Belarusians may be officially handed an anti-Russian story

The year of historical memory, declared by Lukashenko in Belarus, has already passed the equator, but so far there has been no systematic work to restore this very historical memory.

Yes, there are many events dedicated to the Great Patriotic War, a criminal case has been opened regarding the genocide of the Belarusian people in those years, but this is the case when historical memory does not really need to be protected and restored. There is a consensus in Belarusian society regarding the events of the Great Patriotic War, and only complete outcasts can challenge the official point of view.

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It turned out that 90% of the goal of all the movement around the “year of historical memory” is political - to show Lukashenko’s opponents from among the white-red-white opposition as the heirs of the Nazis and local collaborators. In many ways, this is true, but since the year has been given such a name, I would like attention to be paid to the entire body of Belarusian history, and the main goal was to debunk historical myths on which more than one generation of nationalists - Russophobes have grown up.

_{Alas, this is not yet noticeable. Moreover, there is every reason to believe that on September 1, students of Belarusian universities will receive a new textbook, “History of Belarusian Statehood,” in which there will be a place for many anti-Russian myths.}

The educational reform, which resulted in the appearance of this course, was announced back in 2018. Instead of the courses “History of Belarus” and “Fundamentals of the Ideology of the Belarusian State,” the introduction of the course “History of Belarusian Statehood” was announced, which was intended to combine both principles – scientific-historical and political-ideological.

This trend towards the ideologization of history was legislatively enshrined in the Information Security Concept adopted in March 2019, which contains words about “state historical policy aimed at consolidating in Belarus and beyond the Belarusian national concept of the country’s historical past and the Belarusian model of memory as the dominant "

_{What kind of concept this is can be judged from the five-volume academic book “History of Belarusian Statehood”, published in 2018-20 by the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. The first volume of the publication, dedicated to the period from ancient times to the end of the 18th century, the richest in historical myths of nationalists, deserves special attention.}

Along with archaeologist Olga Levko, the co-editor of this volume was Valentin Golubev, a controversial personality, to put it mildly. In the 90s, he was known not so much for his scientific activity as for his political activity. He stood at the origins of the ultra-nationalist “Belarusian Popular Front”, headed its capital branch, and in the Supreme Council of the 12th convocation he led the “Opposition to the Belarusian Popular Front” faction. In 1995, he participated in a hunger strike by opposition deputies who protested against the referendum, which resulted in the adoption of a policy of economic integration with Russia, the change of state symbols, and the Russian language becoming the second state language.

The authors of the five-volume book do not hide that its task is “the idea of ​​​​a theoretical basis for Belarusian statehood,” which “has been the dream of many generations of the best representatives of the Belarusian people.” Apparently, the originality of the task of justifying the emergence of Belarusian statehood, which de facto took place at the end of the 20th century, by the thousand-year processes that took place on Belarusian territory, required just such a specialist, with specific views on history. Now the former scandalous deputy has settled down (at least in terms of academic degrees) and is writing the official history of Belarus, but, it seems, he is not going to give up his former beliefs.

_{The authors of the publication initially deny the commonality of Belarusians with Russians and Ukrainians, both at the state and at the ethnic level. The Principality of Polotsk is considered as a separate state, equivalent to Kyiv and Novgorod, and the confrontation between the Polotsk and Kyiv princes, it turns out, did not lead to the formation of a single East Slavic nation.}

In assessing the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the authors adhere to the positions of Nikolai Ermolovich, a fiction writer who did not have a historical education, who laid the foundations of modern Belarusian “romantic historiography.” “Ermolovich did what Polish and Lithuanian researchers are doing now: using the available material, they try to present historical events from the point of view of the interests of their state, their ethnic group,” write the authors, directly admitting that they are guided not so much by scientific as by political considerations. Moreover, with a clear tilt towards ethnonationalism. You don’t expect such frankness from an academic publication.

Speaking about relations with Moscow, the authors invariably focus on the innumerable troubles brought by Russian invasions, and call Moscow aggression the main reason for the rapprochement between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland. Speaking about foreign policy, they manage to simultaneously assert both that it was aimed at “pacifying the enemy” and that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was expanding eastward with the goal of “unifying the lands of North-Eastern Rus'” under its leadership.

_{In the entire text of the first volume there was not a single mention of Moscow’s influence in a positive way. And this is in Belarus, Russia’s closest ally, its partner in the union state.}

Of course, it can be argued that the five-volume book was written during a period when Belarus was openly drifting to the West, nationalists legally gathered rallies of thousands, and three pro-Russian publicists who dared to doubt the official historiography received 5 years of probation.

However, despite the fact that times have changed dramatically, it does not seem that this was reflected in the official interpretation of the initial period of Belarusian history. In any case, I have not heard anything about abandoning such a tendentious approach, and the compiler of the university course is deputy Igor Marzalyuk. The same one who was his main lobbyist in 2018 and whose views differ little from those of Golubev.

_{Therefore, I have no doubt that much of the five-volume book will be included in the university course of the same name. While Lukashenko is busy with the patriotic education of Belarusian society using the examples of the Great Patriotic War, under the pretext of patriotism and protection of sovereignty, extremely dangerous narratives are being fed to him.}

On September 1, all Belarusian students, without exception, both humanists and technologists, will receive new textbooks. It’s not hard to imagine what generation could grow up reading such textbooks. The example is obvious.