this romantic myth, in 2000. Nobody can be sure it really exists, but this does not diminish the attractiveness and allure of the idea. If we discuss Central Europe, we enter into a gray area of uncertainty, where regulations and instructions are not possible, but where numerous re-flections and poetic metaphors exist. Even apologists and prophets of Central Europe talk about it with a note of doubt in their voice, and this intonation is hardly reminiscent of missionaries’ sermons and political leaders’ speeches.

Reviving the idea of Central Europe, we will not present it as another salutary recipe for regional cooperation. This is a beautiful construc-tion, but our world is in the process of freeing itself of such enchanting illusions, , and aesthetic values have no chance against rational estima-tions and skillful calculations. However, this idea has already changed the socio-political reality once; let’s not deprive it entirely of its opportu-nity to do so once again. If our western and northern neighbors have no doubts about Europeanness — and this acknowledgement is entirely es-tablished — then Belarus does not even consider the mission of search-ing for its own place. The fact that it cannot define itself on a symbolical world map seems to be the bitter verdict of destiny. Here, the hesitant, delicate, and wiggly myth of Central Europe seems to be the most suit-able for our country, and one would like to believe that this myth does have some bosomed ways and possibilities that will help our country get out of the quagmire of oppression and detachment.


I shall consider, first of all, Central Europe, even though today it may seem trying and impractical. Still, I do not want to turn this reincar-nation of the myth into a standard paraphrase of Central European in-tellectuals’ brilliant intuitions, heated disputes, and bitter disappoint-ments. Behind the appearance of this retrospective view, there is a desire to make current and practically use the archive of thoughts, actions, and destinies in this text. The integrity of this story will be built with the help of a leitmotif which will support all thoughts and words. It is a question of the idea of the Empire, whose majestically (and sometimes terribly) casts into shadow conversations about the heritage and the future of the nations of Central Europe.

1. Central Europe’s birth at the intersection of interests

We shall have to start with some background information. It is noteworthy that the roots of contemporary political initiatives to unite European states and to create a common cultural-political space date back to the 19th — 20th centuries, when romantic plans to unite Europe in an expansionary way (e.g. Napoleon’s hopes) lost their former rele-vance and when the militaristic hints of the future murderous collision in the First World War started to be felt threateningly in the air.

Simultaneously, there appeared another prospect for Europe’s regional conceptualization. The idea of Middle (or Central) Europe became a political dream, thought it was an unattainable ideal at a time when the traditional European monarchies were being destroyed and swept away by the small national states that appeared as a result of the Treaty of Versailles.

The first formulation1 of this idea stems from a proposal to create a region called Mitteleuropa, suggested in 1915 by German liberal Fried-rich Naumann. According to him, this region should have united Germa-ny and Austria-Hungary with many other peripheral states which were located between the English-French western alliance and the Russian Empire. It is this characteristic of «in-between»-ness that will becomes the fate and tragedy of all the other conceptualizations of Central Europe which will be created during this century. «Besides the borders that can-not be defined unequivocally, the immanent feature of Central Europe is

1 In this case, various intuitions and proposals which appeared in this region in the 19th century are not considered, as they were not yet conceptualized and were included in the genesis of the idea of Central Europe retrospectively.

153The significance of The idea of «cenTral europe» and of The imperial legacy...Alaksiej Łastoũski

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its state of being «in-between»2. Or, according to Belarusian philosopher Ihar Babkoũ’s metaphoric definition, «Between Western Europe and Rus-sia. Between communism and the free world. Between purely Latin and purely Byzantian influences. This «in-between»-ness itself is constantly splitting and fractionizing until it disappears in its own autochthonous illusoriness»3.

According to Naumann, Mitteleuropa did not leave much room for the small states, which were destined to disappear under the weight of the international industry, big-time politics, and German cultural domi-nation. In his entirely evolutionary paradigm, Naumann expected the large interstate formations to become stronger and more effective under the conditions of the cutthroat political and economic competition. The central location of Germany in the region was due to its economic pow-er and the appeal of its culture, which had to draw the «small nations» into the orbit of Mitteleuropa. Naumann tried to historically prove his concept by referring to the heritage of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. The book outlining this project became a bestseller in military Germany at once, but in other countries it did not cause any special agitation. Thomas Mann remarked quite reasonably that Nau-mann’s suggestions were just a reincarnation of the idea of Great Germa-ny. As a result, the «first Central European project was aimed at creating a mighty German empire»4, but in a liberal form. In the 1930s — 40s, the slogan of Mitteleuropa was appropriated by the Third Reich, where it was changed considerably under the influences of its racial theories and was included in the more ambitious plans of German geopolitics aimed at establishing control over the European continent.

Similar ideas started to blossom in the tottering Austro-Hungarian Empire as well. Among the most considerable actors in Central Europe, where Austria was to play the role of a spiritual center, was a writer named Hugo von Hofmannsthal. By launching cultural initiatives (the Salzburg Festival), he tried to revive the German (Bavarian-Austrian) spirit that, in his opinion, would lead at last to a conservative revolution and the foundation of a new Reich5.

2 Buchowski М., Kolbon I. From Mitteleuropa to Central Europe: essay of the idea development // Perekrestki — №3–4/2006. — p. 113.3 Babkoũ I. Central Europe — new modernity // Explanations of ru(i)nes. — Minsk, 2005. — p. 90.4 Buchowski М., Kolbon I. From Mitteleuropa to Central Europe: an essay on the idea’s development // Perekrestki — №3–4/2006. — p. 117.5 Cornis-Pope M, Neubauer J. General introduction // History of Literary Cultures in East-Central Europe. Vol. 1. — P. 3.


Still, the bloody storm of one more World War and the communist invasion of the Eastern European countries made the plans for the re-organization of this region with German cultural and political influence entirely irrelevant, while the concept itself acquired the negative con-notations of aggressive German expansionism and its thirst for cultural-political domination.

The idea of Central Europe appeared again in the intellectual discourse of the 1980s. The beginning of this new understanding was noted in Czesław Miłosz’s Harvard lectures in 1981/82 and the famous essay «The Tragedy of Central Europe» by Milan Kundera. This idea was very soon caught up by numerous intellectuals on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Central Europe was considered a border zone between the East and the West, with its own culture and traditions. The vagueness of its exact geographical borders, which some authors understand as a fundamen-tal weakness of this concept, was indicative of its pre-national ethnic existence, which did not demand any exact borders of a compact nation. According to C. Miłosz, if somebody would like to define the borders of this region on a map, they would have to be guided by abstract lines, which are sometimes more stable than the state borders. These lines connect baroque Vilnia (Vilnius) with baroque Prague and medieval-renaissance Dubrovnik. They are based on outlined ways of thinking and feeling which cultivate irony as a response to self-pity, skepticism concerning the Marxist philosophy of history, and a pessimistic vision of the future, but also — solidarity and utopianism6. Or, in Kundera’s version, «Central Europe therefore cannot be defined and determined by political frontiers (which are inauthentic, always imposed by inva-sions, conquests, and occupations), but by the great common situa-tions that reassemble peoples, regroup them in ever new ways along the imaginary and ever-changing boundaries that mark a realm inhab-ited by the same memories, the same problems and conflicts, the same common tradition.»7. Summing up the course of the 1980s discussions, Göran Therborn remarks that they were in large part dedicated to at-tempts to show that Central Europe is something absolutely different from Eastern Europe, but, simultaneously, not identical with Western Europe. The Swedish sociologist noted that the only positive thing about Central Europe is its multiculturalism in modern times»8.

6 Miłosz Cz. O naszej Europie // «EUROPA». Numer 21/2004-08-25.7 M. Kundera. The Tragedy of Central Europe. // URL: http://www.euroculture.upol.cz/dokumenty/sylaby/Kundera_Tragedy_(18).pdf.8 G. Therborn. Multiculturalism and Central-Eastern Europe in European moder-nity // Perekrestki. — 2006. №3–4. — p. 145.

http://www.euroculture.upol.cz/dokumenty/sylaby/Kundera_Tragedy_(18).pdf

http://www.euroculture.upol.cz/dokumenty/sylaby/Kundera_Tragedy_(18).pdf


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According to Norman Davies, Central Europe cannot be defined through the political similarities or through any economic characteristics; in his understanding, this region creates a potential «empire of spirit»9.

2. Imperial nostalgia as a leitmotif of Central Europe

It is very important to stress that all versions of Central Europe appeared as an appeal to the heritage of early modern monarchic states — first of all, the Habsburg Empire, which Kundera considered a failed attempt at creating multiculturalism and for which he blamed German nationalism.

For George Konrad, the very dream of Central Europe brought to mind the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the Belle Époque. The Central Eu-ropean spirit, as he wrote, is an aesthetic worldview that presupposes diversity and multilingualism; it is a strategy that allows one to under-stand even a quick enemy. The Central European spirit accepts plurality as a value; it is beyond the limits of nationality. Here, it is essential that George Konrad defended the «anti-politics» strategy, the protection of civil society from politics10. Of course, this anti-politics stance in such an understanding does not mean an individual’s separation from problems of the public-political life, but brings to mind more likely an intellectual claim to «metapolitics», the creation and dissemination of discourses which would undermine hegemonistic pictures of the social reality and would influence reality by ideologically changing the cultural space. Such a «metapolitical» approach created the possibility of considering Central Europe not as a real state block on a political map (which it had never been), but as a sui generis form of utopia, accompanied by a sort of nos-talgia — a nostalgia, quite probably, for the Central European Empire.

Among the semantic polysemy and the plurality of concepts of Cen-tral Europe, there is still a vivid tendency to search for the prehistory of the common region formation not just in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As Lonnie R. Johnson remarks, «the historical precedents for Central Europe were nostalgically transfigured multinational em-pires — the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the north and the Habsburg Empire in the south»11.

9 Quoted according to: Tyška A. The cultural space of the Center of Europe // To be or not to be a Central European. — Minsk, 2000. — p. 365.10 Quoted according to: Le Rider J. Mitteleuropa as a lieu de memoire // Cultural Memory Studies. — Berlin — New York, 2008. — P. 40.11 Johnson L. Central Europe. Enemies, Neighbors, Friends. — New York — Oxford, 1996. — P. 267.


For the last two decades, the intellectual tendency to consider the re-gion of Central Europe as the modern countries that used to be united as one state — the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, — has been be-coming more and more current. Nowadays, this «Jagiellonian» version of Central Europe is actively supported by many Polish intellectuals, who consider this early-modern state a brightly idealized monarchy of «equal» peacefully coexisting nations with cultural pluralism and religious tolerance. However, it is important to note that this idealiza-tion simply follows the intellectual lines which allow one to correlate the heritage of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with the idea of Central Europe, in which Jacques Le Rider specifies two basic features: first, a cultural and linguistic plurality and, second, a complexity of the structuration of this plurality without the «holistic» temptation of a homogeneous society which nationalism usually yields to12.

Let’s recall one more line, which connects Central Europe and the impe-rial heritage of this region. Padraic Kenney, in his book «Carnival of Revo-lutions» defines the borders of Central Europe as follows: «is a region with a common past in Western13 empires (the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Kingdom of Poland, and the Kingdom of Prussia)»14. It is surprising that, if there are such borders, that Lviv is there, but that there are no Baltic states, Belarus, or Western Ukraine (not only Galicia [Halychyna]), which were a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The author considers one more unifying feature of this region besides the imperial past: the estab-lished traditions of non-violent political resistance which led to the «vel-vet character» of the revolutions of 1989, much different from the bloody fall of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s regime in Romania and the wars in Bosnia and Croatia (though, again, these lands had a «Habsburg» past).

Sometimes this list of the empires, which created the multicultur-al space of Central Europe, also includes the Ottoman Empire, but modern research considers the main feature of the policy empires to be their denial of homogenization: «the dynastic empires of this region — the Houses of the Ottomans, Habsburgs, Romanovs, and Hohenzollerns — had no intentions to legally and culturally unify the territories they ruled until they were challenged by competitive local elites or national movements»15. In particular, the Habsburg Empire

12 Le Rider J. Mitteleuropa as a lieu de memoire // Cultural Memory Studies. — Berlin — New York, 2008. — P. 43.13 Italics mine — А. Ł.14 Kenney P. Carnival of Revolutions. Central Europe 1989. — Princeton, 2003. — P. 3.15 G. Therborn. Multiculturalism and Central-Eastern Europe in European moder-nity // Perekrestki. — 2006. №3–4. — p. 148.


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used to be described as a «prison of peoples» in the historiography and political discourse of the countries that emerged after its disinte-gration. However, recently, the historians who study the national as-pects of empires and the development of national ideas remark that the Danube Monarchy was not a «prison», but rather the «incubator» of today’s nations16.

3. Returning to Europe, or the death of Central Europe

From this overview of the history of defining the region, let us return to the present day. Despite the «anti-politics» of the 1980s, the idea of Central Europe was not simply a «retrospective utopia», but also had a clear political dimension. At that time, the countries in this region were included in the zone of Soviet influence, and communist power was established there. Kundera localized the countries of Central Europe as the ones that are geographically in the center, but whose culture be-longs to the West, while their political regime — to the East. Kundera accused the West of allowing a part (a very valuable part, the cultural heart) to be destroyed by Soviet domination. Alexei Miller notes that the image of the «stolen West» refers to Mircea Eliade’s bitter words said back in 1952, «These cultures are on the verge of disappearance. Doesn’t Europe feel the amputation of a part of its own body? After all, these are all European countries, and all these peoples belong to the Eu-ropean community»17. Thus, the second version of the idea of Central Europe, formulated during the last decade of communist domination, defined communism as a deadly threat to the «small nations» of Eu-rope and called for opposition to the unifying tendencies in culture that would result in the creation of a shared socialist culture. «The Central European discourse was an enticing proposal for the national identity inscribed in the European context and, simultaneously, separated viv-idly from the Soviet Union».18

Still, it was Kundera’s essay, addressed above all to the western reader, that provoked strong discussions and certainly achieved its goal — the West provided its serious support to the East European countries during

16 Cetnarowicz A. The Forging of Modern National Identity // East-Central Europe in European History. Themes & Debates. — Lublin, 2009. — P. 255.17 Quoted according to: Miller A. I. The topic of Central Europe: history, modern discourses and Russia’s place in them // NLO. 2001. — №52. URL: http://magazines.russ.ru/nlo/2001/52/mill.html.18 Hnatiuk O. Farewell to the empire. — Кyiv, 2004. — p. 274.


the series of «velvet revolutions». And the «myth about a special Cen-tral European cultural status has allowed them to reject communism as «fremd culture»19. As Ukrainian researcher Elena Betliy remarks, the idea of Central Europe became a successful metaphor for a political and spiritual return to Europe. «Besides, it became a mechanism through which Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary fixed between Germany and Russia, became disconnected from the East and integrat-ed into the EU: they represented Russia as the Other and themselves — Central Europe — as a constitutive identity, without which the European world cannot be whole. It also meant that the Central European concept defeated the East European one, whose shade continued to hang over the region»20.

It is obvious that such an emancipatory message of returning to west-ern civilization was effectively used in the early 1990s, when it served as the highest justification for including the countries of this region (in a limited, Vyšehrad version) in the integration processes of the European Union. Such use of the idea as a tool eventually resulted in an obvious crisis in Central Europe. The modern Polish propagandist of this idea, Krzysztof Czyżewski, states that «the year 1989 saw the paradoxical crash of the idea of Central Europe and that of the intellectual formation it used to serve»21. The countries where this idea was born — the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary — successfuly joined the pan-European space, and their need of Central Europe as a practical-political mytheme (mythologeme) disappeared.

However, the potential of European emancipation, which is present in the idea of Central Europe, worked only partially, while the prac-tices of inclusion and exclusion did not disappear but simply acquired a new configuration. The Visegrad Group integrated into the Euro-pean Union (which again raised questions about the further value of the idea of Central Europe), while the former countries of the Soviet Union found themselves in a situation structurally similar to the time of the Cold War: Europe «betrayed them again». This period of trans-formations in the region coincided with the frustration of intellectuals, who, despite of their numerous attempts and high relevancy during the withdrawal from the Soviet system (e.g. it is possible to recall Václav

19 Staniškis J. Modernization of the periphery: do we use this chance? // Perekrestki. 2005 №3–4. — p. 67.20 Betliy O. Regional identity as an indicator of integration processes: the example of Ukraine // Geopolitical transformations in Eurasia: a point of view from Kyiv and Seoul. — Кyiv, 2008. — p. 46.21 Quoted according to: Hnatiuk O. Farewell to the empire. — Кyiv, 2004. — p. 275.


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Havel’s presidency), happened to occupy peripheral positions in the new political system, and after a short success were again pushed aside from the decision-making process. After this bright and short period of intellectuals’ participation in politics, which helped to delegitimize the language of the communist elite, somewhere since the middle of 1990s, a new era began. As András Bozóki demonstrates, using Hun-gary as an example, «the rhetoric of «pragmatism» now took center stage — the language of modernization, the discourse of consolida-tion. The rhetoric of action lost its former moral fervor or constitu-tional / foundational orientation and came to suggest a sort of «back to business» attitude. Intellectuals in humanities who had been active in the cultural and political battles of the regime change now with-drew from the front line. The «moralistic» intellectual «politocracy» has been replaced by the «amoral» professional of the «status quo»»22.

Central Europe is once again turning into the dream of intellectu-als, but it is becoming more and more in-demand on the periphery, in particular in the East23 — in Belarus and Ukraine (in Lithuania, it has experienced essential changes — we shall speak about them later). The pragmatic motives, which have lost their role for the Vyšehrad coun-tries — above all, the isolation from Moscow and recognition of «Eu-ropeanness» — still remain important and current for these countries.

Nevertheless, in the entire region, after the 1990s, the idea of Central Europe has been in an obvious crisis. In such conditions, the motives which were a secondary in the initial articulation of Central Europe find a new form and meaning.

4. An Imperial Renaissance in the modern world

If in the 1980s for Kundera the Habsburg Empire was an unsuccess-ful and repressive project, then there appeared another line of thought founded by Konrád, who saw the prototype of Central Europe in this empire. The heritage of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was re-examined again in post-communist contexts, and the «Habsburg model» was considered as an effective alternative for the organization of internation-

22 Bozóki A. Rhetoric of Action: The Language of the Regime Change in Hungary // Intellectuals and Politics in Central Europe. Ed. by A. Bozóki. — Budapest, 2004. — P. 275.23 The South, namely the Balkans, became another considerable periphery, but within the scope of this article the Balkan interpretations of Central Europe will not be reviewed.


al cooperation and joint initiatives, «have drawn their inspiration pre-cisely within its memory. As many observers have noted, the Habsburg legacy, especially in the early years of the transition, came to represent all that was true, good, beautiful and, above all, European»24. However, today’s Austria itself is practically excluded from a symbolical map of Central Europe. «The place of Austria in Central European debates was occupied by a mythologized Austria-Hungary, a role that is similar to the one played in Poland by the multiethnic, tolerant Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth»25.

The displeasure of intellectual at a national state (where they occupy the role of enlighteners who work to legitimize the authorities), as well as the bureaucratization and pragmatization of the European Union, compels them to search for other models of the state tool, ones more corresponding to their ideals.

Habitual patterns of a progressive approach to history as an evolution-ary movement (from a czardom of slavery and submission to a republic, democracy, and freedom) are washed away and lose their relevance. The idealization of the historical past of pre-modern states coincides with other processes that are characteristic of the historical and cultural de-velopment of a region. We speak about minorities returning to the iden-tity policy (and, accordingly, the revived problem of minorities needs to be solved intellectually and politically) and about the triumphal proces-sion of the historical memory (which has its unattractive moments as well — bloody conflicts made current, e.g. Polish-Ukrainian collisions, and an increasing commoditization of history).

The national state is criticized particularly intensively from the op-posite sides of political thought. Liberal intellectuals criticize national-ism for its destruction of distinctions inside society and its aspiration to debase and stigmatize other nations; as an alternative, cosmopoli-tan society is proposed — it must be built on the acknowledgement of distinctions26. It may seem paradoxical, but the accusations of the Eu-ropean «new right» against the national state are practically identical — it is also accused of being a unification project, but as a viable alternative they propose to return to the idea of the Empire: «To create itself, Europe needs the unification of political decisions. However, this unity cannot be built on the national Jacobin model unless, of course, we would like

24 Bielasiewicz L. Another Europe: remembering Habsburg Galicja // Cultural Ge-ographies. 2003. #10. — P. 23.25 Hnatiuk O. Farewell to the empire. — Кyiv, 2004. — p. 274.26 Beck U. Understanding the Real Europe: A Cosmopolitan Vision // The Sage Handbook of European Studies. Ed. By C. Rumford. — London, 2009. — P. 602–619.


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to destroy the richness and variety of all European components. Nor will it be the result of an economic supra-nation either of which the techno-crats from Brussels dream. Europe can create itself only in the form of a federal model, but such a model, which acts as the engine of the idea, project, principle, i.e. as a result — the imperial model.

Such a model will make it possible to solve problems of regional cul-tures, ethnic minorities, and local autonomies that do not find a true solution within the scope of the state nation»27.

These accusations against the national state as a meaning-creating form go in parallel with the establishment of a new trend in modern historiography — the formation of a «new imperial history». Within the scope of this paradigm, the teleology of world history development as a transition from an empire to a national state is challenged. Instead, an approach where history recounts big political formations, which are not based on one national group, is offered28. «Nostalgia for empires seem particularly in tune with the Zeitgeist of Western societies. Nostalgic memories of defunct empires are fashionable not only in the social sci-ences. Empires are being manifoldly evoked in diverse cultural practices as well as in political arenas»29. The empire is reconsidered as a type of state arrangement characterized by the principle of a «transcendental or-der, which was embodied in reality as a unity in multidimensionality»30. And it appears that the empire allowed a cultural and social diversity and was a much less repressive institution than a national state, which demands a cultural unification according to one canon. As American sociologist Craig Calhoun says, even though he warns that his words can seem shocking for modern listeners, «large empires have been more tolerant of internal diversity than have nation-states. Empires (and their aftermaths) as much as geography that defined «Central Europe» as something other than simply Europe»31.

27 De Benois А. Idea of the Empire // Druvis. №2. 2008. — p. 212–213.28 The Challenge and Serendipity of Writing World History through the Prism of Empire. Interview with Jane Burbank and Frederick Cooper // Ab Imperio. 2010. №2. — P. 23.29 Baskar B. Ambivalent Dealings with an Imperial Past: The Habsburg Legacy and New Nationhood in Ex-Yugoslavia. — P.1. www.theslovenian.com/articles/baskar.pdf.30 Ukolova V. N. Empire as the «sense» of the historical space: an attempt at a politological analysis // Power, society, individual in medieval Europe. Edited by N. A. Khachaturyan. — Moscow, 2008. — p.24.31 Calhoun C. The Virtues of Inconsistency: Identity and Plurality in the Conceptu-alization of Europe // Constructing Europe’s Identity. The External Dimension. — London, 2001. — P. 37.


The «empire» as a categorical framework is also offered for the de-scription of the character of the new world order of globalization as a universal order that does not know restrictions32. Recently, those who interpret the essence of the European Union also often address the con-cept of the «empire», thus further promoting the rehabilitation of this concept. «Today many historians and political scientists consider it as a successful example of cohabitation of many nations within a single state, which can teach valuable lessons for present and future architects of a united Europe»33. Though, according to a venomous remark by Ukrai-nian writer Yuriy Andrukhovich, the European Union looks like «a sui generis psychological-compensatory project: a union of post-imperial losers, each of whom did not manage to become a super-state separate-ly... Their empires failed to survive, but they still longed for global domi-nation — that’s why they united with various Luxembourgs»34.

The rehabilitation of imperial history is accompanied by the addition of imperial luster to state formations which did not have such a status be-fore — e.g. the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The re-interpretation of history is being carried out not according to the elaborated way of nationalizing the character of these states, but by searching for and reconstructing those feature, which add value to the historical heritage of these states and which are projected into the present: tolerance, democracy, freedom. The absence of abso-lutist national features is combined with the accentuation of peaceful coexistence and the cooperation of different ethnic and religious groups.

5. GDL: the Great Empire of a small nation

The Lithuanians’ «privatization» of the legacy of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) has helped the young Lithuanian state form a complete and steady historical memory and reach their society’s consolidation on the basis of ethnic nationalism. But the farther they go, the more local intellectuals criticize this successful nationalistic project. As Leonidas Donskis says, «aggressively defensive, exclusionist, victimised, and con-

32 Hardt М., Negri A. Empire. — Moscow, 2004.33 Norkus Z. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Retrospective of Comparative Historical Sociology of Empires // World Political Science Review. 2007. Volume 3, Issue 4. Article 4. — P. 1.34 Andrukhovich Y. Europe has not died yet // Europe — the past and the future. Visions and revisions. Materials of the international conference in memoriam of Jerzy Giedroyc. — Кyiv, 2009. — p. 35–36.


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stantly searching for internal and external enemies, Lithuanian national-ism is not yet capable of theoretically reflecting upon itself. In present-day Lithuania, nationalism is either perceived as merely the cultivation of the collective self, or is described pejoratively as another term for xeno-phobia and the cultivation of hatred»35. While there is such an absence of theoretical reflections and analytical articulations, the Lithuanian public space is oversaturated with aggressive remarks, which leads to a situation in which, according to Tomas Venclova’s expression, which has become famous, the intellectuals start to «suffocate» there36. Even though nation-alism remains the key concept for modern Lithuanian emancipation, it does not solve the problem of a combination of the old ideal of multicul-tural Lithuania and the criteria of modern European democracy. Accord-ingly, there remains the task of reconsidering the modern institutional frameworks and discourse practices of the national state, where the ideals of nationalism and multiculturalism could be combined.

In such a situation, one of the strong and non-standard steps was to reconsider the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as an imperial state — in full conformity with new tendencies of humanitarian thought — as a big political formation «that manages diversity» The beginning of such an understanding of the Lithuanian state is present in the work of Ameri-can scientist Stephen Rowell, published in 1994, who said the GDL was a «pagan empire«. In his work, the empire is defined mainly by a ter-ritorial criterion (the size of the state), and the taboo on the use of this word in relation to the Lithuanian state was removed37. One of the most authoritative Lithuanian historians, Alfredas Bumblauskas, also writes about the correctness of the use of imperial categories in the history of the GDL, saying that «during Vitaũt’s rule, Lithuania was very close to the type of the state which could be called an empire»38. Jonas Laurinavičius describes the GDL in a way typical of the modern ap-proach to the new imperial history, where the empire is understood as a political organization that unites different ethnic and cultural forms, «One of the most essential distinctive features of the political and cul-tural life of this state was the religious, linguistic, and cultural diver-sity. At first, the coexistence of separate segments under the aegis of the priority of common statehood and a common monarch and their

35 Donskis L. Identity and Freedom. Mapping nationalism and social criticism in twentieth-century Lithuania. — London and New York, 2002. — P. 29. 36 http://arche.by/by/29/10/3089/Я-задыхаюся.htm37 Rowell S.C. Lithuania Ascending: A Pagan Empire within East-Central Europe. 1295–1345. — Cambridge, 1994.38 Bumblauskas A. Senosios Lietuvos istorija 1009–1795. — Vilnius, 2005. — P. 164.


wide autonomy»39. The author tries to find prospects for the present day in the ethnic affinity which became the basis for the formation of the common state. Still, he thinks, a reconstruction of «old Lithuania» in the form of the GDL is impossible now, but for the «descendants of the old Baltic tribes» there are still tasks — reconstructing com-mon accords, searching for a model of coexistence, and defining mu-tual coordinates: both in the diachronic (historical) and synchronous (present) plans.

The most fruitful and successful (including at the level of interna-tional recognition) attempt to describe the GDL as an empire belongs to Lithuanian sociologist Zenonas Norkus. In his work, based on mod-ern achievements in the comparative sociology of empires, he suggests considering the Grand Duchy of Lithuania during the period prior to the Lublin Union in 1569 as an imperial state. His arguments are as follows:

1) Starting with the rule of Alhierd, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the largest in terms of territory in Europe;

2) The GDL used an aggressive and expansionary foreign policy, and the rulers of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had entirely «imperial» as-pirations;

3) The GDL was a multiethnic state which, nevertheless, had a stable ethnic core (approximately the territory of Aukštaitija) which can be identified as the mother country;

4) The territorial structure of the state had all structural elements of a typical empire: besides the mother country, there were peripheral ter-ritories under indirect political management;

5) Like the «prototype» of all empires — the Roman Empire, which established the pax romana on its territories, the GDL also guaranteed its pax lituanica over a wide territory, protecting trade routes and not allowing any political anarchy.

It is interesting that the empire of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, ac-cording to Norkus, has direct ties with the present: «the imperial char-acter of the GDL and its approximation to an ideal type of «primary empire» is best revealed by its ability to cause the sense of nostalgia in the hearts of its descendants and quarrels about to whom it does «really belong»»40.

39 Laurinavičius J. «Old Lithuania» as the reason of the civilizational identity of modern Belarusians and Lithuanians // Druvis. №2. 2008. — p. 133.40 Norkus Z. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Retrospective of Comparative Historical Sociology of Empires // World Political Science Review. 2007. Volume 3, Issue 4. Article 4. — P. 33.


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Gintaras Beresnevičius also presents the «pagan empire» as a geopo-litical recipe for modern Lithuania, though here as well the greatness of ancient times is mediated through the modus of nostalgia: «Turns of his-tory or destiny threw us from one condition to another, but it did not change the foundation — we are a nation created through the imperial rule. Therefore, the Crimea, the Ukrainian steppes, Kyiv, Novgorod and Smolensk, the Black Sea and Courland are the territories with which our thoughts, ideological stereotypes, and models of real activity are in-tertwined. Our home is here. Actually — «was», but it does not make our nostalgia less strong»41. The Lithuanian empire is depicted by him as «soft» and tolerant, whose expansion took place thanks to its attrac-tiveness for potential «partners», while the result was the creation of a multinational state where various languages were spoken and different religions peacefully coexisted. Gintaras Beresnevičius also sees in mod-ern geopolitical processes a reconstruction of this model of peaceful co-existence of nations and religions, which was first embodied in the Lithu-anian empire, and then — in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Thus, the imperial history does not disappear, but is again personified in another form.

Behind these reflections about the imperial essence of Lithuania, the discourse of Central Europe is in the shadows, as it is not so actively used by Lithuanian intellectuals, though the emancipative potential of Central Europe, which would allow the European essence of the coun-try to be acknowledged, is quite clearly recognized in Lithuania. Thus, the aforementioned Alfredas Bumblauskas uses Lithuania’s inclusion in Central Europe to prove its «European» character, which is opposed to the eastern civilization that is obviously equated with Russia: «Lithu-ania belongs to Central Europe from the point of view of its civilization. Unlike Eastern Europe, since the Middle Ages individual peasant farms rather than communities were formed here. A civil society rather than an Eastern despotism was rising; Catholicism and a Western cultural orientation predominated over Orthodoxy and Byzantine civilization»42. It is clear that something so historically European should now belong to the European Union.

41 Beresnevičius G. The Allure of the Lithuanian empire // Druvis. №2. 2008. — p. 217.42 Bumblauskas A. Glimpses of Lithuanian History // Lithuanian Philosophy. Per-sons and Ideas. Ed. By J. Baranova. — Washington, 2000. — P. 21.


6. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth between the Empire and the Republic

If the «imperial» topic is widely discussed in Lithuanian historiog-raphy and public discourse, then in Poland work concerning the past of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in such categories is practi-cally not used. One of the preconditions for such a position can be con-sidered the historical trauma of the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by the three neighboring empires and the further in-tense struggle for Polish statehood, which occurred under the condi-tion of an imperial integration policy43. The fixed stereotype of Poland as a victim of a plot by powerful empires does not spur on the use of this term for defining their «own» state, though western scientists, as is obvious from the aforementioned quotations, pay little attention to the fact.44

Also, it is necessary to remark that Polish historians more actively use the term «East Central Europe», which is close enough to «Central Europe» to be considered a synonymous definition.

The term «East Central Europe» was coined in 1950 by Polish emi-gration historian Oscar Halecki45 who used this terminological innova-tion to protest intellectually against the expansion of «Eastern Europe», which at that time was associated with the zone of Soviet domination46. Halecki wanted the western reader to understand that the lands be-tween Germany and Russia are not just a «blank space», but the border of western civilization, where there are many nations with democratic traditions and a western cultural heritage which has also contributed to the development of western civilization. The Soviet domination in this region, accordingly, was considered tyrannical and absolutely alien to the historical traditions of the countries of East Central Europe. There are obvious parallels with the ideological messages which were in Kun-dera’s conception of Central Europe. Like the article «The Tragedy of Central Europe», Halecki’s work was positively accepted in the West as well. «Halecki´s concept of Eas-Central Europe was relatively quickly

43 It is necessary to note that, at the moment of Rzeczpospolita’s partitions, the Hohenzollerns’ state was still a kingdom and became an empire only in 1871.44 Walicki A. Naród. Nacjonalizm. Patriotyzm. — Kraków, 2009. — 15.45 Halecki O. Borderlands of Western Civilization. A History of East Central Eu-rope. Second Edition. — Fordham University, 1980 (the first edition — 1950).46 Halecki said that it was necessary to specify the definition of «Central Europe» in order to distinguish it from the western part of this region, which he defined as a German-speaking one.


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positively acknowledged by Anglo-Saxon historiography and political science and it spread very fast from this influent source to other coun-tries and scientific communities»47.

Robert Traba defines the following basic features of the history of this region for the last two centuries:

1) War metastasis, i.e. the specific experience of the two world wars marked, on the one hand, by the positive p the appearance of modern national states, but on the other hand — by the tragedy of occupation (Soviet and German) and the Holocaust;

2) Discontinuity of historical processes, i.e. the absence of statehood in the 19th century, changes of borders, and compulsory resettlements on an unprecedented scale in the 20th century;

3) Hybridism, i.e. the coexistence of a condensed mosaic of ethnic and national groups in a rather small space;

4) 50-year experience with communism / real socialism48.Halecki’s ideas were adopted by one more well-known Polish histo-

rian, Jerzy Kłoczowski, who created the Institute of East Central Europe in Lublin, which is to reevaluate the historiography of the Polish-Lith-uanian Commonwealth, which is understood as a part of the common past of Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Belarus. It is necessary to note an interesting initiative of this Institute to prepare and publish the «nation-al» histories of these countries in conformity with declared approaches, which were carried out in the Polish language. Thus, the synthetic works on the history of Belarus were published by the Belarusian historians Hienadź Sahanovič and Zachar Šybieka; they were then republished in Belarus.

Jerzy Kłoczowski practically homologates East Central Europe with the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and sees in its traditions the riches of western civilization, which can also become a «symbolical ticket» to «Big Europe» for Belarus and Ukraine: «it is here where the elements of our cultures were formed and where people who sometimes belonged to many traditions did work. This experience of our pluralism is, at the same time, the European ex-perience, our ticket to Europe»49. That is, there is a task to integrate

47 Hlousek V. Central Europe and its place within European space and history: (limited) homage to Oscar Halecki. http://www.iips.cz/data/files/Analyzy_Work-ing_Papers_pdf/hlousek-stredni-evropa.pdf48 Traba R. «Another side of memory». Historical experiences and memory of them in East Central Europe / /Ukrajina moderna. 2009. №4. — p. 54–55.49 Kłoczowski J. Traditions of East Central Europe — the experience that is important for our times // To be or not to be a Central European. — Minsk, 2000. — p. 228.

http://www.iips.cz/data/files/Analyzy_Working_Papers_pdf/hlousek-stredni-evropa.pdf

http://www.iips.cz/data/files/Analyzy_Working_Papers_pdf/hlousek-stredni-evropa.pdf


the history of this region into the European historical narrative that should promote the European emancipation of the countries of East Central Europe.

One of the famous Polish historians who joined the activity of the Institute of East Central Europe, Andrzej Sulima Kamiński, suggests naming this state «The Rzeczpospolita [i.e. Republic; Commonwealth] of Many Nations», connecting the theses of civil freedoms and suprana-tional character in a historical reconstruction: «The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, unlike the majority of other European countries, was ruled by citizens who belonged to different nationalities and faiths. Civil society and the system of values practiced within the scope of local self-government strengthened mutual tolerance and promoted the creation of nation-wide, i.e. supranational, political culture, which accelerated the processes of integration«50.

7. The unnecessary legacy or paradoxes of Ukraine

For the other peoples who were a part of the Polish-Lithuanian Com-monwealth, this ideal is not so attractive due to their stable national stereotypes. As Andriy Portnov remarks, «the majority of Ukrainian historians do not take part in the discussions on Central Europe. This heritage remains entirely alien and is still opposed to the mythologized populist image of the Cossacks… Simultaneously, the Ukrainian politi-cal and public discourses do not practically appeal to the Rzeczpospol-ita’s legacy»51. I is not surprising that, as Leonid Zashkilniak says, «the image of Poland and Poles is presented in the Ukrainian history almost exclusively as an image of «bad» neighbors who constantly wanted to enslave the Ukrainian people or to conquer their «ethnic lands»52.

The imperial topic that is growing stronger in Europe is not popu-lar at all here because the «Empire» has expressively negative conno-tations in the political polemic, and is associated first of all with the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. As a result, the «imperial sce-narios of Ukrainian history are, as a rule, remembered in the context of the problem of national building and are used to illustrate the thesis

50 Sulima Kamiński A. Historia Rzeczypospolitej wielu narodów 1505–1795. — Lublin, 2000. — S. 238.51 Portnov A. Between «Central Europe» and «Russian world». — Кyiv, 2009. — p. 24.52 Zashkilniak L. Image(s) of the Polish history in the modern Ukrainian histori-ography // The image of the Other in the neighbors’ histories: myths, stereotypes, scientific interpretations. — Кyiv, 2008. — p. 44.


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about the external factors which used to hamper this building»53. The prospects for the future also look not so bright for a positive under-standing of the imperial idea in this country. Thus, according to a poll among Ukrainian history students in 2007, on the influence of Poland, Russia, and Austria on the history of Ukraine, «all these three states were perceived as alien empires which ruled the territory of Ukraine, which meant political dependence, economic exploitation, and cultur-al domination, and all the three states interfered with the development of Ukraine’s sovereignty». Simultaneously, the prospects for European integration, as well as Poland’s or Austria’s measures to help Ukraine become a member of the European Union, are perceived skeptically by these history students54.

In her thorough work «Farewell to the empire. Ukrainian discussions about identity», Polish researcher Ola Hnatiuk has dedicated a whole part to the problematic of Central Europe. In her opinion, the first in Ukraine who touched upon Central European problematic was the in-dependent culturological magazine «Ї» published in Lviv — in 1995 it devoted its thematic number to the «European dimension of Ukraine» where the famous article by Milan Kundera was published in Ukrainian. In its following issues, the magazine repeatedly addressed these subjects, publishing articles by Austrians, Poles, and Czechs, while Ukrainian au-thors did not hurry to join this discussion. In the editorial preface to the ninth issue of the magazine, the idea of Central Europe was character-ized as «illusory», though also useful for Ukraine. Thus, from a slew of versions of regional determination, the «Austro-Hungarian» one was deliberately chosen, even though Lviv and Galicia did have the option of referring to the tradition of the multinational Polish-Lithuanian Com-monwealth. The Polish variant of Central Europe is obviously harder to accept than the Habsburgs’ imperial legacy, which has already been ro-manticized. Still, this period of declared reference to Central European subjects did not last long (1995–97), and already in the following issues dedicated to the discussion of European prospects for Ukraine, these is-sues did not arise.

Ola Hnatiuk considers Ukrainian writer Yuriy Andrukhovich to be the main vehicle of the idea of Central Europe. In his creativity of the early 1990s, in hew view, the proposal to bring Galicia (Halychyna)

53 Kasyanov G. «Roadside Picnic»: understanding the imperial past in modern Ukrainian historiography // New imperial history of the post-Soviet territory. — Ka-zan, 2004. — p. 90.54 Kapeller A. Policy of evaluating history in modern Ukraine: Russia, Poland, Aus-tria, and Europe // Ukraine on its way to Europe. — Кyiv, 2009. — p. 286.


back to the space was formed, based on the principle of the heritage of the Habsburg’ Empire.In his works, Galicia is a wonderful terri-tory, peripheral, but populated by many nations and culturally rich. Though Andrukhovich gradually loses his optimism in this respect, and «Central Europe in his works becomes less and less middle, but more and more Ukrainian until the elements which define Central-Europeanness — the glamour of the cultural mosaic, the immersion in the multinational history, the multidimensionality of identity — disap-pear completely»55. Ukrainian intellectuals did not accept references to history shared with other peoples (Poles, Jews, Hungarians, and Austrians), mentions of the multiculturalism of the Austro-Hungar-ian Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the par-ticipation of the Ukrainian component in it. For dominating Ukrainian nationalism, such approaches seem dangerous, as in the nationalis-tic prospect they wash away the historical memory and destabilize the Ukrainian identity.

Nevertheless, Andrukhovich has not gotten rid of the idea of Central Europe, which is proved by the existence of the Central European maga-zine «Potyah’76»56 which presents the creativity of writers from this re-gion. «This is a vehicle which is used in order to avoid the unfair verdict of destiny — us being expelled from Central Eastern Europe and the European continent. Having bought a ticket for this train, it is possible, regardless of any «Iron Curtains», to once again join Europe. This is the high idea of the existence of this metaphorical vehicle»57.

In general, it is Galicia, with its center in Lviv, (even though Andruk-hovich was born in Ivano-Frankivsk and all his creativity mythologizes mostly his «small motherland») that became the splinter of Central Eu-rope, a sui generis thorn in the Ukrainian body. «The Habsburgs’ heri-tage was a crucial part of determining Central Europe, and after 1991, when free intellectual life was restored in Lviv and the repressed Greek Catholic Church was marvelously revived, it became possible to once again open the stolen and forgotten part of the former Habsburg Em-pire, i.e. Eastern Galicia, which had been hidden for decades in Soviet Ukraine»58.

55 Hnatiuk O. Farewell to the empire. — Кyiv, 2004. — p.334.56 URL: http://www.potyah76.org.ua.57 Betliy O. Regional identity as an indicator of integration processes: the example of Ukraine // Geopolitical transformations in Eurasia: a point of view from Kyiv and Seoul. — Кyiv, 2008. — p. 46.58 Wolff L. The Idea of Galicia. History and Fantasy in Habsburg Political Cul-ture. — Stanford, 2010. — P. 411.


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It is from here that intellectual ideas about «Europeanness» of Ukraine are generated and disseminated. Thus, Ukrainian publi-cist Mykola Riabchuk, summing up the discussions which took place among writers of Western Ukraine, specifies, «For each of them, Galicia is a small part of Ukraine, which, thanks to the Polish-Austrian legacy, can somehow legalize the European ambitions of the whole country»59.

On the other hand, in his studies of the historical memory and re-gional identity in Galicia, Lviv-based historian Yaroslav Hrytsak writes about the success of the «all-Ukrainian project» in this region, which is simultaneously accompanied by marginalization and selective forgetful-ness of the heritage of other ethnic groups. That is, despite the numer-ous commercial references to the Habsburgs’ heritage in Lviv and wid-er — Galicia, the Ukrainian historical exclusiveness myth, which does not leave much room for the ideals of multiculturalism, has won here intellectually and politically60.

The heritage of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Ukraine is, on the one hand, more and more commoditized, , transforming itself into bright and attractive goods, and, on the other hand, it is being marginal-ized, omitted from intellectual discussions about the future of Ukraine, where the basic question now is to determine the general vector of the country’s regional identity. Still, there are exceptions here as well, e.g. historian Yuriy Topchiy suggests setting the Habsburg dynasty on the Ukrainian throne, which would automatically turn Ukraine «into an in-ternationally recognized monarchy with an imperial status»61. However, the public weight of such opinions is small.

8. The Empire of Central Europe and opportunities for the Euro-peanization of Belarus

Approximately in the mid-1990s, the idea of Central Europe became one of the most important ideas for Belarusian intellectuals who saw it as an excellent chance to overcome the heavy burden of the Soviet heri-tage and to demonstrate Belarus’ European identity. At that time, one of the leading intellectual publishers, «Fragments», openly appealed to

59 Riabchuk М. Two Ukraines. — Кyiv, 2003. — p. 226.60 Hrytsak Y. Historical Memory and Regional Identity among Galicia’s Ukraini-ans // Galicia. A Multicultured Land. Ed. by C. Hann and P.R. Magocsi. — Toronto, 2005. — P. 199–200.61 Topchiy Y. Ukrainian monarchy: illusion or prospect?//URL: http://www.day.kiev.ua/38066


this problematic; thus, the first issue of this almanac in 1996 was dedi-cated to the topic of Central Europe. Their reflections about the place of Belarus in Central Europe (or the relevancy of this region for a cultural and geopolitical development of our country) were published by the most considerable domestic intellectuals — Ihar Babkoũ, Valancin Akudovič, Siarhiej Dubaviec and others, but in the Belarusian space the idea was transformed — the first attempt to belarusianize it and to affirm the pos-sibility of Belarusian domination (Siarhiej Dubaviec saw Belarus as a po-tential core of Central Europe) perished under the pressure of the socio-political reality. It seems that the Belarusian intellectuals’ initial optimism (and Valancin Akudovič’s visible skepticism) was buried in the difficulties of determining the national project, and this concept quietly moved into the shadows of the public discourse in Belarus. Behind the disputes about the language question, about a civil or ethno-cultural model of national-ism, and, at last, about the strategy of the political victory, some attempts to intellectually leave behind the borders of Belarus and to perceive the country from a more regional standpoint remain undeveloped.

Still, a keen observer will notice the recent gradual introduction of «imperial» topics into the Belarusian public discourse. In particular, it is necessary to underline the almanac «Druvis» where several different «imperial» trains of thought are united: 1) criticism of the national state and the appeal to the idea of the Empire of the European «new right»; 2) an ambitious project of restoring the Lithuanian empire; and even 3) nostalgia for the Habsburgs, «as today the Habsburgs have preserved the lineage of the Jagiellonians, the Lithuanian chosen dynasty, i.e. there is nobody but them who have to be on the throne of their ancestors and to bring the real monarchic tradition back to Lithuania»62.

LiveJournal became an original platform for different intellectual discussions in the Belarusian Internet, where lot of calls to restore the Rzeczpospolita or the Lithuanian empire were made on personal blogs. For example, a fragment of a recent (19 August 2010) one: «if we can still reason, we should remember that only the GDL was really our Empire, our glory, and our honor … And I believe that the Belarusian land will become again, like eight centuries ago, a fertile soil for this Lithuanian [i.e. Belarusian] seed. I believe that the brothers scattered by destiny all around the world will gather again in their father’s house. I believe that it will be the beginning of a new free Lithuanian [i.e. Belarusian] Empire. There are already early signs of it»63. Of course, such articulations so far

62 Karlyuk К. Magnus Dux Haereditarius. The problem of legitimacy of the Lithu-anian monarchy in the 16th — 17th centuries. // Druvis. — №2. — 2008. — p. 195.63 http://aliaks.livejournal.com/84270.html.

http://aliaks.livejournal.com/84270.html


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remain marginal in the Belarusian public space, but such ideas also have obvious prospects — they are imposed on the general trends of this re-gion, and I am sure that in the near future in Belarus we will hear about the Empire more and more. The paradoxical emptiness which is now present in the Belarusian intellectual sphere reminds of a calm before the storm.

The appearance and accentuation of the motive of imperial nostalgia allows us to comprehend the basic trends of humanitarian thought of Central Europe during the last two decades. In this region, the intel-lectuals’ thought and practice had already directly affected the destinies of countries; the refusal from exclusive and rigid national narratives will probably affect the future of regional cooperation in a new (or quite for-gotten?) form.

Still, it also requires an attentive and careful reconsideration of what this surprising alliance of these two ideas — the Empire and Central Eu-rope — can bring to our country. One of the most difficult tasks is to understand regional leadership practices, which are the basis for these concepts. It is obvious that the revival of the Rzeczpospolita’s heritage in Poland and of the legacy of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in mod-ern Lithuania is directly aimed at playing at geopolitical domination. On the other hand, without Belarus, these neo-imperial projects are practically doomed to fail, while their duality (which is revealed in their complementary nature rather than in antagonism) allows us to carry out our geopolitical game. In any case, the «soft» form of modern imperial projects allows us to defend our interests and local uniqueness, but also teaches us to live not just near others, but together with them.

It is obvious that one of the most important tasks for Belarus now is its full-blown inclusion in the space of Big Europe. However, I would not like to reduce Europeanization simply to Belarus’ connection to the processes of EU integration, which are guided and defined by the EU bureaucracy. As Stefan Garsztecki reasonably remarks, «it is not the in-structions from Brussels, volens nolens, aimed at bigger integration and homogeneity, that constitute European publicity and the EU’s connec-tion with citizens, but living traditions, different historical narratives of Europe, the practices of civil participation, various kinds of democracy and so on»64. It is obvious that Europeanization should take place not only from above, but also from below, from societies — or at least from the people who perceive Europeanness as their destiny and are ready to fight for it.

64 Stefan Garsztecki. Actual dimensions of Europe in Central and Eastern Europe — Europeanization from below?


Ideally, Europeanization should look like a synchronization of ide-als, values, opinions, and practices, which should take place from two sides. We should understand Europe, but Europe should listen to us as well. Therefore, the acquisition of the lexicon of Central Europe for the purposes of European emancipation seems extremely attractive, as its use allows us to use a spectrum of meanings and topics which are al-ready mastered and known, and which are simultaneously suitable for the Belarusian situation. Besides, the idea of Central Europe possesses a huge potential to build international cooperation, carry out our cultural interaction by appealing to a complex of symbols and a common histori-cal destiny. The development of horizontal ties between the interested actors in the region allows us to throw away the strategy of «waiting for changes», i.e. the senseless hope that the authorities might implement change, and to implement Europeanization already now and here.

Also, it is important that our reference to the ideal of the Central Eu-ropean Empire as to a space of coexistence and mutual understanding can be used as a battering-ram against the walls of contempt and control that Belarus is surrounded by.

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The Belarusians’ European identity and the image of Europe in the Belarusian mass mediaalexander sarna

Belarus’ «Europeanization» and its coverage in the mass media

Belarus’ current inclusion in Eastern Europe’s transformation pro-cesses does not raise any doubts today. It leads to the necessity of carry-ing out researches concerning various aspects of Belarus’ «Europeaniza-tion» and the ways it can join these processes.

However, while carrying out the researches dedicated to this topic, it is necessary, first of all, to define the conceptual frameworks for the un-derstanding of the social changes which are taking place now in all their variety and ambiguity. In this regard, Stefan Garsztecki’s theses can be rather useful, as he specifies various modi or, as he calls them, «dimen-sions» of Europeanization1. According to this German researcher, there are three such dimensions — institutional-political, cultural-historical and civil; also, he mentions an economic dimension. All of them are united at the level of the «dimension of European integration» when in-teraction happens at the level of nations, regions, various social groups, and separate representatives of the population.

Garsztecki understands «Europeanization» not only as a possibility of the European Union’s policy to influence the national development strategy of each state which is in the sphere of the EU influence, but also as an approach in the vector of vertical development — not only «from above» — under the influence of the European institutions, but also «from below» — at the initiative of civil society and various strata of society of separate countries. It is a process which can be carried out in two directions vertically, depending on national and regional re-quirements, and which can also include horizontal ties and relations between various levels of a social system and its actors (regions, NGOs, states, etc.).

1 See Stefan Garsztecki. Actual dimensions of Europe in Central and Eastern Eu-rope — Europeanization from below?


As a result, «Europeanization» can be understood as a «grass-roots» and quite spontaneous process which can potentially develop divergent-ly. It includes distinctions in the speed of social changes and in national features as possible implementation of European integration against the background of legal, economic, and cultural traits, and also considers Central and East European prospects not as manifestations of the past, but as an introduction to the plural and polyphonic discourse of Europe’s self-fulfillment in the present. Within the framework of the pluralistic concept of «heterogeneous Europeanization» proposed by S. Garsztecki, a «boundary» (transitional) form of Europeanization is quite possible. Thanks to it, social and cultural transformations are described as a re-sponse to «European impulses» — circumstances and situations of solv-ing questions in the mid-term — and as an influence of internal factors that stimulate the «movement towards» the European Union’s initiatives.

It is this scenario of developments that we can observe in Belarus af-ter its inclusion in the Eastern Partnership program. Here, Europeaniza-tion is presented not as institutional, political, or economic change, but more likely as a process of forming our own identity, comprehending ourselves as a subject of Europeanization, or, more exactly ,as a process of understanding our «participation» in Europe (meanwhile only nomi-nally, i.e. on the basis of our territorial affiliation). Thus, it is necessary to understand that it is already now a question of the possibility of Belar-us’ further integration into the pan-European cultural and geopolitical space, which means following the traditions and values of the European civilization.

Geographically, Belarus belongs to Europe, but what about the socio-cultural dimension of its affiliation with Europe? How significant for Belarus today is the problem of finding its own identity in the context of European culture? Are we ready for closer contacts with Europe and more responsible relations with the European Union?

The answer to these questions can be provided by a large-scale analy-sis of the Belarusian state-run and non-state-run printed mass media. Still, it is necessary to consider that both official and alternative mass media need not only their own desirable and idealized image of Belarus and its inhabitants, but also an image of the Other, which becomes a condition of finding our «selfhood». In such a situation, the created me-dia image of Europe can serve as an indication at the level of the «social imagination», which acts as a reference point while constructing our own national identity. It corresponds to (or is opposed to) the construct of Russia as an «antipode of Europe» — the other pole of our collective representations. These images are being especially intensively developed and propagandized by the mass media at various levels — from concep-

177The Belarusians’ european idenTiTy and The image of europe in The Belarusian...Alexander Sarna

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tualization to mythologization (a possibility of apprehending the Other within the framework of the politics of memory [Geschichtspolitik] is also considered in A. Bratochkin’s article in this book).

It is this point of view from which the mass media should be studied, and the results of these researches will help:

1. To reveal peculiarities of the image of Europe and its attractiveness for Belarusians as a present and potential partner in regional cooperation;

2. To define the prevailing tonality of statements in the mass media about public figures, leaders of European countries and the European Union (positivity, negativity, neutrality);

3. To reveal the evaluation of European institutions’ and organiza-tions’ activity expressed in the state-run and non-state mass media;

4. To define the specificity of the image of the first persons of Euro-pean organizations that conduct their activity in Belarus or are inter-ested in cooperation with it (both at the official and non-state levels).

Special attention must be paid to the correlation between representa-tions in the Belarusian printed mass media of the problem of national identity in the context of our country’s belonging to European culture, as well as the features of constructing the image of Europe and the evalu-ation of the condition of the Eurozone countries in the Belarusian mass media. It will allow us to establish an understanding of how our periodi-cals see the possibilities of further interaction with European countries and of their recognition of us as Europeans. After all, the creation of the Belarusian nation as a European one allows Belarus to build its relations with European institutions (first of all, with the European Union).

The role of the mass media in the «nation-building» process became especially obvious when the topic of Belarus’ interaction with Europe was covered in first half of 2010. It was this period that became the sub-ject of researches, because, at that time, there was a sharp aggravation of the crisis in relations between the president of Belarus Alexander Lu-kashenka and the Russian leaders, which once again provided a reason to address to the West for sympathy and support. Europe (the European Union) in such a situation usually acts as a counterbalance to the Russian expansion and becomes an object of special attention of both represen-tatives of power and state-run mass media that broadcast their position and deliberately stir up interest in this topic among the mass audience. The non-state mass media, as a rule, show their sustainable interest in the European topic irrespective of changes of the political situation.

While carrying out this research, we applied the standard tech-niques of searching for and processing data in the course of monitoring the mass media, as well as methods of discourse-analysis and content-analysis, while revealing the specific features and general characteristics


(qualitative and quantitative indicators) of texts in the mass media. Our monitoring of the mass media was carried out from January, 1st to June, 31st 2010. The object of our research was the state-run and non-state-run printed mass media and their electronic versions. Newspapers with the biggest circulation and sphere reach (by subscription and through special points of sale) were selected.

As a result, the four most mass state-run public-political publications have been chosen for this analysis: the daily newspapers «Soviet Bye-lorussia (SB) — Belarus Today» (monthly circulation — 400,100 cop-ies), «Respublika» [Republic] (47,990), «Zviazda» [Star] (33,310), and «Narodnaja Hazeta» [People’s Newspaper] (30,027), as well as the four most popular non-state newspapers — «Svobodnye Novosti Plus» [Free News Plus] (26,200), «Narodnaja Vola» [People’s Will] (21,780), «Bel-gazeta» [The Belarusian Newspaper] (21,060), and «Naša Niva» [Our Field] (6,340). In these editions, based on the principle of continuous sampling, we chose materials in the Russian and Belarusian languages that, one way or another, mention the topic of Europe in the widest va-riety — from a simple mention of any European country to a detailed discussion of the European topic. Thus, it was important to estimate not only the thematic orientation of the publication, but also its evaluative character — the author’s attitude to the presented material. It could be positive, negative, or neutral.

Accordingly, the constructed image in the mass media could also be neutral, positive, and negative, as well as indistinct. There are two key parameters and components of the image connected with the strategies of its promotion in the printed mass media:

1) the graphic aspect — a purposeful use of images establishing visual information, as a rule, in the form of photos and drawings (caricatures);

2) the textual aspect — the creation of an image of an object by means of textual information in the form of articles, notes, announce-ments, slogans, etc.

It is due to the use of these textual and graphic means that the gener-alized representation of the specificity of the promoted subject and its importance in society’s economic, social, and cultural life is created. It is necessary to note right away that the graphic aspect was not practically used while constructing the images of Belarus and Europe; so, basic at-tention was paid to texts themselves.

Thus, the research of the printed mass media with the help of the content-analysis method allowed us to reveal not only the total number of publications, but also the features of covering the topic, as well as the condition of the information field as a whole. The character of the source of the message, the number of publications, the number of mentions


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of the topic and the evaluation of this information are considered. The subject of discussions can be institutions, persons, and events, as well as European countries and Europe as a whole.

The following part of the research is based on the technique of a discourse-analysis and is aimed at revealing the specificity of the image which is constructed in the state-run and non-state mass media with reference to Europe and Belarus. Here, it is necessary, first of all, to pay attention to the following parameters: the ideological position of the publication and the author; features of the format and genre of a pub-lication; as well as the strategy of problematization (promotion of the topic as a problem) and its rhetorical presentation (the author’s style and expressive means applied in the material).

As for the general characteristics of the information field, here it is possible to note the following. In total, during the period from Janu-ary, 1st to June, 31st ,2010, in the Belarusian printed mass media, there had been 697 messages mentioning European countries and institu-tions. The majority of these materials were news notes and comments by journalists on the situation in Europe or messages on various direc-tions of activity of European organizations and their interaction with Belarusian institutions, enterprises, or public associations. The biggest number of mentions of the mutual relations of Europe and Belarus was observed in March 2010 (49 materials — 7% of the total number of publications), which had to do with the polemic of the possible par-ticipation of representatives of the political opposition as a part of the Belarusian delegation in the inter-parliamentary assembly of the East-ern Partnership.

Grounded in research results, it is possible to draw the conclusion that the non-state mass media are more active while covering the work of European institutions and their ties with Belarusian actors. It is more than twice (68.9% of publications) the number of messages in the state-run mass media, which confirms much a bigger interest of the alterna-tive mass media in providing information about Europe and mutual rela-tions of Belarus with European countries. In the state-run mass media, there are much fewer materials published on the topic, but it does not mean that it is ignored as such. More likely, it is possible to speak about an aspiration to present it as a quite specific topic that requires not wide public resonance, but a discussion in a circle of experts. This topic was presented in a certain context — against an informational background, which was full of other topics and pieces of information (e.g. the criti-cism of the opposition or the regulation of traffic streams) that made it possible to at least indirectly mention the mutual relations of Belarus and Europe and to evaluate them.


It is interesting and significant enough to correlate the topic «Belar-us — Europe» with other thematic variations; however, it is hardly pos-sible to do so due to a considerable number of such materials. Therefore, we limited ourselves to an analysis of only the general tendencies which were revealed by monitoring the public-political printed mass media and their electronic versions. As the general tonality of the messages on Belarus’ relations with European countries in the mass media was quite neutral (335 materials — 47% of the total number of publications) and on the situation in the EU countries in the conditions of economic and social crisis — more likely negative (184 materials — 27% of the total number of publications), then as a whole it is possible to consider the general information background to be neutral. There was 26% (178 pub-lications) with a positive evaluation, which is a bit less than the number of negative messages.

Thus, in order to understand the specificity of transformative pro-cesses in the various dimensions of Belarus’ Europeanization, it was nec-essary to reveal the following aspects:

1) the features of constructing an image of Belarus as a «European country» in the mass media;

2) the specificity of the image of Europe in the Belarusian mass media; 3) the evaluation of possibilities for further contact with European

countries and the European Union, proceeding from the constructed images.

As a result of the research, the features of the strategies of forming the image of Europe and Belarus as a European country in the Belarusian printed and electronic mass media should become clear.

The Belarusians’ European identity To summarize the common positions presented in the state-run

public-political mass media while discussing the question of the Be-larusian identity: as a whole, they represent the opinion that it is nec-essary to consider Belarus an integral part of the European continent and, certainly, a European country. It is considered that the European space in the past was uniform, and Belarus had always been a part of it as a full-fledged representative of European culture. However, it is also underlined that the Belarusians’ national consciousness and conceptualization of themselves as Europeans is only starting to be formed and has to do with the fact that they feel themselves to be citizens of an independent country formed after the disintegration of the USSR.


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Thus, the newspaper «Zviazda» notes that our nation is being formed as a socio-political civil community where about 20% of the population are non-ethnic Belarusians; however, they are also citizens of Belarus and, when they travel abroad, they call themselves «Belarusians». Thus, we are a polyethnic bilingual nation like many others in Europe. Also, this special «tutejšaść»2 is not considered a «symptom of isolation», but, more likely, a sign of commonality with other peoples and regions which had their own variations of «tutejšaść». It is also underlined that such an agrarian type of culture is integrally inherent in representatives of the ethnos, while the nation is mostly connected with urban culture and the corresponding way of life, economics, politics, etc. Therefore, «tutejšaść» as a vector of the Belarusians’ ethnic consciousness can be considered an obstacle on the way of the nation’s and culture’s development3.

It is especially necessary to note the opinion of the authorities who see Belarus not simply as a part of Europe, but its center («heart»), which was openly declared by president Lukashenka in his interview on the TV-channel Euronews and in his message to the Belarusian people and the National Assembly in April 20104. This point of view is supported by academician Evgeniy Babosov in his article in «SB — Belarus To-day» — «Belarus is the center of Europe, both geographical and even,

2 «Tutejšy» ([pronounced as «too — ‘TAY — she»]; a local resident; a person of this place or from around here; derived from the word «tut» [pronounced as «toot»], i.e. «here»); «tutejšyja» ([pronounced as «too — ‘TAY — she — ya»]; locals;) — the (self-)definition of those ethnically Belarusian people who dwell on the territory of Belarus, but who do not care for their ethnic belonging or na-tional identity due to various reasons and motives, e.g. fear, illiteracy, pragmatism, etc. In other words, they do not want to or cannot properly identify themselves and therefore they say that «they live «tut» [here]» on this territory, that they are «here-man», «here-woman», «here-people». In the Belarusian context, the notion of «tutejšyja» was first used by Janka Kupała (Yanka Kupala) in his play of the same name, which was published in 1924. The scene of the story is laid in Minsk in the period from 1918 to 1920, when it was first occupied by the Bolsheviks, then by the Germans, after that by the Poles, and then by the Bolsheviks again. The main char-acter’s behavior while he tries to fit himself into such surroundings became known as «tutejšaść» ([pronounced as «too — ‘TAY — shahst»]; «localness»; «hereness»).3 Łapato I. Culturologist Julija Čarniaũskaja: Ethnos can live in a cave, but the Na-tion — never. — Zviazda. — № 5 (91). — 05.05.2010. http://www.zvyazda.minsk.by/ru/pril/article.php?id=578874 Dynamic breakthrough in the country’s development — the way to a new quality of life. The message of the president to the Belarusian people and the National As-sembly. — SB — Belarus Today. — № 71(23462). — 21.04.2010. http://www.sb.by/post/99363/

http://www.zvyazda.minsk.by/ru/pril/article.php?id=57887

http://www.zvyazda.minsk.by/ru/pril/article.php?id=57887

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to an increasing degree, geopolitical»5. On this basis, he draws the conclu-sion that the Belarusian state itself can define its way of development, pro-ceeding from its own point of view concerning European priorities. After all, according to Babosov, even in the West European countries, with their centuries-old democratic traditions, the experience of their formation is not unequivocal. Therefore, the state press tries to present the existing po-litical regime in Belarus as democratic, but with its own specificity defined by the historical and cultural heritage that had predetermined our «spe-cial way» of development, which is characterized as «stable and success-ful». Thus, irrespective of the opinion of other European countries and our eastern neighbor, «Belarus was, is, and remains a state in the center of Europe, an integral part of the diverse European civilization»6.

The same position is also voiced in official statements, which the editions «SB — Belarus Today», «Respublika«, and «Zviazda» refer to, underlining that Belarus’ internal interests require the preservation its independence and partner relations with both East and West. Europe is comprehended as a cultural dominant on a large scale and a strategi-cally important region, probably the most prioritized one for the devel-opment of all humankind (which obviously continues the tradition of Eurocentrism). Thus, behind any statement about the central position of Belarus in Europe, there is an easily recognized claim to be the notorious «hub of the universe«.

At the same time, in «the Belarusians’ psychological type», «SB — Be-larus Today» paradoxically finds the traits of our obvious similarity to the Asian Orient that is reflected in the Belarusians’ national character and makes us successful partners of the Chinese, allowing us to become their reliable «stronghold in Europe». The conclusion is drawn from here that «we are open to the world» and can understand any other nation with-out difficulty. Such an optimistic self-evaluation is ostensibly proved by diplomatic contacts and business agreements with numerous countries. According to the state-run printed mass media, the Belarusians’ moral reference points and life values correspond to the traditional concep-tualization of them as decent people in comparison with the Russians, which allows us to consider ourselves a part of Europeans. And, at the same time, the Belarusians happen to be even better than Europeans, as we are the «true«, «real» Europeans who have preserved the stable refer-ence points of our own development contrary to the washing out of the traditional canons of any national culture by globalization.

5 Romanova N. Parallels sometimes cross… SB — Belarus Today. — № 33 (23424). — 23.02.2010. http://www.sb.by/post/97249/6 Ibid.



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According to «SB — Belarus Today», it is proved by such a trait of the national character as «pamiarkoũnaść» [towardness and judicious-ness]. As a result, there is an idealized representation of the Belarusians as of carriers of a moral canon of a romantic high-minded type, unlike the «earthian» and mercantile-utilitarian reference points of representa-tives of Western Europe; thus, the Belarusians are the best if compared to both Russians and Europeans. The Belarusians are the same as Rus-sians and Europeans, but «with a mark of high-quality». This image is being cultivated and becomes stronger at the expense of the Belarusian inhabitants’ very weak communication with the external world — only an insignificant part of the Belarusians regularly travel abroad, and the majority of them do not travel anywhere at all7.

In some editions (for example, «Respublika», «Narodnaja Hazeta»), there is a distinctly traced aspiration to consider and to estimate the situation in Belarus as though «from outside» — as viewed by foreign-ers who visited our country or who live and work in it. This claim to objectivity and impartiality is, of course, quite conditional, because our guests’ diplomacy and tactfulness almost never allow them to say any-thing negative. So, there is a safe strategy, allowing one to create an ex-emplary image of Belarus. In this respect, typical is the interview with Italian businessman Giuseppe Carlini, who lives in Belarus, in which he said, «I like Belarus. I think, if you want to have your own impression of the country, it is not enough to come here for a holiday. It is necessary to live here for a period of time, to look at it from within. I always say that to my compatriots. You have paradise here. Benign, kind-hearted people; there is almost no deceit, no bribery»8. Besides, the Italian has expressed his support of the policy implemented by A. Lukashenka and urged all the heads of the European states to follow the example of the Prime Min-ister of Italy S. Berlusconi and to visit Belarus on an official visit. Thus, such a step must be regarded as a sui generis strategy of advancing the positive image of Belarus in the state-run press.

The opinion of representatives of European states and officials of the European Union is especially often used in the state-run editions during an evaluation of the results of activity and prospects of Belarus’ further cooperation with other countries within the framework of the Eastern

7 Mantsevich N. 95% of Belarusians do not know any foreign languages. — Svobod-nye Novosti Plus — № 22. — 02.06.2010. http://www.sn-plus.com/socium/1059-l95-r.html 8 Arteaga V. In business like in sports: it is necessary to lockstep and win. — Re-spublika. — № 24 (4936). — 10.02.2010. http://www.respublika.info/4936/life/ar-ticle37092/

http://www.sn-plus.com/socium/1059-l95-r.html

http://www.sn-plus.com/socium/1059-l95-r.html

http://www.respublika.info/4936/life/article37092/

http://www.respublika.info/4936/life/article37092/


Partnership program. As a rule, they mention positive evaluations and statements of persons who highly appreciated our country’s participa-tion in the program and specified that, until recently, it was difficult to even imagine the possibility of such large-scale cooperation. But today, as it is noted in many editions, Belarus successfully carries out a slew of projects of this initiative, covering the following segments — the sphere of human rights, economics, science and power, culture and internation-al communication. They mention the fact that, in 2010, some interna-tional workshops within the framework of the four thematic platforms of the Eastern Partnership took place in Minsk, which should promote the strengthening of the role of our country in pan-European integra-tion. Bilateral cooperation between the EU and Belarus in the field of science and technologies was called especially effective.

Belarus’ inclusion in the Eastern Partnership project happened in many respects thanks to the initiative of the Poles, who are perceived in the state-run mass media as our neighbors, «kindred souls». It is considered that the several centuries of our joint presence in Rzecz-pospolita (Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) had pulled together the Belarusians (who were called «Lithuanians» at that time) and the Poles linguistically and mentally. In particular, a number of editions covered the visit of Polish politician Andrzej Lepper to Minsk, who was invited by the Republican Public Association «Biełaja Ruś [White Ruthenia]» (pro-Lukashenka party sponsored by the state) and who did not hide his affection towards Belarus at a meeting with representatives of this «public» association.

«SB — Belarus Today» also underlines the unusual point of view con-cerning the Eastern Partnership of the former president of Poland, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Lech Wałęsa: «This program is an original Eu-ropean vestibule». Wałęsa thinks that the EU is not ready today to accept all who would like to join it, but it is necessary to search for other forms of cooperation, which would preserve the possibility of further integra-tion9. The newspaper «Zviazda» published the materials of the Doctor of Biological Sciences, state award laureate Alexei Mikulich, which prove the kinship of the Belarusian and Polish peoples even at the genetic lev-el10. Still, at the same time, it also underlines the ethno-cultural distinc-tions between our people that provide their national originality.

9 Volyanyuk V. The Eastern Partnership: the western angle. — SB — Belarus To-day.— № 99 (23490). — 01.06.2010. http://www.sb.by/post/100972/10 Dziadziula A. The more isolated the ethnos is, the more delicate it is. — Zvi-azda.— № 124 (26732). — 29.06.2010. http://www.zvyazda.minsk.by/ru/archive/article.php?id=61519&idate=2010-06-29


http://www.zvyazda.minsk.by/ru/archive/article.php?id=61519&idate=2010-06-29

http://www.zvyazda.minsk.by/ru/archive/article.php?id=61519&idate=2010-06-29


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As a whole, the general conception of Belarus and the Belarusians considered in the European context in the state-run mass media is posi-tive enough, because Belarus is regarded from the point of view of the ethnos, whose current state is compared to and identified with the ma-chinery of state. This is the way it is done even by those who consider critically what is now happening in Belarus — it results in the conclusion that it is necessary to restore the memory of the past through the geneal-ogy of well-known representatives of Belarus and their personal achieve-ments. In this case, the historical narrative turns into local biographic narrations about the «life of remarkable people» and, as the majority of them are statesmen and governors, then the ethnos genealogy is trans-formed into the genealogy of the authorities, which, naturally, should find the approval and support of the present country leaders.

As for the non-state printed publications, they are characterized by a whole variety of opinions — from openly «pro-European» to skepti-cally-detached ones when it comes to the European topic. The indepen-dent mass media represent several positions, and it is rather difficult to unite them. As a whole, the same picture is observed in Belarusian society itself, which is proved by the results of the polls implemented by the Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies, published in January 2010, in «Naša Niva» — they show the «unique-ness of the Belarusians’ national identity». The publication underlines that the majority of the 1,514 people polled has supported economic growth, but not Belarusian independence; the present state symbols, but not the «Pahonia» [«Pursuit»; the national coat of arms]; the Russian, but not the Belarusian language. It is no wonder that many citizens’ un-derstanding of the geopolitical choice for modern Belarus is defined not by basic values, but by very temporally-limited interests. It was noted that the «visible advantage of the number of supporters of the European choice over supporters of the Russian one (427% vs. 38.3%), for the first time established in the September poll, today turned into a tie: 42.3% vs. 42.1%. Special attention in the polls was paid to the problem of the Belarusians’ national identity. The IISEPS experts specify that, today, two thirds of Belarusians consider it happiness that Belarus acquired its independence in 1991. The opposite opinion is shared by 20.6% of those polled. This fact is now being used by both opposition and authorities»11.

These data correlate with the results of the polls of the axiometri-cal research laboratory NOVAK, which were also presented in the mass media. They confirm that the Belarusians are in no rush to recognize

11 Šamrej N. Sociological poll: Lukashenka has returned to the pre-crisis level. — Naša Niva. — № 4 (649). — 04.01.2010. http://nn.by/?c=ar&i=33544



European values as their own and prefer to be guided by their own in-terests. This is well illustrated by the situation with the evaluation of the necessity of abolishing capital punishment, supported by 39% of Be-larusians, with 48% against its abolishment. This data was presented by Andrei Vardomatsky at the round table «European Values» carried out in Minsk on 4–5 February 2010, which many alternative mass media covered

Besides, in the first half of 2010, the Belarusian Institute of Strate-gic Studies together with the laboratory NOVAK implemented a poll titled «Belarus and the world: a geopolitical choice and safety through the economy and culture prism». Political scientist Vitaliy Silitsky (Vital Silicki) spoke about its results in his interview to the edition «Svobod-nye Novosti Plus» and underlined that «pure Europeans in the cultural plan are about 16% in Belarus. These are the people who do not show any aggression towards anybody — not visitors, not homosexuals, not the women who practice abortions, not those who marry Africans or Asians … There are those who are close to them — about a third, ac-cording to their cultural dimension — who are more or less suitable for official Brussels’ discourse. As for the political dimension, it is already an absolutely different picture. Here, there are twice as many tolerant people. Respect for the rights and freedoms of a person is quite wide-spread in Belarus. Therefore, it is possible to say that political modern-ization is happening in our country much faster than cultural one»12. (Compare the evaluation of this research in O. Shparaga‘s article in this book). «Svobodnye Novosti Plus» notes that the specified parity changes for different age groups — approximately from 55–60 y.o. as the young people understand the value of political rights and freedoms, and the authoritarian type of political thinking starts to prevail only in the most senior groups. But authoritativeness in the evaluation of the cultural dimension is manifested as a prevailing tendency already by the age of 30.

Thus, our cultural stereotypes start to form since our childhood and affect our entire life. The origin of these negative tendencies is ex-plained not by the heritage of the Soviet past, but by the traditional patriarchal way of life, which is still preserved in Belarusian society. Of course, the people with a higher education, youth, and who are inhabit-ants of big cities are more tolerant, however, the «culture of suspicious-ness», mistrust of another style of life remains. And for our society, it is rather a typical situation. Thus, the ironic passages in the independent publications are quite valid — when it is said that «in Belarusian soci-

12 Mantsevich N. Op. cit.


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ety’s self-evaluation, there is wide-spread narcissism and self-praise … Certainly, every cook praises his own broth, but recently it has become a syndrome. You may look at answers, and everywhere there will be ‘kindness’, ‘tolerance’, ‘hospitality’, etc. As though other nations do not have anything like this»13.

However, the traditional accusations against the «dark past» are not forgotten and are still actively used as an explanation of our «discrep-ancy» with Europe. For example, the authors of «Svobodnye Novosti Plus» assume that it is the Russian Empire that, during the last 200 years, has been doing everything so that in Belarus there would be no condi-tions for the implementation of the cultural and national identity, even at the level of the original name of the ethnos. We had been deprived of a possibility to revive our cultural traditions and to restore our his-torical memory since the epoch of Peter the Great and until the time we stopped being one of the republics of the USSR. Even after this empire disintegrated, there are deep «scars» in the Belarusian mentality, which defines our self-evaluation and does not allow us to overcome the con-sequences of our «historical amnesia». We lost our memory of the past, of our roots and ancestors, and such a situation is absolutely atypical for European culture, where the historical continuity process has been constantly ongoing over many centuries.

At the same time, in some materials, the «European» identity acted as the reason for negative tendencies in the country’s development. Thus, in particular, there was an evaluation of the decrease of the birth rate level, which at first was linked to similar tendencies in European coun-tries, but subsequently this point of view was changed. In such cases, it is proposed to search for the national roots as for the type of «negative identity» (Y. Gudkov) — through the negation of everything «strange» and the isolation from neighboring countries -first of all from Russia. It became especially current in the light of the diplomatic and economic disagreements between Belarus and the Russian Federation during the last few years. However, such an approach does not allow us to find a full-fledged positive identity, compelling us to try on the masks of other cultures and nations, especially abroad, which, according to «Belgaze-ta», is rather typical for Belarusians. And if the main objective of the Belarusian diaspora abroad is the fastest possible assimilation into the local population, then it testifies to the absence of our own national con-sciousness and even indirectly specifies our propensity for our «inner destruction of the nation». As a result, besides the skeptical attitude to the cliché that Belarus is «the center of Europe», willingly supported

13 Ibid.


by the authorities, «Belgazeta» offers an alternative identification for the country: «In general, Belarus is like Nigeria, it is just that here there are white people, while there are a lot of black people there»14. However, it is clear that it is only a journalistic joke, not aimed at creating a positive variant of consciousness of the nation.

There is the impression that the «negative identity» model pro-moted by the non-state mass media creates an image of Belarus as an «empty signifié [signified]», which, if desired, can be filled in with anything and which tries to fill in this emptiness with cultural loans — from a spoken language to entertaining TV shows. The tragic conse-quences of such a situation are described by «Narodnaja Vola», speci-fying the impossibility of Belarus joining the European community until we are able to find our own cultural originality. According to the newspaper, we cannot solve this problem until the semantic space of Belarus’ culture is built on the basis of the Russian language. After all, despite its officially established equality with the Belarusian language, it still has the function of the daily used language and therefore applies for the status of not only the common (literary) language, but also actually replaces the Belarusian language in the role of the national language. As a result, all modern culture in Belarus appears «to be colonized» by Russia and is perceived not as self-valuable and authen-tic, but only as a «worsened, unfinished variant of Russian culture». Such a situation is basically impossible in Europe, and until we find a radical way to change it, our fate is to remain on the cultural outskirts of the European scene, says the doctor of historical sciences Leanid Łyč in «Narodnaja Vola»15.

Despite such a depressing picture, the majority of publications ad-heres to a more balanced view and tries to find a place for optimism in the future. In particular, «Belgazeta» notes the fact that our rating of economic freedom is gradually improving and in comparison with 2009, the country has improved its index 3.7 points. It has allowed us to rise from the 167th place to the 150th that approximately corresponds to our position in the rating over the last ten years. However, it is obviously not enough, and to enter at least the top 50 of the most economically free countries of the world, Belarus should improve its indicator in 17.5 points. «Naša Niva» has an article about the possible introduction into schools of a subject on religious culture on the basis of equal possibilities

14 Provalinskaya N. Belarus is like Nigeria, but with many white people. — Belgaze-ta — № 2 (725). — 18.01.2010. http://www.belgazeta.by/20100118.02/550165681/15 Łyč L. Are we Belarusians? — Narodnaja Vola. — № 100–101 (3228–3229). — 28.06.2010. http://www.nv-online.info/by/86/300/16639/Ці-ж-мы-беларусы.htm

http://www.belgazeta.by/20100118.02/550165681/

http://www.nv-online.info/by/86/300/16639/ֳ-�-��-��.htm


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for religion that testifies to our belonging to European culture, as reli-gious education still remains in many countries of Europe. As a whole, it is noted that «Minsk, unlike Moscow, has a chance at the European prospect»16.

Thus, the contours of the Belarusian identity depicted by the state-run and independent mass media are not accurately defined and fluctu-ate in a rather wide range — from statements that Belarus is the geo-graphical, geopolitical, and cultural center of Europe, its «original es-sence» and «spiritual core», to the belief that we have nothing socially or culturally common with Europeans and that our territorial inclusion in the European region should be perceived only as an annoying mis-understanding.

The image of Europe in the Belarusian mass media

The image of Europe and European countries in the state-run public-political editions was formed during the first half of 2010 under the in-fluence of the negative tendencies caused by the global economic crisis, which led to social protests and political changes. The majority of the materials published at that time are dedicated to these negative conse-quences of the crisis and attempts of their elimination.

A characteristic statement of academician Evgeniy Babosov is pub-lished in the newspaper «SB — Belarus Today»: «I think that today Eu-rope is in search of an escape from the global crisis, and it is a question not only of economy, but also of spirituality and the philosophy of the social structure»17. The state-run publications have no doubts that it is Belarus that becomes the carrier of such «positive philosophy». Be-sides, Belarus’ «mission» to rescue Europe consists in the establishment of barriers on the way of migratory streams and illegal refugees from the countries of Central Asia and the Far East. This factor aggravates the consequences of the crisis and becomes the basis of Islamizing the European countries due to the increase of the number of immigrant Muslims, which is also considered to be negative. There appears the so-called «Muslim factor»: ethnic groups of immigrants from the Arabian countries wash away the national identity of Europe, which becomes a challenge for native Europeans.

16 Gritsanov A. When the auction is inappropriate. — Belgazeta — № 1 (724). — 11.01.2010. http://belgazeta.by/20100111.01/490070071/17 Romanova N. Parallels sometimes cross… — SB — Belarus Today. — № 33 (23424). — 23.02.2010. http://www.sb.by/post/97249/

http://belgazeta.by/20100111.01/490070071/



It is characteristic that the foundation of such an evaluation, which aspires towards neutrality, is the opposition of the Central Asian coun-tries to Russia and Belarus, and our country is presented from a more advantageous point of view because it is not the carrier of the «Muslim threat» for Europe. Such a strategy (oppositions by contrast) was fre-quently used by the state-run mass media to create a negative image of European countries and the European Union, at the expense of which there was an attempt to generate a positive image of Belarus, so attrac-tive on a faded background.

This strategy was carried out most consistently by the central state-run publication — «SB — Belarus Today» where in the heading «Poli-tics» Nina Romanova‘s articles were regularly published with her re-views of the situation in Europe, focusing the attention of readers on the negative tendencies in the public life of West European countries. The author of these publications criticized the actions of the West European politicians, always in a caustic, sarcastic tone, underlining their clum-sy attempts to cope with the crisis. This attitude was most obviously expressed in the headings of her articles, which always ironically and frequently cynically presented the topic at hand: «Calabria has shown its teeth», «Europe has tightened its belts», «Expensively and angrily«, «Total Eyjafjallajökull», etc.

Thus, in the issue d/d January, 19th, it is underlined that in Europe-an parliaments under the slogan of «Europe for Europeans!» more and more places are occupied by «the extremely right, extremist forces», as, for example, the Dutch far right nationalist Party of Freedom, which calls to put a barrier before immigrants from the countries of Asia and Africa. In this connection, it cites the words from the article of well-known German journalist Mark Stein, printed back in 2006, which con-tain an unfavorable forecast: «Since 2010, we will be able to watch on informational TV-channels how, in Europe, houses are burning, street fights are occurring, and murders are committed»18.

Also, the necessity of a total economy is underlined as the basic anti-recessionary measure offered in all EU countries, because financial injec-tions into the bank system do not justify the expectations and the Euro-pean currency is under the threat of devaluation. And even the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull, which led to stoppages of work in the airports of all of Western Europe, became only a nuance that under-lined the complexity of the situation that had developed and made many political leaders look sleazy when they refused, under the pretext of the

18 Romanova N. Calabria has shown its teeth. — SB — Belarus Today. — № 8 (23399). — 19.01.2010. http://www.sb.by/post/95920/



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volcano’s threat, to visit the funeral of the Polish President Kaczyński.It leads to the conclusion about the loss of moral reference points in

the European community and the problem of a «moral choice» rising in front of Europe — in full conformity with the words from the message of the president of Belarus, «Europe chokes. Only not because of the ashes. The world has changed. Spiritual, moral criteria and reference points are lost. And it is necessary to see it»19. Naturally, it is supposed that only correctly set reference points offered by president Lukashenka can rescue the old Europe that is «enveloped in sin».

While covering the problem of the crisis, there is a popular step — to cite somebody‘s words and to refer to statements of famous European politicians. For example, «Narodnaja Hazeta» willingly quotes one of the leading world economists, Joseph E. Stiglitz, and the former president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Jacques Attali, who said that the current situation is only a prelude to a heavier struc-tural crisis in the entire Eurozone, which threatened to crash the united European currency20.

A considerable part of the editions of the state-run publications was devoted to the discussion of Belarus’ prospects in the Eastern Partner-ship program. However, here again, even though the majority of materi-als contained neutral evaluations, there was a possibility for criticism. Essentially, it had to do with the support of the Belarusian political op-position by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Eastern Partnership that ostensibly contradicts the European traditions of representative democ-racy. The authorities’ irritated broadcast in the state-run mass media was caused by the activity of an «illegal, provocative character» and by the parties themselves, which do not find any mass support in society, but which are supported by the Council of Europe and the European Parliament, which was regarded as a threat of failure of the outlined movement of the EU and Belarus towards each other within the scope of the Eastern Partnership. The authorities’ official position was voiced concerning the problem of the difficulties that Belarus’ inhabitants face when they try to visit European Union countries, which became espe-cially grave in the situation with the crisis in Belarusian-Polish relations. It was underlined that the Belarusian Poles’ appeal to the international community and the European Parliament is hardly pertinent in the case

19 Romanova N. Total Eyjafjallajökull. — SB — Belarus Today. — № 73 (23464). — 23.04.2010. http://www.sb.by/viewpoint/99432/20 Kovalenko E. A Homeric question. The European Union is in search of how to overcome the crisis. — Narodnaja Hazeta — № 91 (5254). — 20.05.2010 http://www.ng.by/ru/issues?art_id=46525

http://www.sb.by/viewpoint/99432/

http://www.ng.by/ru/issues?art_id=46525

http://www.ng.by/ru/issues?art_id=46525


of local conflicts (it is a question of the confiscation of the property of the Union of Poles of Belarus) and can lead to a crisis in international relations inside the European Union itself.

The non-state mass media try to critically consider the negative image of Europe and Europeans which has developed in the country, because this image testifies, first of all, to our own preconception. «It is difficult to convince the Belarusians that a European can be, for ex-ample, hospitable. At the same time, the Belarusians have a very posi-tive attitude towards the Europeans for their diligence. Hardworking, assiduous, accurate, painstaking, but a curmudgeon — such an image of a European has developed in the Belarusians’ public consciousness and it is very strong»21. The situation with interethnic relations in European countries is estimated as rather quiet because their tolerant culture and balanced system of social relations helps them preserve stability in the region irrespective of racial, ethnic, and religious distinctions. The real-ity of the crisis situation is not denied, but there are no hasty conclusions of an apocalyptic character about the inevitable crash of the Eurozone either. And it is in spite of the fact that the overwhelming majority of in-habitants of European countries are afraid of an increase in the levels of poverty. Especially pessimistic are the Greeks, French, and Bulgarians. However, the press does not say that the number of people who do not have enough means for life remains stable.

The non-state mass media emphasize the positive consequences of Belarus’ participation in the Eastern Partnership program. Educational programs for youth, support of scientific researches, boundary projects, power, environment, public health services, transport — it is not a com-plete list of the spheres of cooperation between the EU and Belarus. The volume of all current projects between Belarus and the EU is now about 40 million euro. The European Union offers its help in carrying out democratic reforms, developing economic integration and power safety, and developing scientific and cultural exchanges. The mass media also remark that the Eastern Partnership is only one of the initiatives within the framework of the European Neighborhood Policy. As for Belarus, it includes a variety of programs — national, regional, several inter-region-al ones, as well as programs of transboundary cooperation. However, alternative publications consider that the serious drawback of this policy of the EU is that its help and cooperation have not been supported by concrete obligations for the liberalization of the political regime in Be-larus. Therefore, the authorities’ desire to continue this strategic coop-eration with the European Union must be limited by a feeling of possible

21 Mantsevich N. Op. cit.


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losses in the case of infringements upon the established arrangements. After all, now they have something to lose, therefore, the country lead-ers’ motivation should be preserved.

The general tendency of involving our country in international con-tacts in order to overcome the isolation of Belarus is ambiguously evalu-ated by the non-state mass media. There is criticism of the present po-sition of the European Union, which turns a blind eye to the fact that Belarus does not fulfill the obligations that it undertook when the coun-try was included in the Eastern Partnership. After all, right now in the European policy, there is a distinct displacement of emphasis in relations to the management of Belarus — the western leaders are distinguished more and more not by their aspiration to democracy, but by «pragma-tism» and «moderation». And it sharply distinguishes the current situa-tion from the middle of the 1990s, when whole generations of politicians held serious administrative posts in Warsaw and Brussels thanks to their criticism of the officials in Minsk.

As a result, our position is regarded as unpromising until the state reconsiders its attitude to the reference points of development and po-litical priorities, which remain an inherent continuation of the Soviet tradition. It is necessary not to resort to confrontation, but to try to find a common language with the European states — both at the diplomatic and world outlook levels. Here, again, everything depends on a geopo-litical and value choice of the management of Belarus, because only that can help us find our own position in the interaction with our European neighbors. As a whole, the alternative press sharply criticizes the foreign policy of the state and connects its basic hopes with representatives of civil society, who have a possibility to conclude agreements at the inter-national level irrespective of the official structures.

The specificity of constructing the image of Europe and Belarus

The results of the research allow us to draw the following conclusions. While covering the European problematic with reference to Belarus, the printed state-run and non-state mass media have used informational reports with a prevailing neutral evaluation. They have been aimed at creating an image that is able to draw the attention of the public and to increase the media rating of a topic in order to activate financial, in-formational, human, and material resources. As a whole, no significant preponderance towards positivity or negativity has been reached; mean-while, it is too early to think that the positioning of Belarus as a Euro-pean country is completed. The basic media strategies used to promote


the images of Belarus and Europe in the mass media can be considered in the context of the general image formation concept, which presupposes:

1) the problematization of various questions as «current problems» and the establishment of the corresponding «agenda» (a topic of the week, etc.) with the help of the mass media. The higher the media rank of an event or a problem is, the higher the probability that the audience will consider them socially significant and, accordingly, the higher the probability of their appearance in the agenda is;

2) the formation of the necessary media image of a problem to be solved, as well as the informational context of the «correct» interpreta-tion by the audience of the corresponding actions of the social actors;

3) the attraction of attention of the audience to those topics which confirm the necessary image of the «promoted» topic and spur on the creation of its needed reputation22.

Accordingly, the problematic of «Europeanness» and «Europeaniza-tion» of Belarus become the agenda only if it is presented as Topic №1 for the state-run and non-state mass media in Belarus. However, their priorities may not coincide — sometimes considerably: the topics that are considered important and interesting for some publications will seem absolutely insignificant to the other ones due to the fact that they do not correspond to the interests of the audience or the ruling authori-ties. If the non-state mass media are focused first of all on their readers, as their profit directly depends on the demand of the audience, then for the state-sponsored publications the task is to follow the course planned by the country leaders. Therefore, as soon as the European topic starts to be voiced by representatives of state structures (for example, within the framework of the Eastern Partnership program), the state-run publica-tions become interested in it at once. And, on the contrary, a reduction in the number of publications on European subjects directly specifies the respective alterations of the moods of the authorities.

The distinctions in the positions of the mass media have also defined the possibilities of the means they use to construct and promote the im-age. Thus, while creating the image of Belarus and Europe in the state-run printed mass media, special rhetorical strategies have been used — the citing of «others’ voices», the positions of «independent observers», but, as a rule, they coincide with the official point of view. Opinions of the European diplomats who confirm the position of our officials are considered especially significant. As a whole, the state-run mass media

22 Ponomarev N. F. The authorities’ informational policy: propaganda, anti-pro-paganda, counter-propaganda. — Perm: Publishing House of Perm State Technical University, 2007. — 185 p.


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have an ambiguous, inconsistent image of Europe and the problem of Belarus’ Europeanization — they have not yet developed a certain ap-proach and all depends on the position of the authorities, which is pre-sented as the only possible one.

The displacement of emphasis — from an openly negative to positive image and vice versa — was caused by the policy of European integra-tion supported by the country leaders within the framework of the East-ern Partnership program, which, in its turn, was shaded by the general negative background at the expense of messages about the crisis and the decrease of the standard of living in a number of the European coun-tries. The concern about the prospects of further cooperation with the European Union was also present on the pages of newspapers as one of the main problems in the first half of 2010; the skeptical attitude of the Belarusian administration in relation to the European initiatives was shown. «The things that the Europeans demand from us are unaccept-able for us … Where is it (Eastern Partnership)? Just empty talks; it’s not clear how it works. One meeting has taken place, and after that — com-plete silence. We need the Eastern Partnership first of all not because of politics, but as an economic component», — declared A. Lukashenka in his interview with the TV-channel «Euronews»23. This statement per-fectly illustrates the official position of the authorities concerning the European Union, focused exclusively on the protection of their own interests (see 2, 9, 19). In the non-state mass media, there is a neutral positioning of the European regions and institutions, while there is a general openly skeptical attitude toward the position of the Belarusian state. Also, the alternative publications have an obvious tendency of cit-ing representatives of independent research institutes and oppositional political parties.

Thus, in the information field presented by the state-run and alterna-tive media, there have been processes of «semantic diffusion», a move-ment of values and senses that are grouped around the nominative con-structions of «Europe» and «European integration«. The antagonism has taken place in the «semantic core» of collective conceptualization, in the field of the «virtual» or «imagined signifiant [signifier]» (C. Metz), built as a certain political strategy of constructing the national identity. The state-run mass media represented the point of view of the official authorities that have completely appropriated the dominant position in the sphere of the symbolical space identified as «the center of Europe». And then Belarus appears as the only possible and authentic Europe,

23 Gorin I. Top-15 of Lukashenko‘s statements in his «Euronews» interview. — Nar-odnaja Vola.— № 100–101 (3228–3229). — 28.06.2010.


which has kept the true meaning and value of European culture in the situation when its «primordial essence» has been washed away by world globalization and migratory streams, and the social and economic crisis has questioned the very possibility of the existence of European institu-tional structures in their present kind.

The Belarusian authorities, with the help of the state-run mass media, offer their own treatment of «Europeanness», claiming that their under-standing is the only true one. As Belarus is «the center of Europe», then the other European space is the «periphery«, which cannot be perceived as a source of norms and a sample of initiatives; it cannot tell others what to do and how it must be done. The very necessity of carrying out reforms becomes unjustified: what «Europeanization» is it possible to speak about if we ourselves are «the real Europe»?

This position becomes defining when Belarus is included in partner relations with European countries and institutions, when they are per-ceived exclusively as «donors» who are useful as sources of financing, but who are not opinion leaders when it comes to the implementation of state policy. Thus, the country leaders demonstrate their readiness to partici-pate in and support European projects only as a consumer of investments, but are not going to correspond to the European requirements.

From the alternative position of the non-state mass media, the Euro-pean «authenticity» of Belarus looks more like «autism» obsessed with its reproduction of already habitual institutional norms and examples of social practices that have nothing in common with European standards, but are perceived as such- and as the only possible ones. As the Belaru-sian officials are exposed to sanctions and are limited in their possibili-ties of visiting the European Union countries, while the majority of the population simply cannot afford to travel themselves, the Belarusians are deprived of the possibility to compare their own way of life to that in Europe. Without contact with the Other and deprived of the possi-bility to interact with the competitive environment, we are inevitably doomed to self-isolation and marginalization both on the cultural and social plane. The alternative mass media emphasize that there cannot be any question about the «center of Europe», as it is only a «simulacrum» constructed by the authorities in order to compensate for the dramatic rupture between the eternally attractive but inaccessible Europe as the «Other» and what had always been perceived as «Our» Russia, which suddenly became a «Stranger«.

To expose, disavow, and neutralize the propaganda effect of the influ-ence of the state-run mass media that are imprinting this cliché in the mass audience’s consciousness is a task to be undertaken, according to the non-state-run publications In order to achieve this, they use such


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strategies as criticism and ironical plays upon the meaning of the pro-paganda templates, which frequently turns into open «gibing»; the pre-sentation of information from alternative sources; presentation of the results of researches by independent scientific research institutions and organizations such as the IISEPS and BISS to the audience. The non-state mass media do not doubt that Belarus belongs to Europe either and draw attention to the necessity of correcting the Belarusians’ conscious-ness of rectifying this «false identity» which is proposed to them by the current political regime.

The following informational «wave» caused by a wave of interest in the topic of Belarus’ interactions with Europe has arisen in connection with the sharp deterioration of the relations between the president of Belarus and the Russian leaders. In this connection, on the eve of the last presidential election, A. Lukashenka built his election campaign on crit-icism of Russia’s position concerning Belarus. As «the European way» had always been considered as an alternative to the pro-Russian vector of foreign policy, the media rating of the topic of Belarus’ «Europeaniza-tion» in the state-run and alternative mass media had essentially been raised. However, the implementation of this scenario already happened outside the established time period, and therefore its analysis requires carrying out additional researches.

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Europeanization at the level of everyday practices: from idealization to profanationdmitry Kolyadov

This chapter deals with the varied images and meanings of «Europe» that are spread throughout Belarus’ everyday reality, even if they occupy a rather small place in it. As Olga Shparaga remarks, it is possible to pin-point two basic ways of understanding «Europeanization». First, as a way to enable new EU members to better integrate themselves into the Euro-pean community. The second way assumes understanding Europeaniza-tion as a definition of the idea and «project of Europe» as a historical, cultural, political, etc. unity with its own distinctness. In both cases, writes O. Shparaga, Europeanization is understood as a process or a certain vari-ant of a collective self-determination or a collective identity1. I would like to view Europeanization by taking into account another meaning — from the point of view of creating and distributing-unintentionally, more often than not — a certain idea or image of Europe at the level of everyday life.

Everyday life will be will be taken to mean, in this chapter: firstly, the everydayness of Belarusian cities that is far from the world of politics in the narrow sense of this word. Our reference to this quotidian monotony as to a reservoir of meanings, values, and images of Europe, which is frequently beyond the borders of perception of the majority of Belaru-sian scholars who try to make out the sense of Europe, is due to the fact that Europeanization is inconceivable without work at the cultural level, without Europeanization from below and without a «plurality of ideas of Europe»2. Leaving aside such concepts as the «idea of Europe», the «Eu-

1 See Section 2.2. of this book.2 The notion of the plurality of conceptions of Europe was expressed by Alexei Ovchinnikov during the round table dedicated to the problems of the Europeanization of the Republic of Belarus. The Paths of the Europeanization of Belarus (round table) See: http://n-europe.eu/roundtable/puti-evropeizatsii-belarusi-i. It is necessary to remark that there is no unity of how to treat Europe, how to correspond with it, and, in general, how to conceive of it among Belarusian intellectuals. Footnote continued on next page.

http://n-europe.eu/roundtable/puti-evropeizatsii-belarusi-i

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199europeanizaTion aT The level of everyday pracTices: from idealizaTion To...Dmitry Kolyadov

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ropean perspective», the «European model of development», «European integration», etc., which are voiced by representatives of different social groups and institutions of Belarus (Belarusian intellectuals, but also, for example, politicians and mass media), we shall address the social spaces where the images of Europe have gained a foothold and Europeanization (even though, it is not the Europeanization the Belarusian and European intellectuals are speaking about) has already taken place.

Admittedly, despite my desire to separate myself from the Belaru-sian intellectual context in which Europe and Europeanization are being cerebrated, I, nevertheless, would like to mention two theses stated during the discussion of the collection «European prospect of Belarus»3. The essential importance of these theses lies in the fact that they legitimate in some measure my own reflections in the context of this research.

The first thesis belongs to Dmitry Korenko, who noted that the Euro-pean idea of Belarus can be formulated at various levels, among which he specified the level of agents and practices. The second important remark for me was made by Alexei Ovchinnikov, who spoke about the neces-sity of «clarifying» «the idea of Europe» in relation to the social groups who are already interested in Europe» and of «providing more accurate definitions of what is understood as Europe in each separate group». It seems to me that these theses comply with one of the purposes of study-ing Europeanization as it was formulated by Stefan Garsztecki in Section 2.1. of this book: the gathering of «empirical examples of Europeaniza-tion in Central and Eastern Europe»4.

Footnote continued from previous page. Even if there is no rigid opposition con-cerning the «correct»vision of Europe (and accordingly — of Belarus), still, there is a rivalry of interpretations. To become convinced of this, ones has but to read the collection «The European prospect of Belarus: intellectual models» and its discussion. The collection «The European prospect of Belarus: intellectual models» http://n-europe.eu/evropeiskaya_perspektiva_belarusi_intellektualnye_modeli.

Reviews of the collection: Gritsanov A. Belarus viewed by national Europeans. http://nmnby.eu/news/express/1444.html; Korenko D. The European prospect of Belarus: communication and a search for common grounds are needed. http://n-europe.eu/article/2008/05/13/eurapeiskaya_perspektyva_belarusi_neabkhodnasts_kamunikatsyi_i_poshuku_agulnykh_p; Silicki V. To Belarus from Europe. http://v1.n-europe.eu/content/?p=41643 The Paths of the Europeanization of Belarus http://n-europe.eu/arti-cle/2008/06/26/puti_evropeizatsii_belarusi_ii4 Stefan Garsztecki. The current dimensions of Europe in Central and Eastern Europe — Europeanization from below?

http://n-europe.eu/evropeiskaya_perspektiva_belarusi_intellektualnye_modeli

http://n-europe.eu/evropeiskaya_perspektiva_belarusi_intellektualnye_modeli

http://nmnby.eu/news/express/1444.html

http://n-europe.eu/article/2008/05/13/eurapeiskaya_perspektyva_belarusi_neabkhodnasts_kamunikatsyi_i_poshuku_agulnykh_p



http://v1.n-europe.eu/content/?p=4164


http://n-europe.eu/article/2008/06/26/puti_evropeizatsii_belarusi_ii

http://n-europe.eu/article/2008/06/26/puti_evropeizatsii_belarusi_ii


Why must we refer to everyday material culture in this case, when it is a question, one would think, of more serious, things: democracy, public-ity, human rights, integration, autonomy, solidarity, and social responsi-bility, as well as the prospects of such unification of Europe, which would not be accompanied by Euro-centrism and homogenization? It seems to me that it is necessary to discuss the confluence of Europeanization and everydayness because the majority of today’s Belarusians have a very vague notion of these problems. As Alexander Sarna remarks, «as the Belarusian officials are exposed to sanctions and are limited in their pos-sibilities to visit the EU countries, while the majority of the population are simply not able to afford it, the Belarusians are deprived of a chance to compare their own way of life to the European one»5. Thus, not many Belarusians have directly seen Europe. Still, practically all of us face im-ages of Europe that are disseminated by the mass media, both state-run and independent.

Therefore, it was important for me to depart from intellectual dis-cussions and to study the problem at the level of the everyday mate-rial culture, where, according to A. Usmanova, at the end of the day, «the everyday struggle for symbolical capital, for the manufacture of identities inside and by means of cultural representations, is taking place»6, and which touches everyone: a critical intellectual, a sales-woman, a state official, a teenager, and many others. I would like to base my reasoning on the firmest foundations, i.e. to investigate not the notions in the heads of fellow citizens but the phenomena that have already been consolidated in the social space — on the streets of cities, where they are seen to everyone who walks these streets. For me, such objects are the words on signboards, shop windows, sidewalk signs, and billboards, which have the combination of letters «euro». {billboards, signboards, sidewalk signs= all have more or less the same meaning]

5 Sarna A. The European identity of Belarus and the image of Europe in the Belaru-sian mass media.6 «Following the theorists of the British school of ‘cultural studies’, we should start studying everyday material culture, i.e. mediatized, technological everyday culture, which acts as an intermediary between art, science, and the production of goods, between the powers and common people, between the dominating ideology and al-ternative social discourses. It is here that the everyday struggle for symbolical capi-tal and for the manufacture of identities inside and by means of cultural representa-tions is taking place». Usmanova A. Belarus Live: the way of life as a life of images // Belarusian format: invisible reality. A collection of scholarly works / executive editor A. R. Usmanova — Vilnius: ЕHU, 2008. — p. 11–12.


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As I handle the concept of an «urban space», it is necessary to explain what it means. We shall take into consideration the fact that the names and signboards we shall talk about are very uniformly distributed on Be-larusian streets. There is a greater chance of coming across such names in Minsk and on Independence Prospect than in Baranavičy and Šabany. However, one should not think that we will find «Europe» only in Minsk, or only in the center of a Belarusian city. As the data shows, the mark of Europeanness can also be found far from Minsk and far from the center. E.g. on a billboard when one leaves a city, in an industrial zone, on a small imperceptible tablet hidden behind the trees of a city park — in general, in places and purlieus which are outside tourist, central, presti-gious, etc. urban spaces. At a first approximation, the situation seems to be as such: the «euro» names appear to be randomly scattered in Belaru-sian cities, even though there is a tendency for them to be concentrated in the central part of Minsk.

While studying signboards, sidewalk signs, billboards, show windows, etc., which contain the prefix «euro«, I shall be looking for answers to the two questions:

— What is the object or place with the name «euro…»;— What additional (connotative) meanings can be hidden behind

these names. The reference to connotations is justified, as we are inter-ested in the «idea of Europe» in the names which are the objects of our attention. After all, following R. Barthes’ thought, it would be logical to seek the idea (in our case — the idea of Europe) among connotative signifiés (the signified)7.

There is little sense in classifying the kinds of objects whose names contain «Euro…,» as they are hardly numerous.

Therefore, I will simply list what I have seen (mainly in Minsk, but also in some other Belarusian cities). More often than not, they were objects and locations linked to retail: a large shopping center8, a grocery supermarket («European») and a restaurant near it, a small grocery shop, a tent with vegetables and fruit in the market, a drugstore, and

7 «The area which is common for connotative signifiés (the signified, is the area of ideology, and this area is always uniform for a certain society at a certain stage of its historical development, irrespective of what connotative signifiants (signifiers) it resorts to». Barthes R. Rhetoric of an image / selected works: Semiotics. Poetics. — М., 1994. — p. 316.8 It seems that «Europe» as a signifiant (signifier) of consumers’ paradise is char-acteristic of the European part of the post-Soviet territory. Besides the Belarusian trading-entertaining centers «Europe», I recall similar «Europes» in Vilnius and Moscow.


a mobile communication salon9. Besides retail and/or entertainment objects, it is possible to mention a real estate agency, a business center, a beauty salon10 and oat cookies with sunflower seeds named «Euro-pean». It is easy to notice that all referents (i.e. the real objects that contain «euro…» in their names — shops, salons, agencies) are within the circle of goods and services, and «Europe«, thus, is constituted as a consumption space. This fact not only shows a way of perception of Europe, but also our expectations from goods and services constituted by this perception.

Goods and services offered in our «European»space are quite di-verse — foodstuffs, building materials, clothes, home appliances, medical and pharmaceutical preparations, mobile phones and acces-sories. The euro signifiants (signifiers) mean that the goods and ser-vices which are on sale in the places marked by them possess certain characteristics. Further, I will try to find these characteristics in the available names. In order to prove the correctness of my suggestions, I would like to expand the prospects a little and, if necessary, to also address the texts of show windows and advertisement posters11, as well as my private experience.

«Europe» as a reproduced quality standard

What should any seller in general appeal to? To the fact that his/her offer favorably differs from those of other sellers. Therefore, it will not be a mistake to view the text that is placed on show windows as messages to a potential consumer about the specific value of the goods that are behind it. Text such as «clothes from Europe» suggests the perception

9 After the first version of the text was finished, I faced a series of funny «euro» names. I think it is worth mentioning them here: «Euro windows», «Euro wines», «Euro tire fitting», «EuroPit» (pizzeria), as well as «Euro wall-papers», «Euro bear-ings», and «Euro baguette».10 As for the beauty salon, it is quite probable that its name refers to Europa from the Ancient Greek myth.11 To validate the reference to the texts of street advertizing carriers, I will cite R. Barthes’ statement, «The verbal text operates not by acts of identification, but by processes of interpretation; such a text is like a vice which squeezes connotative meanings and does not allow them to slip out either into the zone of strictly indi-vidual meanings (thereby the text limits the projective force of the image) or into the zone of the meanings that cause unpleasant feelings». Barthes R. Rhetoric of an image / selected works: Semiotics. Poetics. — М., 1994. — p. 305.


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of this Europeanness as a value, a favorably distinctive sign. Why is it valuable? Or, more precisely, what characteristics valued by the consum-er does «Europe» imply/hint at?

In my opinion, it is necessary to begin by dealing with the follow-ing two characteristics: quality of production / appearance. Which of these connotative signifiés is the first (whether in the consciousness of the recipients or in discourse) is hard to say. . Most likely, the foodstuffs «blessed» with Europeanness are to a greater degree loaded with the connotation of high quality (some Belarusian manufacturers try to join this Europeanness and inform potential consumers that their produc-tion is certificated by the European Union). In the case of «clothes from Europe,» connotations of style, fashion, and modern appearance are not less (and probably more) important.

Appeals to buy «clothes of the European style» (i.e. those which look European) or «of European brands», as well as the fact that the Europe-anness of the goods is demonstrated by the stores which offer clothes that are no longer fashionable somewhere else and by second-hand shops can be interpreted not only and not so much in terms of the qual-ity and durability of these clothes, but also in terms of their fashionable, modern, etc. appearance. Herein lies a paradox, since the assortment of second-hand shops consists of clothes whose first owners got rid of them. It is logical to assume that, for their first owners, these clothes have lost their consumer properties — they stretched at the elbows and knees, faded, became covered by irremovable stains and wrinkles, have gone out of fashion, or the owners are simply tired of them. Neverthe-less, in our context, for certain groups,12 second-hand shops are a place of sale of things that are not only cheap, but also fancy, original, and atypical, showing their owners’ good taste and separating them from in-expressively dressed masses. The clothes produced by Belarusian manu-facturers, on the contrary, or the things sold in the markets for such groups will be looked upon as dowdy and absurd — in short, clothes that a modern person with good taste would not wear.

However, as a whole, the situation with the use of second-hand «Eu-ropean» clothes makes it possible to recall globalization and a Europe-centered outlook on the countries of the «third world». From this point

12 It first seemed to me that the group of those who care about how to dress taste-fully would include people who are younger than 30 years old. However, after I came across a Russian Internet forum dedicated to second-hand items, it became clear that it is not necessary to limit the age to 30 years old. However, the question of the age of those who consider second-hand shops a place where it is possible to dress tastefully does need specification.


of view, «the third world», first, should chase after the civilized world, passing through the same stages of development, wearing out the same boots on the same roads, repeating the same mistakes in politics, eco-nomics, culture, and the way of life, only with a delay. And second, «the third world» turns into a garbage can or, at best, a storage space where the first world puts unnecessary things like second-hand clothes or nu-clear waste.

The mark left by Europeanness on building materials, has the same meanings — the high quality and modern stylish appearance of the house where these building materials were used. Here, it must be noted, it is possible to recall the notion of European-quality repair («evrore-mont», which is now being used less and less) and the beauty salon «Eu-ropa», which aimed to create quality and professional appearances for its clients.

However, European-quality repair and a beauty salon lead us to one more group of connotative signifiés, which I will designate by the words luxury and high-status-ness. These signifiés are especially apt if one looks at the Homiel-based cultural-entertaining center «Europe» and especially at the Minsk-based hotel «Europe»13. The fact that European-ness implies luxury is proved absolutely unexpectedly by the places that are not suited to demonstrate luxury — the names of shops of building materials: «Eurolux» and «Eurostyle».

Europe as the European Union in Belarus’ culture of consumption

Now, I would like to pay attention to one more connotation, which does not concern goods, services, or entertainment, but informs us about additional meanings of the perception of Europe in Belarus. The fact that the external design of «euro» signboards is quite often accom-panied by stars stands out. In all cases where these stars appear, they form a circle or a curve, which can be a potential segment of a circle (though the number of stars may differ and though they are not always

13 Here are some phrases from the text on the hotel’s web site: «Respectable five-star hotel», «Europe»offers its visitors a high level of service and comfort«, «excellent service and richly furnished suites«, «rooms and corridors are decorated by paintings of famous Belarusian artists, the hall from the ground to the sixth floor is decorated by a big panel with pictures from the history of the city«, «the area of the rooms exceeds the standards provided for a five-star hotel«, «The high level of comfort is proved by...». See http://www.hoteleurope.by/ru/ and http://www.hote-leurope.by/ru/about_hotel/


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located on a dark blue background). In general, a reference to the EU flag is easily read here. A more rare variant, which connotes EU-ness, is the use of the symbol «€» in the word «Europe«.

In this context I shall cite A. Usmanova’s thought, which, as she said, testifies to the fact that «the European Union seized the right to ‘repre-sent’ the idea of Europe»: «… in one of Germany’s airports, I noticed a huge poster placed in a waiting room (that is, in its own way, very telling, considering that the zones of arrival and departure in European airports are segregated for those who arrive from EU countries and all the others, as well as how streams for passport control are divided — owners of the treasured passports with stars have the obvious advantages of visa-free flights, while those who are not citizens of the EU, i.e. passengers from the countries of the second and third worlds do not) — the inscription said, ‘Europe brings happiness’ with the first two letters of the word ‘Eu-rope’ stressed — EUrope, — so that nobody could have even slightest doubt that behind that huge happiness promised to foreigners who stay in Europe, there is the invisible but reliable European Union the main guarantor of the well-being and safety of Europeans»14.

I consider it curious that there is a contradiction here between the ideology of Belarusian critical intellectuals and profane everyday mean-ings on the signboards and names framed with stars. In these, often re-peated together with «euro…» stars, there is, it seems to me, a legiti-mization of the state of affairs, which is criticized, for example, by A. Usmanova, who opposes it with the idea of Europe as a cultural heritage and symbolical construct that condition «our identity:15, — the Euro-pean Union’s assumption of the right to represent the idea of Europe, i.e. if for a Belarusian critical intellectual it is important to separate Europe from the European Union, then, for example, our material disseminated in the everydayness of Belarusian cities prove that it implicitly means — «Europe»is the European Union.

Conclusions: Europe as a profane Other

From a rather firm soil of the analysis of signboards and names, we shall go to conclusions and generalizations. I will try to make these con-clusions and generalizations as careful as possible. First, because the

14 Usmanova A. Eastern Europe as a new subordinated subject // The European prospect of Belarus: intellectual models / compiled by O. Shparaga. — Vilnius: ЕHU, 2007. — p. 136–137.15 Ibid., p. 136.


share of «euro» signboards on the streets of Belarusian cities is not too large in relation to other names and signboards. As for towns, we will not find anything «European» in many of them (typical are shops «Mi-rage» (as a variant — «Oasis«) or cafés «Meeting«). Second, I do not have any data to speak about a correlation between these signboards and the opinions, thoughts, and conceptualizations concerning Europe in the heads of any statistically significant group of Belarusians.

In general, it is worth repeating: the meanings reconstructed above do not necessarily reflect the views of all Belarusian Nevertheless, it is possible to affirm that there is a certain silent assumption that the names «euro…» that are used in certain ways and in certain contexts are quite pertinent and do not cause any misunderstanding in Belarusian society (as, for example, it should also seem quite pertinent that the name «Gan-ges» is used for stores that sell (ethnic goods, not only from India but from «exotic» countries in general).

As Olga Shparaga writes, the question of the idea of Europe is a ques-tion about ourselves16. We will try to generalize the results of these con-texts and ways of using the word «Europe» and to answer the question, «What do they say about us?»

First, in the reservoir of signboards and names, «Europe» merges with the European Union for «us». Second, the presence of «Europes» on the streets of Belarusian cities, which confirm the myth about the foreign char-acter of goods and services «blessed» by euro signifiants17, shows that we perceive (and simultaneously spread and impose this perception) Europe as the Other. Finally, this fact can be interpreted as an indirect proof that Belarusians are still far from European values, practices, and institutions18.

Third, «Europe» is inscribed in the context of consumption and enter-tainment; in Belarus’ monotony, it becomes a place where consumption and entertainment are carried out. In their turn, the goods and services

16 Shparaga O. In search of Europe, or the «idea of Europe» in the space of dialogue // The European prospect of Belarus: intellectual models / compiled by O. Shpara-ga. — Vilnius: ЕHU, 2007. — p. 9.17 It is probably necessary here to recall names like «London», «Small Paris», «Schwarzwald«, «Vegas«, etc.18 It seems to me that Alexander Sarna, who studied another area of the social real-ity — the Belarusian printed mass media — in order to discover there the European identity of Belarus, comes to a similar conclusion. Despite the regular attempts of the state-run press to symbolically seize the central positions in the symbolical space defined as «the center of Europe», «it is still too early to think that the process of positioning the Republic as a European country is finished». (Section 3.3. of this book).


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which have appeared in the space of «Europe» get a hint of European-ness behind which the connotative signifiés of «qualitative produc-tion», «stylish appearance», «ultra-modern entertainments», «faultless service»19 and (it seems that in some smaller degree) «respectability», «luxury», and «glamour» disappear. Thus, the results obtained during this analysis of euro names indirectly confirm V. Silicki’s thesis that the Europeanization of Belarus is to a greater degree limited to practices of consumption20.

As we have quite well known for a long time, «one should not say ev-erything, not speak about everything, and not under every circumstance, and, finally … not everyone can be told everything»21. We find this to be true in this case — what can be said and how it can be said in the Belaru-sian public and everyday urban space («Europe» as a signifiant of enter-tainment, consumption, and service) and what cannot be said («Europe» as a cultural heritage, democratic values, intellectual tradition).

The Europeanness of intellectuals with their ideas of the «liberaliza-tions of education», of «challenging the conservative traditions of Soviet higher education», and of «creating a dialogue with the world» has been forced out of the public sphere to the periphery, or, in general, beyond the borders of the country (as was the case with the ЕHU). Meanwhile, the «European» cookies, «Russian» cheese, and «Tałačynskaje» wine («fortified, strong, improved, for friends») peacefully coexist in a trading space full of posters that proclaim «Buy Belarusian Goods». The facts that the «respectable five-star hotel «Europe» is in the center of Minsk and that the Homiel-based entertainment complex «Europe»was built

19 Quite recently I have involuntarily heard the following remark in a street con-versation: we are [in Viciebsk] now as if we were in Europe, in the stores they say «Thank you for your purchase!» and «Come again!».Meanwhile, Belarusian service causes contempt, irritation, and even hatred among many of my acquaintances. When it comes to discussions of the advantages of life in Europe, cheap and quality goods, faultless service, and freedom of movement over the entirety of the territory of the EU are mentioned most frequently.20 »Having altered Almira Usmanova’s shrewd remark that the process of national unity in Belarus is promoted by the authorities through the ‘generalization of prac-tices of consumption’, it is possible to affirm that the process of ‘Europeanization’ in Belarus is partly limited to the same«. Silicki V. To Belarus through Europe http://v1.n-europe.eu/content/?p=416421 Foucault M. Order of discourse // The Will to truth: beyond knowledge, power, and sexuality. Works from different years. Translated from the French. — М., Kastal, 1996. — p. 51.




on the spot of the movie theater «Belarus«22 cause no scandal, indigna-tion, or misunderstanding. All these examples suggest that the meanings delivered by intellectuals right now remain illegitimate, while consumer-ist Europe is being freely developed on the streets of Belarusian cities23.

Of course, nobody says that it is someone’s malicious intention, cal-culation, or plot to secretly profane the «idea of Europe» and turn it into consumerist perception24. I propose to understand this situation as an effect, as a result of the uncoordinated actions of multidirectional forces. Its essence is that, at the level of daily practices, there is a profanation of the «idea of Europe» which sets a certain prospect for the Europeaniza-tion of Belarus25.

22 The owners of this institution paid attention to this name change , imbuing it with some meaning, «In the very name of this scaled multipurpose complex, there is a vivid, brave idea. Being near the park — the favorite vacation spot of Homiel residents, in the building of the former restaurant ‘Belarus’, encompassing an area of 3600 sq. meters, — ‘Europe’ offers its visitors a quality new level of recreation!». http://www.europaclub.by/o-krts-evropa. My italics.23 It seems that consumerist discourse in general appears the most universal, con-vertible, and enduring.24 Unlike the way Europe is represented in the state-run mass media (e.g. the TV series «Disunited States of Europe»).25 It is possible to recall such an example. When there were rumors that the EHU would return to Belarus (which, if I understand correctly, should be perceived as a victory for pro-European oriented society in Belarus), I heard among the EHU stu-dents, inter alia, make (self-deprecating?) ironic comments about it, such as «God forbid!». However, this does not mean that all students entered the EHU only for the sake of the possibility of joining Europe’s consumer practices.

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conclusion.Europeanization as theory and practice, with many subjects and levelsolga shparaga

The collective research presented in this book unites a number of general notions and topics that can be considered reference points for the process of Belarus’ Europeanization. The citation of these notions can be started with the connection of Europeanization with moderniza-tion, which is mentioned in the very first article of this monograph. Its authors, Alexander Vlaskin and Anatoly Kruglashov, define European-ization as a bilateral process. On the one hand, it is characterized by a subjective readiness and aspiration of the political elite and society «towards the modernization of their country and governance system according to examples that have proved their efficacy and viability in the majority of the European countries». On the other hand, it is a pro-cess that takes place due to objective reasons and factors that «influence the civilizational choice of the Belarusians and the political leaders and which form their eagerness for the economic, social-cultural, and politi-cal space of Europe».

This is a situation of a civilizational or, more exactly, modernizational challenge. The conditions of this situation differ from the conditions of traditional societies; here, the non-pre-planned, open character of the social order demands social, political, and cultural changes and acts in the role of an objective precondition for transformations which are common in various European countries. However, the history of Europe, and especially its post-war period, shows how important it is to find adequate forms of answering this challenge, as well as what role in this process is played by the cooperation and interaction of different subjects of modernization with each other.

Another author of the first section of the book, Pavel Usov, uses the term «passive Europeanization» in order to define the aforementioned objective component. However, if Usov proves the possibility of such a Europeanization of Belarus by the fact that, since 2004, our country geographically borders the European Union, then Alexander Vlaskin and Anatoly Kruglashov connect it with the logic of relations between


Belarus and the European Union and the way these relations, accord-ing to the authors, have been developing since 1991. This logic is such that the BSSR’s acquisition of independence was not, as it seems at first sight, a one-stage process, but still requires a further institutional and discourse registration. According to Alexander Vlaskin and Anatoly Kruglashov, the discourse of Belarus’ Europeanization is trying more and more to stop being oppositional, marginalized by the authorities, and to turn into «the basic national discourse that consolidates society». It is conditioned by the inner logic of development of the country and the hopelessness of the re-Sovietization strategy, as well as by the inter-national political conjuncture, and, above all, by the change of the role of Russia in the East European region.

The bond of Europeanization and modernization leads to the follow-ing notion, mentioned in a number of the texts of this monograph — the autonomization of public institutions, subjects and practices, which supplement the policy carried out by the state in modern societies by forming new public institutions that solve the questions that the state cannot solve, and a normative horizon to evaluate the state’s activity. Moreover, modern societies inevitably tend to expand autonomy, which should be taken into consideration at the level of the acceptance of po-litical decisions.

However, as I have tried to demonstrate in my article by referring to theorists of modernity, «to take into consideration» does not necessar-ily mean «to encourage, or seek public autonomy». Totalitarian and au-thoritarian regimes are characterized by the fact that they create barriers in the way of public autonomy formation, which is also the subject of a special analysis in the section of the book dedicated to Belarus’ regional policy and the difficulties of its Europeanization. The most important conclusion of the authors of this research, Anatoly Kruglashov and Yulia Kotskaya, is that the Europeanization of Belarus’ regional policy chal-lenges the local government system created by A. Lukashenka. It also means that it is in this very sphere that the correlation of the processes of Europeanization and democratization is most obvious. It is here, at the regional policy level, where Europeanization allows us to find out the most vivid deficits of democracy in Belarus, as well as, on the contrary, to see the potential of Europeanization for the development of good gov-ernment t at the local level in the form of regions’ participation in the political life of the state. Thus, the Europeanization of regional policy, which is successfully carried out by our nearest European neighbors, sets standards — administrative, legal, institutional, etc. — of local pub-lic autonomy, according to which it is possible to evaluate the authori-ties’ policy at this level.

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In the case of Belarus, such an evaluation reveals that the authorities not only do not stimulate the development of local government, but also transform it into another mechanism of substituting the needs and requirements of local communities with decisions imposed from above. Europeanization, in this case, can be an effective tool to disavow this strategy, on the one hand, and to overcome it — for example, through real participation in international projects on transboundary coopera-tion, — on the other hand. As, according to Anatoly Kruglashov and Yulia Kotskaya, «one of the fundamental pan-European ideas of trans-boundary cooperation between regions is the expansion of the pow-ers of regional authorities of different countries beyond the borders of their state», which leads to the strengthening of local self-government and the modernization of the economic and social development of re-gions. In Belarus at the present time, there is a contrary tendency. be-cause «transboundary cooperation is thought to be in the foreign policy sphere, which actually separates its implementation directly from the competence of the authorities of the regions, whose population should be engaged directly in the solution of boundary problems».

Still, does this evaluation of the condition of Belarus’ Europeaniza-tion at the regional level contradict Anatoly Kruglashov and Alexander Vlaskin‘s conclusions concerning the increase of the prospects of the Eu-ropean vector of development of our country — as it one that is able to consolidate Belarusian society on European grounds? In other words, is it possible to speak about any consolidation in conditions when the au-thorities purposefully suppress all public autonomy? The evaluations of the Belarusian authorities’ discourse strategies revealed in the speeches of official politicians and in the materials published by the state-run mass media can answer these questions. Pavel Usov, on the one hand, and Al-exander Sarna, on the other hand, find that the basis of the official rheto-ric about Europe and the Belarusians’ European identity is the relativiza-tion of the image of Europe. Europe is considered to be a reference point for Belarus’ development and simultaneously a topos of problems and conflicts, because «it is nice in Europe, but it is worse than in Belarus».

It does not allow Europe, according to the regime propagandists, to be an equal partner of Belarus, which is a part of Europe, but deprived of the conflicts defining today’s state of affairs in Europe. According to the same propagandists, it happens because contemporary Europe lacks the universal principles on the basis of which decisions are made (Kruglashov, Vlaskin). According to these propagandists, this results in the European policy of «double standards». It is possible to draw the conclusion that the basis of developing such universal principles is seen by the Belarusian regime in the suppression of pluralism and diversity


or the implementation of the discourse (and not only) homogenization of Belarusian society (Bratochkin), which allows it to hide (and if neces-sary — to violently repress) any possible and real conflicts. It follows thence that Belarus, from the point of view of the regime propagandists, is in an exclusive position from the value point of view because value unanimity dominates here. It provides the authorities with grounds that are being cultivated strenuously by means of propaganda to refuse the European values and simultaneously to substantiate the expediency of dialogue with Europe at the level of interests or pragmatism.

Alexei Bratochkin shows that, while creating such an image of Europe, Belarus also uses the resources of the «politics of memory,» (Geschich-tspolitik) subordinated to the interests of the authorities’ politicization of history. This politicization is based on the power discourse creators’ specific interpretation of modern ideas and values — freedom, national statehood, political participation, egalitarianism, etc. This interpreta-tion leans on the essentialization of such features of the processes of modernity in Belarus as state domination and paternalism, the absence of political subjectness at the level of individuals, and the overall collec-tivism institutionalized during the Soviet epoch. As a result, the cause and effect relations are constantly overturned — «the model of identity imposed ‘from above’ (including the new characteristics favorable for the authorities) is declared to be caused by the Belarusians’ former his-torical experience». Here, it is possible to see the analogy of the state policy carried out at the level of local self-government when, as I have noted above, there is a substitution of local communities’ needs and re-quirements for decisions imposed from above (Kruglashov, Kotskaya).

Coming back to the contradiction established above between the pros-pects of the Europeanization discourse for the officials in Belarus and its threat for the developed centralization of power, it is possible, supported by Alexander Sarna’s, Pavel Usov’s, and Alexei Bratochkin’s reflections mentioned in this book, to come to the conclusion that the authorities surmount this contradiction by specifically re-interpreting this discourse. The essence of this semantic and communicative transformation is that they reveal the internal conflicts in the Europeanization process itself with the help of the idealization and essentialization of Belarus’ European his-torical and contemporary dimension (thus, «European Belarus» appears to be an indicative set of successes deprived of errors and contradictions, as well as the country’s victories and achievements on the way of progress and justice). In other words, the political model created by the authorities is presented as our own, immanent and organic form of Belarus’ Europe-anization, which not only needs no Europeanization from the outside, but also allows the authorities to expose the contradictions of the latter.

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In order to change this situation, it is necessary to reveal this fundamen-tal substitution and to bring back the meaning of the notion and process of Europeanization, which are not imposed on society from above, but which are developed inside society, in case it has possibilities to develop autono-mously, i.e. to independently define the rules of its existence, which corre-sponds to the true meaning of modernization. Only this can become a con-dition of eliminating the contradiction between democratization and the possibility of Belarusian society’s consolidation based on European values.

In this case, Europeanization, and, in particular, «Europeanization from below», reveals its potential for democratization and public trans-formations because, according to Alaksiej Łastoũski, it permits the syn-chronization of various European ideals, values, ways of talking, and practices. As Łastoũski remarks, in order to ensure that this synchroni-zation is carried out bilaterally — which is necessary, as is specified in the text by Stefan Garsztecki, — a number of additional efforts in different di-rections of Europeanization are needed. If, according to Łastoũski, such efforts have to be directed towards constructing new ways of coexistence in the common European space, which considers not only similarities, but also distinctions, and an important role here can be played by refer-ences to the specific experience of the organization of the political, social, and cultural life in the «Empire of Central Europe», then Alexei Bratoch-kin adds to the problems of constructing and re-constructing the past the requirements of reflecting upon and treating critically our own identity and memory. It can save us from dangerous idealizations and essential-izations that the authorities are using so skillfully.

Simultaneously, Alexei Bratochkin says that the modern form of social European reflection is hardly possible without an establishment of ties between the national and supranational levels of constructing identity. As it is demonstrated, for example, by the German experiment of «Past Studies», it is the transformation, but not the overcoming, of national into post-national forms that allows the change of the ways of referenti-ality with the Other, thus setting new reference points for its own devel-opment. In its turn, it leads not only to an adequate apprehension of the role of Europe in the history of Belarus — as its contents are beyond the «friend / enemy» opposition and become more detailed and diverse, — but also to Belarus’ appropriate inclusion in common European history.

Passing from knowledge and studies to practice, this coordination of the national level with the supranational one means, as it is noted in the article by Anatoly Kruglashov and Yulia Kotskaya, the possibility of Belarus’ real inclusion in an interaction built on rules other than those habitual for the Belarusian authorities. The authors say that one of such major rules is subsidiarity, which presupposes that «decisions should be


accepted at the level that is the closest to citizens», on the one hand, and a transition in the case of a strictly substantiated necessity to other levels — regional or national, on the other hand1.

One more important practical dimension of Europeanization, whose presence can already be noticed in Belarus and which is analyzed by Dmi-try Kolyadov in his article, is the space of mass consumption. The use of «Europe» as a symbol of the modern and qualitative form of consumption makes us think that it is this very sphere where Europeanization can be claimed to the greatest degree and, accordingly, can create the conditions of passing from passive to reflective Europeanization (which can also be seen in the transition from one mode of consumption — a beauty salon or a store — to others — cinema or sports, where the key role will be played by the formation of new ways of communication and self-regard).

For civil society as a whole and for its different participants, includ-ing the opposition party, the Europeanization of practices and knowledge means, first of all, the refusal of a declarative attitude towards European topics (P. Usov) and the real promotion of the «idea of Europe» in Belarus. According to the researchers whose works are collected in this book, the variety of subjects of Europeanization — from politicians and leaders of local self-government to the mass media, publicists, academic research-ers, and mediums of culture, should be supplemented with the variety of levels of Europeanization — from everyday culture to institutional policy. Reference to the mechanisms and effects of modernization, studies of the possibilities and real ways of public autonomization, the social capital and social solidarity on the national and supranational European levels, as well as reflective work with our own identity, memory, and everyday life — these are the contours of the extensive sphere the outline of which, at a first approximation, is the task of the authors of this monograph.

As I have tried to show here, having mentioned very briefly a num-ber of the notions and conclusions of this research, our consideration of Europeanization as a horizon of reference to these notions and themes allows us to effectively disavow the official «pro-European» rhetoric in order to oppose it with our critical attitude towards ourselves in the Eu-ropean context.

1 Compare: Glossary of terms of the EU and the Eastern Partnership (dictionary—directory). Minsk, 2010. p. 173.

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Anatoly Kruglashov — doctor of political sciences, professor. His basic place of work since 1988 is in Ukraine at the Chernivtsi National University, named after Yuriy Fedkovych, where since 1999 he is the holder of the Political Sciences and State Management Chair, and, since 2010 , the director of the Scientific Research Institute of European In-tegration and Regional Studies. In 2006–2010 he was the curator of the master’s degree courses «European Studies» and a professor at the Eu-ropean Humanities University (Vilnius, Lithuania). He worked as a pro-fessor at the Jagiellonian University (2006–2008), visiting professor at the University of Alberta (Edmonton, Canada), was invited for lecturing in Russia, Slovakia, and Germany. His areas of academic interests: the history and theory of political sciences, the political history of Eastern Europe, European integration and cooperation of the EU with the post-Soviet countries, post-communist transformation, political regionalis-tics, ethno-political science.

Email: [email protected]

Alexander Vlaskin — master of political sciences (EHU). Basic ed-ucation at the International Relations Department of Belarusan State University (BSU; Minsk, Belarus). Academic interests: Belarus’ foreign policy, European institutions, the EU external assistance programs.


Yulia Kotskaya (Julija Kockaja) — master of political sciences (EHU), doctoral candidate at EHU. Academic interests: political history of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the regional policy of Belarus and the EU countries, transboundary cooperation and the European regions.


about the authors

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Pavel Usov — political scientist, expert of the European Studies Center (Minsk, Belarus), regular contributor to the Internet magazine «Novaja Europa» («New Europe»), political analyst of the Polish Radio (Belarusan Edition) and the Belarusian independent TV-channel «Bel-sat». Spheres of interest: geopolitics, political processes in Belarus, Rus-sia, and Ukraine.


Stefan Garsztecki — doctor of political sciences, professor at the University of Technology (Chemnitz, Germany).

Olga Shparaga — candidate of philosophical sciences, senior lec-turer at EHU, editor of the Internet magazine «Novaja Europa» («New Europe»), expert at the European Studies Center (Minsk, Belarus). The author of the book «The Awakening of political life: An Essay on the phi-losophy of publicity» (Vilnius, EHU, 2010). Spheres of interest: political philosophy and the theory of publicity, the philosophy of Jan Patočka, phenomenology and the «idea of Europe».


Alexei Bratochkin — historian, tutor at Belarusian National Techni-cal University (Minsk, Belarus), editor and regular contributor of the Internet magazine «Novaja Europa» («New Europe»), expert at the European Studies Center (Minsk, Belarus). Spheres of interest: secular education, the Soviet period.


Alexander Sarna — candidate of philosophical sciences, senior lec-turer of the Social Communication Chair of BSU. The author of numer-ous publications concerning the problems of contemporary visual cul-ture in the magazines «Topos», «Political Sphere», and «Crossroads». Columnist on social policy in present day Belarus on the Internet maga-zine «Novaja Europa» («New Europe»). Areas of academic interest: Media and Communication Studies, modern philosophy of politics and power.


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217aBouT The auThors

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Alaksiej Łastoũski (Alexei Lastovsky) — candidate of sociological sciences, senior scientific employee of the Institute of Sociology at the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Belarus, researcher at the Political Studies Institute «Political Sphere». Research interests: historical memory, the politics of memory (Geschichtspolitik), national identity, nationalism, history of ideas.


Dmitry Kolyadov — master of sociology (EHU). Academic inter-ests: studies of everyday material culture; the sociology of literature; sociology of the city.


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The interdisciplinary collective monograph «The ways of Belarus’ Eu-ropeanization: between politics and identity construction (1991–2010)» studies the extremely pertinent for Belarus question of what interrela-tion exists between Europeanization and the construction of the nation-al identity. The notion of «Europeanization» is not being idealized, but used as an analytical category with various dimensions. In addition to political aspects, the authors regard mostly the historical and cultural aspects of Europeanization; however, the economic sphere, though also considered, it is not reviewed systematically. Thus, the articles, except Anatoly Kruglashov’s and Yulia Kotskaya’s survey material, as a whole, are marked by a high degree of topicality and a wide use of correspond-ing literature.

Besides the fact that it is of an interdisciplinary character, this mono-graph is also interesting because it avoids opposing Belarusian and Eu-ropean discourses, an approach that is quite widespread; the authors perceive the former as a part of the latter.

Even though they see Belarus as being mainly on the European pe-riphery, they nevertheless consider Belarusian actors as playing the roles of both objects and subjects of Europeanization.

The authors also avoid usually the unfortunately frequent approach of equating Europe and the European Union. It is important as well that the researchers do not just affirm the discrepancy between certain Belaru-sian processes and European development tendencies, values, etc., but also raise the question of the reasons behind these phenomena, among which it is possible to mention, for example, Belarus’ reasonable fear of being colonized by the dominating EU. The authors also search for ap-proaches to unite these different positions.

The researchers describe the understanding of Europeanization by all relevant political actors in Belarus. The authors also specify the poten-tial and contradictions that can be found among the authorities at the national and regional levels, as well as among the political opposition.

German researcher astrid sahm’s review of the book «The ways of Belarus’ Europeanization: between politics and identity construction (1991–2010)»

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219reviewAstrid Sahm

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They also study the interrelation between rhetoric and political prac-tices and thus come to the difference between intrinsic and cosmetic Europeanization.

Simultaneously, the authors raise the question of how the European-ization of various actors, for example — historians can already become stronger at the present moment.

However, the central importance of this monograph is that it differ-entiates between «Europeanization from below» and «Europeanization from above». This means that it reviews not only the results of political actors’ pre-planned Europeanization,, but also the Europeanization that is spreading throughout everyday practices, sometimes unintentionally. Accordingly, the authors also use the notion of «passive Europeaniza-tion», which takes place only due to the fact that Belarus is included in the pan-European processes of interaction through trade, contemporary communication media, etc.

Still, there is only one article, by Dmitry Kolyadov, that explores the question of the ways certain aspects of Europeanization are perceived by the population. The other articles dedicated to «Europeanization from below» analyze de facto — except for several references to sociological polls — exclusively the discourses of elites.

Besides, this limitation to analyses of discourse narrows the possi-bilities of identifying successful examples of «passive Europeanization» in Belarusian society, which overstep the bounds of the absorption of stereotypic images of the «European» as a sign of especial luxury or the highest quality. Such examples could be found, inter alia, with the help of a sociological analysis of the interests and needs of concrete target groups or certain social practices and concrete projects. For example, the institution of volunteering, the change of the image of seniors and their interest in the possibilities of continuing education, or the coopera-tion of twin cities and the Chernobyl initiatives.

This, however, does not diminish the importance of the monograph, but only outlines the need of further studying the topic.

Also, it would be desirable if, in the future, the collection included not just one, but several articles by foreign authors — this would demon-strate the various positions of researchers of Europeanization inside the European Union itself. After all, for the «inside-Belarus» debates, it is extremely important to be aware of the «outside-of-Belarus» discourses. Besides, it is necessary to consider in more detail the mutual influence of «Europeanization from above» and that «from below».

Astrid Sahm. doctor of philosophy, political scientist, member of the board of the German-Belarusian Association

about the center for European studies

Center for European Studies is an independent organization that brings together researchers and experts who stand for the European choice for Belarus.

Our mission

• To improve understanding of the key processes and challenges in Belarus — EU relations.

• To advance and spread knowledge about Europe and the EU.• To create a platform for dialogue and discussion on various issues

of Belarus — EU relations that would be accessible both for experts and the public at large.

People

Alexander Adamiants. Editor in chief of the «Novaja Eu-ropa» Magazine. Director of the CES.

Pavel Usov. Political scientist and analyst. Area of exper-tise: geopolitical and transformation issues in post-Soviet space. CES chairman of the board, expert.

Olga Shparaga. PhD in philosophy, associate professor of the EHU. Area of expertise: identity issues, publicity and conceptualization of the European idea. Expert.

221aBouT The cenTer for european sTudies

Content

Publications

Contact info:

Site: http://eurocenter.byE-mail: [email protected]

Aleksei Bratochkin. Historian, BNTU lecturer. Area of expertise: identity issues, post-Soviet transformation, edu-cation. Expert.

Andrei Fedarau. PhD in physics. Area of expertise: foreign policy and security issues. Expert.

Yegor Moroz. MA in psychology, NGO activist. Area of expertise: non-formal education, Internet media. Project manager, expert.

• Jan Patočka. Heretical Essays in the Philosophy of History. The «New Europe» series. Edited by O. Shapaga. Minsk: Logvinov, 2008.

• The European Union and Eastern Partnership Glossary. Edited by A. Vlaskin, A. Fedarau. Minsk: Logvinov, 2010.

• Jan Patočka. Europe and Post-Europe. Posteuropean Era and its Spiritual Issues. The «New Europe» series. Edited by O. Shapaga. Minsk: Logvinov, 2010.

• Corporate volunteering development. Minsk, 2012.



The ways of Belarus’ Europeanization: between politics

and identity construction(1991–2010)

Edited by olga shparaga

Academic consultant anatoliy Kruglashov

English language editor anastasia Klimchynskaya







The ways of Belarus Europeanization: between politics and identity construction. Edited by Olga Shparaga, Belarusian Center for European Studies, Minsk, 2012

Documents