{"title":"Belarusian Regime Perceptions of Russian Aggression in Ukraine","authors":"R. Țicălău","doi":"10.30965/20526512-bja10019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/20526512-bja10019","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article examines how Belarusian officials reacted to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine after its outbreak in February 2022 to March 2023. Although the Belarusian president initially tried to maintain friendly relations with Kyiv, he later chose to support his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and the invasion of Ukraine.\u0000In other words, this paper argues that Aliaksandr Lukašenka’s decision to support pro-Russian narratives about Moscow’s war of aggression against Ukraine was taken as a result of the pressure that Vladimir Putin exerted on him, as well as the awareness that Russia alone guarantees his political survival. However, during their interactions throughout 2022 and 2023, the Belarusian president made efforts to avoid ‘entrapment’—that is, being dragged into the conflict through the commitments he assumed within the Union State—to demonstrate to the entire international community that he still maintains some room of maneuver in his relationship with Russia.","PeriodicalId":277512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Belarusian Studies","volume":"2 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139525191","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"MaÍcy vychodziać z-pad kantroliu: Antaliohija bielaruskaha hej-piśmienstva. Frahmienty, written by Harbacki, Uladzislaŭ","authors":"Arnold B. Mcmillin","doi":"10.30965/20526512-12350024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/20526512-12350024","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":277512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Belarusian Studies","volume":"49 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139532143","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Belarus in the Twenty-First Century: Between Dictatorship and Democracy, edited by Elena Korosteleva, Irina Petrova, and Anastasiia Kudlenko","authors":"Diane Tippett","doi":"10.30965/20526512-12350023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/20526512-12350023","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":277512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Belarusian Studies","volume":"65 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138996253","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Belarusian People’s Republic in the Politics of the UK (December 1919–July 1920): Based on Documents from the National Archives in London","authors":"A.M. Dubrouka, U. Snapkouski","doi":"10.30965/20526512-bja10018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/20526512-bja10018","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The authors introduce into scientific circulation some archival documents that reflect the United Kingdom’s policy in relation to the establishment of an independent Belarusian national state after the First World War. It is shown that on the eve of the Paris Peace Conference, the UK viewed Belarus as a territory whose population was ethnically Russian, not a nation with its own identity and national movement. The British therefore did not considered it as a potential territory for the creation of a Belarusian national state. During the conference, the “Belarusian question” was discussed by UK only in terms of which state—Russia, Poland or Lithuania—the Belarusian territories should be attached to, or whether they must somehow be divided. The documents presented show that British diplomacy and British intelligence treated political and military figures from the Belarusian People’s Republic with suspicion. This position of the United Kingdom appeared crucial for the Governments of Finland and Denmark in their refusal of full international recognition of the Belarusian People’s Republic (Belaruskaya Narodnaya Respublica; hereinafter referred to as BNR).","PeriodicalId":277512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Belarusian Studies","volume":"20 13","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138977162","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Belarusian Politics and Society Web Archive: Preserving the Belarusian Grassroots Protest","authors":"A. Rakityanskaya","doi":"10.30965/20526512-12350021","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/20526512-12350021","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Belarusian Politics and Society (BPAS) is a curated web archive created under the auspices of the Ivy Plus Library Confederation to preserve online grassroots content created in, or related to, Belarus since 2020. The article describes the historical context of the creation of BPAS (focusing on the events in Belarus in 2020–2022 and particularly, the role of online media) and the web archiving context (by exploring Internet Archive’s coverage of Belarus) as well as demonstrates how both contexts guided the curatorial work on BPAS and the decision to focus the scope of collection on fragile grassroots content. Special attention is given to the issue of content loss and content shift in the Belarusian internet.","PeriodicalId":277512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Belarusian Studies","volume":"104 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132807170","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Centenary of Auberon Herbert (1922–1974), the Man Who Started British-Belarusian Collaboration","authors":"Paval Šaucoū","doi":"10.30965/20526512-12350022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/20526512-12350022","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":277512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Belarusian Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126092213","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Is There a Demand for Autocracy in Belarusian Society?","authors":"Piotr Rudkouski","doi":"10.30965/20526512-12350019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/20526512-12350019","url":null,"abstract":"\u00002020 saw an unprecedented pro-democracy mobilization in Belarus. Indeed, protest actions against the grossly falsified presidential election and the authoritarian rule of Aliaksandr Lukashenka were impressive in many respects: number of participants, durability, frequency, and diversity. However, that year was also remarkable for mobilization of supporters of Lukashenka’s authoritarian rule: car rallies, pickets, and small-group marches in support of the incumbent lasted for months. Though far from being ubiquitous, a demand for autocracy does exist in Belarusian society. It can be explained by four factors: a tendency towards an economic trade-off, axiological Euroscepticism, the activity of pro-autocracy intellectuals, and the global decline in democracy.","PeriodicalId":277512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Belarusian Studies","volume":"106 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129858116","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Opposition as “A Mould on the Fatherland”: Hate Speech and Grassroots Telegram Propaganda in Belarus","authors":"Ilya S. Sulzhytski","doi":"10.30965/20526512-12350018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/20526512-12350018","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000After the August 2020 protests, citizens of Belarus saw unprecedented repression against government opponents, which has persisted for two years. One of the authorities’ methods has been aggressive hate propaganda in the official pro-government media and grassroots anonymous telegram channels. The anonymous Zheltye Slivy / Yellow Leaks telegram channel became the symbol of this propaganda. The channel’s main feature was its aggressive hate speech, which bordered on the incitement to genocide in its extreme versions. This article focuses on this channel’s rhetoric and semantic and discursive features. For this purpose, the article uses the methods of qualitative content analysis and natural language processing (word2vec). The article results reveal the existence of “hate vocabularies” in the channel’s rhetoric—sets of similar words to describe the opponents and enemies of the authorities in Belarus. The article’s main conclusion is that propaganda constructs the image of “anti-society”—a multidimensional imagined social formation with its hierarchy and institutions, which wages war with the authorities and citizens of Belarus.","PeriodicalId":277512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Belarusian Studies","volume":"8 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120859720","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Annual Report of the Chairman of the Anglo-Belarusian Society for 2021/2","authors":"Alan G. Flowers","doi":"10.30965/20526512-12350015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/20526512-12350015","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":277512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Belarusian Studies","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122167299","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dějiny Běloruska [A History of Belarus], written by Alena Marková, Hienadź Sahanovič, Zachar Šybieka","authors":"Mariia Kuznetcova","doi":"10.30965/20526512-12350017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.30965/20526512-12350017","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":277512,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Belarusian Studies","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-11-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131729890","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}