Война миров: знаки, символы, места памяти (Беларусь, 2020)

Abstract

In this article, Iryna Ramanava argues that the new Belarusian politics of memory differs from that of the perestroika-era Belarusian Popular Front and the nationalist political parties that evolved from it. One important difference is the inclusivity of the common past, which is no longer restricted to ethnic Belarusians but acknowledges all those who have lived together in the Belarusian lands: ethnic Belarusians and Jews, Russians and Poles, Lithuanians and Latvians. Even more important is the shift in the attitude to this common past. Unlike the Belarusian nationalists of the 1990s, the leaders of the Belarusian protest movement in 2020 are calling not for identification with the glorious heroes and passive victims of bygone days but for the elaboration of an active moral and political stance regarding these historical events. This means the radical shift of the locus of historical subjectivity and responsibility: from the distant and no longer real past of dead people to the present and future of Belarus citizens.