The Belarusian National Culture and Its Dimensions in the Modern Belarus

Abstract

The article studies the discussions of various Belarusian social and political actors on the role and place of national culture in the process of national and state building in the Republic of Belarus. Due to a number of historical issues, the formation of national identity on the Belarusian territory began relatively late and, in many ways, has not been completed yet. Furthermore, the territory of present Belarus was originally a frontier region where a variety of cultures, ideologies, social and political projects developed and coexisted. This situation has largely contributed to the fact that there is a lack of common sense of the Belarusian national culture, and sometimes the debates about its characteristics occur to be hot. In this context, two main political discourses of modern Belarus, conventionally marked as “nonconformist” and “governmental”, are evaluated. Each time their supporters promote their own visions of national culture, striving to use them as a political tool. In the first case, national culture is understood within the framework of “European civilization”, together with “old” national states of Europe, their historical background and current social development. However, the Belarusian ethnic heritage is noticeably being reducing, sometimes up to the language. On the contrary, in the second case, the main national idea is the state sovereignty gained after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which at the same time symbolizes the manifestation of national culture. A deep analysis of both discourses reveals their structural similarity and ideological incompleteness. The desire ofboth groups to offer a functioning national idea faces a number of serious problems, such as outdated ideas about the processes of nation-building as well as operating with speculative categories in political theorizing.