The Religious Factor in the Politics of Memory in Contemporary Russia and Belarus: Comparative Analysis

Abstract

The article attempts to analyse the role of the religious factor in the formation and implementation of Politics of memory in modern Russia and Belarus. The urgency of work is caused by the increasing role of the religious factor in the politics of memory of the two States in the first decade of XXI century the research Objective — identify and similarities in the manifestations of the religious factor in the politics of memory of Russia and Belarus. For this purpose, we identified the subjects and mechanisms of interaction of state and religious institutions in the formation and implementation of memory policy. We showed that in Russia, religious organisations have a greater subjectivity in the politics of memory and can form a complementary discourse of memory and expand it at the expense of their system of interpretation of the past. As concerns the religious factor of the processes of political socialisation in the context of the policy of memory we revealed in the interaction of religious organisations of the two countries with the systems of public education and the armed forces. We concluded the similarity of the strategies of this interaction in Russia and Belarus. We showed that in both states, the selective interaction with religious organisations is carried out according to the criterion of their tradition. We also concluded that religious organisations do not form adversarial, but complementary channels of socialisation in the implementation of the state policy of memory. The process of creating a symbolic space and the possibility of participation of religious organisations, especially the Russian Orthodox Church, which is a key actor here, is also analysed. We also studied the religious factor of memory policy in the context of integration of Russia and Belarus. We concluded that the attempts to use it building the value basis of integration on the concepts of the collective historical past have not yet been successful, but such an opportunity remains.