A Book of Lost and Unrealized Opportunities

This review was prepared within the joint “Book Review” project of the Political Sphere Institute and the Centre for European Studies in Minsk.

Wilson, Andrew (2011). Belarus. The Last Dictatorship in Europe. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, XII+304 pp.

Review prepared by Aliaksandr Paharely.

Andrew Wilson probably needs no special introduction to readers. It should be said, however, that the author’s earlier publications, including his monograph on the Ukrainians (Wilson, 2002), created expectations that one of his future books would be devoted to Belarus. The new study contains many explicit and implicit comparisons with Ukraine: in several places the author even uses the word “unexpected” (for instance, the “unexpected independence” of Belarus in 1991), which he used in the title of his book on Ukraine. Yet the surprises for Belarusians here are of a quite different order than, say, in the Ukrainian case. The point, naturally, is not the titles of books, nor even who really “owns” a discourse or “manages” it correctly, but the circumstances that developed contrary to, or in accordance with, what the author wrote.

The monograph opens with a dedication to the late Vitali Silitski, whose texts are often cited by the British scholar. The book consists of two parts (“Belarus: A History of Crossroads” and “Independent Belarus”), each divided into six chapters. Wilson may be praised for his proposed transliteration of names containing the Belarusian letter “ў” by using the English letter “w” instead of “ŭ”.

The researcher sees Belarusian history as a “series of false starts”. Yet reading the monograph leads one to conclude that the book itself is filled with lost and not fully realized opportunities, even though it tries to narrate the history of a country of “wasted chances”. For example, Wilson does not dwell in detail on what the project of Belarusian identity in the BSSR actually was. He confines himself to the fact that the national-democratic version of Belarusian identity was discredited by the wartime collaboration of a number of Belarusian politicians and activist groups with the Nazis, which, according to the author, distinguished Belarusian collaboration unfavourably from the Ukrainian case. The result of this was the triumph of the BSSR.

For an exercise in alternative history the British researcher again chooses the post-war BSSR. The “what if…” device is presented in a very interesting way: a BSSR with its capital in Vilnius and access to the sea in former Königsberg (Kaliningrad) looks very attractive. Yet the author does not develop this point in any detail, and it remains a lost opportunity rather than a realized plotline. The comparison between Aliaksandr Lukashenka and the West-Russian figure Lukyan Solonevich is highly intriguing. However, Wilson’s further assertion that Belarus has a “long tradition of voting for Russophile populists”, without additional excursions or clarification of details, seems unfounded (75).

Andrew Wilson rightly notes that Belarus was neither a territory where Russian White Guards had significant influence nor a serious strategic bridgehead or primary objective in the calculations of the White command. The comparison of Bulak-Balakhovich in the Belarusian case with Skoropadsky in the Ukrainian case reveals the weakness and very limited opportunities for mobilizing support for a pro-Russian orientation in Belarus during the Russian Civil War.

Other theses of his are highly debatable. Wilson calls the “Europeanness” that characterized the Belarusian lands at the time of the Union of Brest “relative”, because it only separated them from Russia while doing little to bring them closer to Europe. Yet the same could be said about other peoples and regions of East-Central Europe (Bibó, 1991: 13-86). Among the author’s interesting comparisons one should also mention the analogy between the situation of the Belarusian-Lithuanian lands in the 1860s-1870s and the “Reconstruction” of the American South. The British scholar most likely borrowed it from Czesław Miłosz (Miłosz, 1958).

Some of the researcher’s less “grave sins” should also be pointed out. Thus, instead of the chronicled Dryhavichy, the British scholar’s book for some reason features the Drevlians (derevliany) (14-15). Kanstantsiya Skirmunt for some reason becomes “Kanstantsa” (Kanstantsa) (78). Geographical names such as Navazybkaw (Novozybsk) (130) or Nevel (Nevelsk) (131) are also distorted, whether freely or inadvertently. The names of the grand dukes of Lithuania are invariably given in their modern Lithuanian spelling. Unfortunately, all this can potentially reduce the authority of the monograph in the eyes of its readership.

The Belarusian regime and the circumstances of its emergence and functioning occupy more than one third of the book and nevertheless dominate its second part. Almost all attention here is focused on the head of Belarus. In fairness, it should be said that the author actively tries to see some dynamics and energy “in the shadow” of the regime, but he succeeds only partially.

The excessive focus on narratives about the regime means that Wilson loses the opportunity to notice several phenomena important for his own narrative. When speaking about the importance of state ideology during Lukashenka’s second term, the researcher completely forgets to mention the tightening of control over higher education (the abolition of BSU autonomy, the closure of EHU, and so on).

The British researcher cannot avoid the Belarusian regime’s ability to balance between geopolitical centres of power. Yet his study of this peculiar art of political tightrope-walking is mostly descriptive. The author’s attempt to frighten readers with the “imperial ambitions” allegedly held by “Belarusian nationalists” is simply inappropriate and incorrect. If the comparison with the monograph on the Ukrainians is continued, it is also striking that Andrew Wilson devotes very little space to culture.

Nor should one expect prophecies from the book concerning the future of Belarus or the Belarusian regime. One should nevertheless agree with the author’s concluding words: “Belarus will always be a news story” (260).

Literature mentioned in the review

1. Andrew Wilson (2002). The Ukrainians. Unexpected Nation. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2^nd edition.

2. István Bibó (1991). Democracy, Revolution, Self-Determination. Selected writings. New York: Columbia University Press.

3. Czesław Miłosz (1958). Rodzinna Europa. Paryż: Instytut Literacki.