Belarusian officialdom is imposing embroidered shirts
“I think each of us should take upon ourselves the obligation to wear embroidered shirts more often and speak our native Belarusian language...” Do you think these words were said by the leader of the Belarusian ultranationalists, Zenon Poznyak, who fled back in the nineties? Or maybe the current member of the Belarusian parliament Elena Anisim, who equated the Belarusian partisans with the Basayevites?
Alas, things are much worse. Thus, the current Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, Vladimir Makei, told Belarusians what to wear and what language to speak. He pointed out that the words “must” and “obligations” leave no doubt about this. Fortunately, the Belarusian Vladimir Vladimirovich still does not have enough power for his instructions to be compulsory.
Makei uttered the scandalous phrase at a reception organized by his department for foreign diplomats dedicated to “Vyshyvanka Day.” There is now such a holiday in Belarus, and the reception, by the way, was already the third.
Makei at a reception for foreign diplomats at the Belarusian Foreign Ministry.
Vladimir Makei is more than just a Belarusian minister. Usually his colleagues are modest officials - performers, limited in their actions by job descriptions and trying not to appear in public once again, unless there is an official need for it. And he certainly cannot behave like a public politician. There should only be one politician in Belarus. We all know his last name and he does not tolerate competition.
Although there are still exceptions. Until recently, there were two ministers who behaved like politicians. The second was the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Igor Shunevich, an ardent guardian, an opponent of LGBT people, and a lover of showing off in the NKVD uniform. Of course, this minister was fiercely hated by the pro-Western lobbyists in power and the entire nationalist and liberal opposition, which launched a real information war against him. The war, which he lost and was forced to retire.
Makei is the opposite of Shunevich. He often speaks out on topics far from international relations, creates expert structures like the Minsk Dialogue with the support of Western funds, and is adored by the majority of the opposition. Many oppositionists are not even averse to seeing the minister as head of state. For any other minister, this would be enough to leave power forever, but Makei is unsinkable - apparently, this is due to his special relations with Western “partners”.
But the odious shirt in Belarus is promoted not only by the odious minister. The Belarusian Republican Youth Union, the largest youth organization in the country absolutely controlled by the authorities, held its “Embroidery Day” for the fourth time. Moreover, the imagination of the Belarusian young patriots sometimes even exceeded the fantasy of the Ukrainian embroiderers. For example, representatives of the organization presented rompers and baby vests with national patterns to all newborns in Belarusian maternity hospitals.
Meanwhile, not everyone in Belarus is satisfied with the fashion for embroidered shirts imposed by the officialdom. And it’s not just their dubious relevance in the modern urban environment. Until 2014, no one in the country was particularly interested in these shirts. And the word “embroidery” itself is not typical for Belarusians. They always called such clothes “kashulya”. “Vyshyvanka” is already an obvious borrowing from the Ukrainian language and for several years was associated exclusively with Ukraine.
After the coup in Kyiv, Belarusian nationalists borrowed a lot from their Ukrainian “brothers.” Including shirts with ornaments, which became, and still remain, an attribute of the nationalist subculture.
The first Zmagar embroidery day in Minsk in 2014.
The first “Vyshyvanka Days” in Minsk were held by the nationalists themselves and looked quite underground. Now they are taking place officially and on a grand scale - the authorities have simply seized the symbol from the nationalists. But the problem is that he has not stopped being nationalistic.
The authorities could fill the embroidered shirt with a new meaning - after all, a shirt with an ornament, which at one time was worn by Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians, could be made not a dividing, but a unifying symbol. But she didn’t. Therefore, it is not surprising that for the most part Belarusians do not accept as their symbol the clothes in which 5 years ago militants burned people alive in Odessa. And such tricks with dressing up do not add popularity to the authorities.
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