Struggle over Identity: The Official and the Alternative "Belarusianness"

14. The Paradox of “National Pride”

CHAPTER 14 The Paradox of “National Pride” The concept of “national pride” is part of a wider context of believes, purposes , and emotions that form the national identity. As the Polish sociologist Zbigniew Bokszański writes, the national pride is “both an assessment of one’s own people and a satisfying effect caused by the realization of one’s belonging to the national community. Assessment of successes and failures of the people, together with the subjective cheerful feeling caused by the belonging to a nation is a result of appraisal, comparisons, and observations embedded in the individuals’ experience, connected with their native land’s destiny.”1 From this perspective, “the national pride” is a definite form of individualization of the concept of national identity, which refers to the knowledge, ideas, and opinions of members of the national community. In this context, one can state, that the status of the country in the perception of its citizens is an evidence of the beginning of its independence. As opinion polls show, Belarusians are increasingly confirmed in their desire to live in their own independent state, where “Belarus” and “Belarusianness” become groundwork for self-determination . The IISEPS sociologists conducted an opinion poll where respondents were given a number of options of hypothetic self-definition (see Table 3). The data show that the majority of those involved in the opinion poll opted to present themselves as citizens of Belarus. Remarkably, among those who consider themselves citizens of Belarus, there is a considerable number of ethnic Russians and representatives of other ethnic minorities, testifying to the fact that Belarusian society has a considerable assimilation power. (According to the census, ethnic Russians comprise 11 percent.) It is noteworthy that the replacement of ethnic identity by civic identity is characteristic of ethnic Belarusians, too—according to the census, they comprise 81 percent of the country’s population but only half of them prefer this kind of self-identification (see Table 3). Such data do not confirm the impression about a weak, eroded, indefinite Belarusian identity, as well as the opinion about the Belarusian nation as one “not shaped yet.” 1 Zbigniew Bokszański, Tożsamości Zbiorowe (Warsaw: PWN, 2005), 136. Table 3. Responses to the question “What kind of an individual would you perceive yourself to be if you were asked about it abroad?” (%) —————————————————————————————————————— Citizen of Belarus 44.3 —————————————————————————————————————— Belarusian 43.7 —————————————————————————————————————— Russian 4.1 —————————————————————————————————————— Citizen of the USSR 1.4 —————————————————————————————————————— Representative of a different nationality (Tatar, Ukrainian, Jew, etc.) 1.3 —————————————————————————————————————— Something different 1.8 —————————————————————————————————————— Not sure 3.4 —————————————————————————————————————— Note: National opinion poll conducted in November–December 2005 by independent sociologists assisted; 1,514 respondents were polled. Source: “Grazhdankaia identichnost’” Novosti IISEPS Bulleten’ no. 4, 2005, http://www.iiseps.org/bullet05-4.html. They, rather, testify to a paradoxically strong civic identity in the selfconsciousness of Belarusian majority. Some researchers assume that these data disapprove the fears that in Belarusian society there are widely disseminated identities different from the civic and ethnic Belarusian affiliation .2 This feeling of belonging to the nation defined by the state shows that the Belarusian nation proves to be quite a functioning link in the system of relations between society and the state. Grigory Ioffe once wrote that “as a group, Belarusians seem at first glance to be uniquely selfless and immune to national pride.”3 But this observation is refuted by the research cited in John Löwenhardt’s article titled “Belarus and the West.”4 He refers to the results of the research that was done in November 2001 by the New Democracy Barometer in several East European countries. Citizens were asked how proud they were of being citizens of their country (see Table 4); according to John Löwenhardt, this “can be seen as a way of measuring national identity.”5 2 “Grazhdanskaia identichnost’” Novosti IISEPS Bulleten’ no. 4, 2005, http://www.iiseps.org/bullet05-4.html. 3 Ioffe, “Understanding Belarus: Economy and Political Landscape,” 111. 4 John Löwenhardt, “Belarus and the West,” in Postcommunist Belarus, ed. S. White, E. Korosteleva, and J. Löwenhardt (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), 143–59. 5 Löwenhardt, “Belarus and the West,” 147. Arguments and Paradoxes of Weak Belarusian Identity 146 The Paradox of “National Pride” Table 4. Response to the Question “How proud are you to be a citizen of your country?” (%) —————————————————————————————————————— Belarus Russia Ukraine Moldova...