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65 two The Nation In Between; or, Why Intellectuals Do Things with Words Elena Gapova [U]nless national consciousness at its moment of success was somehow changed into social consciousness, the future would not hold liberation but an extension of imperialism. Edward Said1 Posing the Question Much as in other former socialist countries, contemporary Belarusian intellectual discourse is focused on the idea of a return to Europe. The idea is mostly based on the belief that the medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a Belarusian state, with old Belarusian as its language of state communication, legal documents, and the first printed books, and the idea of the return to Europe is presented as a nostalgic myth in the Belarusian memory of identity. It resurfaces at times in peculiar forms, like the demand by one group of intellectuals that the ‘‘national text’’ be changed from Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet (Belaruskaya lacinka), which was used for brief periods throughout Belarusian history and can hardly be presented as ‘‘the script’’ taken from the nation by the brutal colonizer. The rationale for this act (which is deeply felt by those who feel it) is a vision of belonging with Europe that was allegedly interrupted but not fully destroyed by the Russian incorporation and Soviet experience, since for several hundred years the country had not been present on the European map as an independent state. Since 1991, though, it has Elena Gapova 66 been there, following the disintegration of the Soviet Union through a seemingly triumphant realization of the idea that every one of the fifteen major constituent Soviet nations now deserves a state of its own. This, though, did not happen through the victory of the Belarusian national ideology, for the Belarusian people did not particularly ask for independence , seemed at a loss about how to utilize it when it was granted, and, having regained some consciousness after their initial bewilderment, elected Alexander Lukashenka in 1994 as their president. His platform was to return things to what they had previously been ‘‘economy wise’’ in general and to unify with the fraternal people of Russia in a common state in particular. From the very beginning, this ‘‘new’’ nation of Belarus did not strive to be master of its destiny; both independence and statehood were rejected by too many Belarusian citizens. Repeated efforts were made to reach closer and closer union with Russia, and the process seems to have been in the final stages since April 2, 1997, when the treaty on reunion was signed. It triggered protest on the part of urban intellectuals, which was severely repressed with arrests and beatings by police but was met with sincere approval by older people, by the urban poor, by those residing in the countryside and in the East of the country, and by more women than men. Reunification began to develop as a cultural process, starting with a solution to the language dilemma through a referendum in favor of giving Belarusian equal status with Russian (although part of the urban intelligentsia firmly insisted that it should be the only state language), replacing ‘‘independent ’’ national symbols with slightly modified Soviet ones, and decrees prohibiting the use of turn-of-the-twentieth-century Belarusian orthography and legitimizing the Soviet version as the only possibility. Eventually the process of reunification became overtly political. Several opposition newspapers were closed, government media blocked the expression of any alternative opinion, the legitimate Parliament was dissolved by force, and the new National Assembly was established, one-third of whose members are nominated (!) by the president. The constitution was changed to place the executive branch over all others; intolerance of protest has reached a degree where students are expelled from universities for participating in legal demonstrations and are sentenced to imprisonment for antipresidential graffiti (at least one 18-year-old served eighteen months in prison for exactly that); nongovernmental organizations are harassed and outlawed; and several opposition leaders have disappeared for good. Thus, reunification politics included a nostalgic idealization of socialism, government control in all spheres of life (economic, social, and symbolic), and severe curtailment of civil and political rights. The people in general supported reunification, reelecting Mr. Lukashenka in 2001. He tries to preserve the socialist type of economy and keep the legacy of free health care, university education, paid maternity leaves, and all kinds of social subsidies (in this system of centrally controlled resource allocation, he holds overarching executive power) intact and working in the emerging...

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