As Russia and Belarus edge closer toward integration with the signing of the latest union agreement, the debate over what constitutes Belarussian national identity has become intensely politicized.
Political opponents of Belarus' authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, accuse him of reversing a renaissance in Belarussian culture begun by nationalist reformers after independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Lukashenko, on the other hand, accuses the nationalist opposition of being "anti-patriotic" for opposing further integration with Russia and encouraging the emergence of Belarus from out of the cultural and political shadow of its powerful neighbor.
"The attitude of the Belarussian people to their own national identity is very paradoxical," said Yury Drakokhrust, deputy director of the Minsk-based Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies. "When we conducted a survey last year, two-thirds of respondents said that they were in favor of Belarussian independence ... but two-thirds also said that they were in favor of unification with Russia. Most people are extremely ambivalent."
Belarus' identity crisis stems from the partition of its territory by neighboring states for much of its history, said Vasil Bykov, 73, regarded as Belarus' greatest living writer and an opposition sympathizer. He said the region was the target of intensive Russification after it joined the Russian empire in the late 18th century.
"Our identity has been weakened almost beyond recovery," Bykov said. "Independence was the last chance given to us by history to salvage our national self-consciousness. ... Unfortunately, Lukashenko is bent on liquidating the Belarussian state."
Today's Belarus shares borders with Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine and is home to about 10.3 million people.
Because Belarus was never conquered by the Mongols, it never shared Russia's oriental fatalism, and the influence of Lithuanian and Polish Catholic rule made Belarussian culture traditionally much more Western-orientated, Bykov said. The linguistic difference between Russian and Belarussian is the last vestige of what was once a vibrantly different culture, he added.
Though Belarussian-language programs are aired on local television, fewer than 20 percent of Belarussians speak it as their first language, according to a spokesman for Belarus's presidential administration. Lukashenko himself had to learn the language after independence, the spokesman acknowledged.
A language similar to Russian but with Polish influences, Belarussian was espoused by the reformist liberal politicians who led Belarus' independence movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but it has since become increasingly identified with the virtually outlawed nationalist opposition.
"Most Belarussians regard the language as a peculiarity or the language of peasants," said Sergei Markov, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. "Belarus has a much weaker sense of self than Ukraine, which has an unbroken linguistic tradition ... and a foreign diaspora which kept the national identity alive [during the Soviet period]."
The absence of a strong sense of national identity stems from the "casual" creation of the Republic of Belarus in 1991, Markov said, which was motivated more by an impulse toward economic self-preservation than popular nationalism.
Lukashenko's decision to drop the red-and-white Belarussian national flag adopted in 1991 in favor of the Soviet-era flag of the Belarussian Soviet Socialist Republic met with little opposition when it was adopted in 1995. Changing Belarus' national day from the anniversary of independence to the anniversary of the liberation of Minsk from Nazi troops was widely supported in a November 1996 referendum.
"There is a minority which actively supports independence ... but it is the elite who enjoy the symbols and positions [of an independent state], who have a real interest in [preserving Belarussian independence]," Markov said.
The vested interests of the power elite will play a far greater role in resisting full unification than an inherent sense of cultural difference, said Drakokhrust, citing the example of German-speaking central Europe.
"Bavaria is as different from the rest of Germany as Austria, yet one is a separate state and the other is a province," said Drakokhrust. "This is just an accident of politics. ... The longer Belarus remains independent, the more likely it is that it will begin to find a new, independent identity for itself."
Political opponents of Belarus' authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, accuse him of reversing a renaissance in Belarussian culture begun by nationalist reformers after independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Lukashenko, on the other hand, accuses the nationalist opposition of being "anti-patriotic" for opposing further integration with Russia and encouraging the emergence of Belarus from out of the cultural and political shadow of its powerful neighbor.
"The attitude of the Belarussian people to their own national identity is very paradoxical," said Yury Drakokhrust, deputy director of the Minsk-based Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies. "When we conducted a survey last year, two-thirds of respondents said that they were in favor of Belarussian independence ... but two-thirds also said that they were in favor of unification with Russia. Most people are extremely ambivalent."
Belarus' identity crisis stems from the partition of its territory by neighboring states for much of its history, said Vasil Bykov, 73, regarded as Belarus' greatest living writer and an opposition sympathizer. He said the region was the target of intensive Russification after it joined the Russian empire in the late 18th century.
"Our identity has been weakened almost beyond recovery," Bykov said. "Independence was the last chance given to us by history to salvage our national self-consciousness. ... Unfortunately, Lukashenko is bent on liquidating the Belarussian state."
Today's Belarus shares borders with Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and Ukraine and is home to about 10.3 million people.
Because Belarus was never conquered by the Mongols, it never shared Russia's oriental fatalism, and the influence of Lithuanian and Polish Catholic rule made Belarussian culture traditionally much more Western-orientated, Bykov said. The linguistic difference between Russian and Belarussian is the last vestige of what was once a vibrantly different culture, he added.
Though Belarussian-language programs are aired on local television, fewer than 20 percent of Belarussians speak it as their first language, according to a spokesman for Belarus's presidential administration. Lukashenko himself had to learn the language after independence, the spokesman acknowledged.
A language similar to Russian but with Polish influences, Belarussian was espoused by the reformist liberal politicians who led Belarus' independence movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but it has since become increasingly identified with the virtually outlawed nationalist opposition.
"Most Belarussians regard the language as a peculiarity or the language of peasants," said Sergei Markov, an analyst at the Carnegie Moscow Center. "Belarus has a much weaker sense of self than Ukraine, which has an unbroken linguistic tradition ... and a foreign diaspora which kept the national identity alive [during the Soviet period]."
The absence of a strong sense of national identity stems from the "casual" creation of the Republic of Belarus in 1991, Markov said, which was motivated more by an impulse toward economic self-preservation than popular nationalism.
Lukashenko's decision to drop the red-and-white Belarussian national flag adopted in 1991 in favor of the Soviet-era flag of the Belarussian Soviet Socialist Republic met with little opposition when it was adopted in 1995. Changing Belarus' national day from the anniversary of independence to the anniversary of the liberation of Minsk from Nazi troops was widely supported in a November 1996 referendum.
"There is a minority which actively supports independence ... but it is the elite who enjoy the symbols and positions [of an independent state], who have a real interest in [preserving Belarussian independence]," Markov said.
The vested interests of the power elite will play a far greater role in resisting full unification than an inherent sense of cultural difference, said Drakokhrust, citing the example of German-speaking central Europe.
"Bavaria is as different from the rest of Germany as Austria, yet one is a separate state and the other is a province," said Drakokhrust. "This is just an accident of politics. ... The longer Belarus remains independent, the more likely it is that it will begin to find a new, independent identity for itself."
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