Belarus - Alternative Visions

<p>Belarus is often regarded as Europe's last dictatorship a sort-of fossilized leftover from the Soviet Union. However a key factor in determining Belarus's development including its likely future development is its own sense of identity. This book explores the complex debates and competing narratives surrounding Belarus's identity revealing a far more diverse picture than the widely accepted monolithic post-Soviet nation. It examines in a range of media including historiography films and literature how visions of Belarus as a nation have been constructed from the nineteenth century to the present day. It outlines a complex picture of contested myths - the peasant nation of the nineteenth century the devoted Soviet republic of the late twentieth century and the revisionist Belarusian nationalism of the present. The author shows that Belarus is characterized by immense cultural linguistic and ethnic polyphony both in its lived history and in its cultural imaginary. The book analyses important examples of writing in and about Belarus in Belarusian Polish and Russian revealing how different modes of rooted cosmopolitanism have been articulated.</p>