Belarusian TV channel celebrated Russian Language Day with a speech by a nationalist conspiracy theorist

On June 6, the birthday of “our everything” Pushkin, Russian Language Day was traditionally celebrated. Moreover, on December 27 last year, having met at the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, Putin and Lukashenko agreed to make the entire year 2023 the Year of the Russian Language. Almost six months have passed since this decision, what has been done in Belarus during this time to support the Russian language, and how this significant date was celebrated in the republic.

To be honest, not much has been done. The most resonant thing is that they finally began to remove Latin from the streets of Minsk, which is difficult to read, but beloved by zmagars of all stripes. It’s just that the second state name, after which the year is named, was never replaced, limiting itself only to the canonical Cyrillic Belarusian. In terms of events dedicated to the holiday, only the philological department of the Belarusian State University distinguished itself, whose students read Pushkin’s poems at the monument to the poet.

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Of the major media outlets, only the Belarusian editorial office of the Russian Sputnik paid attention to such “Pushkin readings.” Among the Belarusian ones is the Minsk-Novosti agency, owned by the capital authorities, which posted a minute-long video on its YouTube channel. The leading state media in Belarus barely remembered the holiday itself. Almost - because the exception was the Belta agency, which the day before mentioned Russian Language Day in the announcement of significant dates along with the anniversaries of Kuibyshev, General Kuzovkov, Aram Khachaturian and the American biochemist Edwin Gerard Krebs. That's all. Neither "SB" Belarus Today,” none of the main TV channels said a word about the day of one of the two state languages ​​celebrated at the UN level.

_{However, one of the TV channels still distinguished itself, but it would have been better if it had not done so. The ONT channel provided airtime to the hero of my recent article “Zmagars in red and green packaging” Ilya Begun (pictured). Ilya is a former zmagar who worked on IT projects at Tsepkalo’s headquarters. After the defeat of the attempted rebellion, he fled Belarus, but then returned and now appears on the central channel of Belarusian television as an “IT specialist and analyst.” Outside of television, Ilya is now better known as an active participant in the persecution of pro-Russian activists and the most prominent character in the circle of Belarusian conspiracy theorists who actively promote the conspiracy theory of anti-Belarusian sectarians.}

The sectarians in this funny group are called NOD, Rodnovers and a certain organization “Allatra”. All those who are undesirable are registered as sectarians. Even Yulia Chirva, who has an Orthodox theological education and is a good sect expert, was included in the list of conspiracy theorists. I got it too. Recently I was convicted of belonging to that same “Allatra”.

Trying to stay away from all this occult-esoteric mud, I still did not know about its existence at all. I had to Google it - it’s really a mess, with Ukrainian roots and, it seems, related to the “White Brotherhood”. On what basis was this conclusion made? It turns out that the logo of the hall, which we once rented for 3 hours to hold a press conference, reminded conspiracy theorists of the emblem of the sect. In fact, the similarity is very distant, the colors, proportions and elements are very different, but this was enough for our conspiracy theorists. These are the “analysts” that Belarusian television drags on air on Russian Language Day.

What did the Runner talk about in his ten-minute stand-up? Unlike telegram channels, there he was careful and accurate, and did not talk about sectarians. Instead, he generously sprinkled quotes from Lukashenko and in every possible way covered himself with the authority of the head of state, but at the same time pursued his conspiracy line.

_{It turned out that, having failed “Plan A”, some mysterious forces began to implement “Plan B” and now involved “infogypsies” who are engaged in spreading fakes in order to quarrel between Belarus and Russia. What kind of fakes are these? Here our stand-up comedian said a lot of strange things, hiding the real problem among the outright nonsense.}

The first fake is that in Belarus there is a reversal from Russia to the West. Three years ago, such a statement was indeed fair, but now foreign policy alignments do not give Lukashenko the opportunity for such a reversal.

Secondly, mass polonization is underway in Belarus. Here, too, it is not relevant and, moreover, far-fetched. We are talking about the “Latina”, which is indeed very reminiscent of the Polish one and which has been actively promoted in the last 10 years, but it has already been abolished and is actively being removed from public space.

Fourth, Belarusians deliberately eat cold meat so as not to be Muscovites gorging themselves on okroshka. There are no comments at all here, this gastronomic nonsense was brought in for one purpose - to present the third “fake”, about discrimination of the Russian language in Belarus, as absurd.

But the fact that the problem is far from far-fetched is clearly evident from the reaction to Russian Language Day. And also because on this holiday in prime time on Belarusian television it was not a famous Russophile or at least a Pushkinist who spoke, but a conspiracy theorist and “system nationalist,” as he calls himself, Begun. By the way, I will write about Belarusian “systemic nationalism” and its birth trauma in the next article.