Fragility of Belarussian national identity

Abstract

Belarus is a country also known as Belorussia (White Russia, Weißrussland) in Eastern Europe, which was occupied by the PolishLithuanian common state for centuries until it became a part of Tsarist Russia in the late 18th century.1 Belarus faces many identity problems, but the most important one is the ethnolinguistic challenge to separate Belarussian2 national feature. This research paper investigates the focal problems of Belarussian ethnolinguistic, historical, political and national identity features using the methodology of text description and analyzing some relevant academic literature and historical sources. Historical and geopolitical background of Belarussian ethnonational identity question deserves special attention in the paper, which is supported by theoretical framework for ethnic and national identity research by eminent scholars. The fundamental conclusion of the paper is that Belarussian ethnonational identity has been historically developed outside of Belarus as a product of political Russophobia andtherefore it is extremely fragile among the people of Belarus today.

Keywords

• belarus
• belorussia
• national identity
• russia
• poland
• slavs
• eastern europe
• lithuania