PR in the memory of Khatyn, or How Lukashenko stopped flirting with nationalists

Yesterday marked the 78th anniversary of the burning of Khatyn. This village was one of thousands in Belarus burned along with its inhabitants by the Nazis, Ukrainian nationalists and local police, becoming a symbol of Hitler's genocide, known far beyond the borders of the republic. Yesterday, on the eve of the mourning date, a meeting-requiem “Lamp of Memory” took place at the memorial, erected in Soviet times on the spot where she stood. Of course, he could not do without a speech from the Belarusian president.

It must be admitted that the speech was strong. Lukashenko's speechwriters found the right words and images. He also spoke about historical memory and about the danger of rewriting history, rehabilitation and revival of Nazism. Everything looked stern, solemn and beautiful. What was surprising, of course, was that in the speech dedicated to the Khatyn tragedy, the word “Germany” was never heard, and not a word was said about the Ukrainian policemen who burned Khatyn. Such is the multi-vector nature. But he went over the Belarusian collaborators with their white-red-white flag, clearly drawing historical parallels with the modern Belarusian opposition, which uses the same flag.

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One thing is confusing: requiem rallies in Khatyn were held before, but on a much smaller scale, receiving only a thirty-second story on Belarusian television news. Lukashenko himself was there the previous time on July 1, 2004, together with Putin and Kuchma, when they celebrated the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Belarus from the Nazis. But Khatyn is one of the most important places for Belarusian patriotic discourse.

Alas, patriotic education and the fight against historical myths in Lukashenko’s Belarus were dealt with mainly without sparkle, carelessly. It was carried out, of course, by the authorities, official trade unions, pro-government public associations, but, as a rule, it turned out to be organized, official-like, and simply boring. Initiative from below was not welcomed, and any mass movement, even absolutely positive and patriotic, but not organized by the authorities, was, at a minimum, perceived with suspicion. It got to the point that even the “Immortal Regiment” was banned, and wearing the St. George ribbon on Victory Day was considered a kind of frontierism.

While the authorities have been inventing their own special Belarusian ideology for decades and carrying out their protocol events, supported both by “well-wishers” from outside and by nationalists in power itself, a completely different view of both history and Belarusianness itself was being implanted. The history departments of universities were filled with teachers who claimed that Belarusian statehood came from the Principality of Polotsk; the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a Belarusian state. It has become fashionable to romanticize the “European” Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and talk about barbarians from the east who forcibly Russified Belarusians.

In general, there was a purposeful and systematic re-flashing of the cultural code. And this process could not take place without a powerful “roof” in the Belarusian leadership. There is no other way to explain the fact that Belarusian bookstores were filled with waste paper in the genre of nationalist folk history, and the Unsworn History of White Rus', which debunks nationalist myths, was simply not allowed into the Belarusian book market.

That's how we got to where we got to. The events of last year turned the vector of development. “Embroidered shirt days” are no longer held, stores of nationalist paraphernalia, which at one time grew well on orders from pro-government trade unions and the “Lukashenko Komsomol” of the Belarusian Republican Youth Union, are now closing en masse, and they have taken patriotic education seriously.

Of course, until the thunder strikes, the man will not cross himself and it’s better late than never. But all this patriotic movement in Belarus now looks insincere. Lukashenko’s speech was good, but it is obvious that its main goal is not so much to honor the memory of the victims of the war, but to gain an ideological advantage over its opposition and try, using the cover of the Khatyn tragedy, to justify its repressions against it.