National Founding Myth
The Second World War in Belarusian Memory Culture
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Official commemoration of the Second World War in Belarus is still bound to Soviet traditions. But President Aliaksandr Lukashenka has stylized the struggle against German occupation as a struggle for national independence. The Belarusian contribution to the victory over Hitler’s Germany serves him as an argument to justify claims to Russian subsidies and to defend again western calls for democracy. Reference to the civilian population’s suffering holds out the possibility of tying into European memory culture. And generational turnover promotes the establishment of a differentiated view of history.
(Osteuropa 5/2010, pp. 43–54)