Why Belarus Protesters Dress Like Santa Claus

Posted on December 12, 2020 by Valur Gunnarsson

Protests in Belarus continue, though largely absent from the international media. 300 people were detained last Sunday and more protests are expected tomorrow. Instead of taking place in the central square, they are now dispersed all over the city to make the detaining more difficult. The protesters are now sometimes seen in Santa Claus costumes, asking Lukashenko to give the people the present of going away.

Red and white has in fact been the colour of the protests since the beginning. Last August, people were wearing red and white, getting married in red and white wedding dresses, putting red and white underwear next to each other on the clothes line, white dogs wore red ribbons and white-clad women sported red umbrellas.

This is a reference to the old Belarusian state flag, first used in 1918-19 and again from 1991-95 before being substituted for the present green and red flag by Lukashenko after a referendum. It is even illegal to wave the old flag, and “Lukashenko’s ninjas,” police special forces, have been known to escalate buildings to take down the banned flags.

The origins of the flag are traced back as far as the 13th century, as battle flag for what now might be considered Belarusians who fought for the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. As the Rus principality of Polotsk, in what is present day Belarus, was incorporated into the Grand Duchy, it could almost be said that the Belarusian opposition is still flying the flag of the ancient Rus.

Flying The Flag: Belarusians Show Their True Colors In Solidarity With Protests (rferl.org)

Here’s why are protesters in Belarus are flying a white-and-red flag — Meduza

Hundreds arrested in fresh Belarus protests against Lukashenko (france24.com)

Belarus: Waving the Flag of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Posted on August 19, 2020 by Valur Gunnarsson

Avid news watchers may have spotted that Belarusian protesters are waving a red and white flag, often with a picture of a knight on it. This flag, in fact, goes back to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania when it was used by Belarusians under Lithuanian rule. It was briefly adopted as the flag of the independence movement at the end of World War I. The white reflected the country’s name. One theory behind the naming of Belarus (sometimes called White Russia) is that it was the part of the Rus kingdoms that was not conquered by the Mongols in the 13th Century and hence was ruled by Christian princes. The westernisers in Belarus, as in Ukraine, see continuity from the ancient Rus through the Lithuanian Duchy and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to today.

Hence, a red stripe was added and sometimes the picture of the knight. This was the official flag of Belarus from independence in 1991 until 1995, when Lukashenko changed it back to the flag of the Belarusians SSR of the Soviet Union. Perhaps it will be changed back if he relinquishes power. For more on the Belarus flag, see:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/flag-of-Belarus

Belarus: He Who Controls the Present Controls the Past

Posted on August 17, 2020 by Valur Gunnarsson

History is being made these days in Belarus and inevitably whoever comes out on top will have his own of history canonized. The current conflict between Westernizers and Pro-Russian groups goes back over 100 years, each faction viewing historical events in very different terms. The difference between the two is recounted in an article late last year by Moscow-born University of Radford Professor Grigory Ioffe called “Split Identity and a Tug-of-War for Belarus’s Memory.”

https://jamestown.org/program/84916/

For the pro-Russians, the history of Belarus goes back to the Polotsk principality, which was subservient to the Kyivan Rus, the precursor to both modern day Ukraine and Russia. For centuries after the collapse of Kyiv, most of Belarus was occupied by Lithuanians and Poles before being liberated by the Russians in the 18th Century (and again during World War II). The official view, quite neatly, sees Kyiv, Novgorod and Polotsk as separate ancestors of the three eastern Slavic states of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.

For the Westernizers, the county’s history also begins with Polotsk but here the connection with Kyiv is downplayed. St. Volodymyr is seen to have incorporated the principality against the wishes of the populace (as related in the Primary Chronicle) and so a heritage of resistance to foreign authority is established. Conversely, the union with the Lithuanians and the Poles in the later Middle Ages is seen as having been on equal terms, making Belarus a full member of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In this narrative, Russia comes the main enemy and the many uprisings of the Poles against the Russians in the 19th Century are seen as joint Polish-Belarusian affairs.

According to Belarusian philosopher (and Westernizer) Valantsyn Akudovich, the former view appeals more to Belarusians as it allows them to be a part of the glory of Russian and Soviet Empires rather than its victims.

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya’s move to Lithuania and Lukashenko’s calls for assistance to Russia can be the seen as the latest chapter in the long running debate about whether Belarus’ history runs through the Grand Duchy of Lithuania or Muscovy, and whether its future belongs to the Westernisers or pro-Russians.

St. Vladimir and Comrade Stalin