The Path to a Soviet Nation: The Policy of Belarusization by Alena Marková (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Path to a Soviet Nation: The Policy of Belarusization by Alena Marková Alessandro Achilli (bio) Alena Marková, The Path to a Soviet Nation: The Policy of Belarusization ( Paderborn: Brill Schöningh, 2021). 295 pp., ill. Bibliography. Index. ISBN: 978-3-506-79181-8. Russia's full-scale aggression against Ukraine and Belarus's more or less direct involvement in the war seem to have dampened the interest in Belarus, its history and its culture that had arisen in 2020 in the context of the great wave of protests against Alexander Lukashenko's latest electoral fraud. However, Belarus continues to remain a significant element of the (post–)post-Soviet world and its culture a fascinating, though neglected and tragic segment of Slavic and East European history. Alena Marková's book on Belarusization in early Soviet Belarus is a book that has the potential to reignite scholarly attention toward Belarus's past and the role of Soviet Belarusian history for a deeper understanding of contemporary Belarus's challenges. Marková's research is based on meticulous archival work and has the ambition and the ability to inspire more scholars of East Europe to widen their scholarly horizon to encompass Belarus's complicated national path. The title of Marková's monograph foregrounds the Soviet context [End Page 217] and the aims of Belarusization efforts of the 1920s, which abruptly brought a language hitherto conceived of as solely belonging to peasants and a small group of nationally conscious intellectuals to the spheres of education, bureaucracy, and the military. After a detailed survey of the limited existing scholarship on the subject and a clarification of the terms she intends to invoke in her study, Marková proceeds to provide readers with an overview of the historical context of post-1917 Belarus. Having stressed that the overwhelming majority of urban dwellers in Belarus were Jews and Russians, Marková focuses on school education, print, and the crucial issue of Belarus's borders, which underwent various changes over the decade with the aim of consolidating the ethnically Belarusian lands. The question of Belarusization, a policy which was announced in 1923, is to be seen as part of a wider debate around the role of nationality in constructing a new society based on class ideology. The introduction of Belarusization policies was meant as a way to "provide 'the worker with an opportunity to unite with the Belarusian peasant, to know him better, to approach him better and to connect with him in a stronger way,'" as Marková points out, quoting from an issue of the Savetskaya Belarus' newspaper from November 1922 (P. 45). Discussing the first steps of Belaru sization, Marková also stresses that in the early 1920s the ethnic "Great Russian" chauvinism was perceived as a greater danger than Belarusian "bourgeois-democratic nationalism." This also explains the leading role of Belarusian intellectuals in the Belarusization efforts and the frequent insistence in history and literature textbooks published during Berarusization on the differences between the Belarusian and Russian lands over the centuries. Marková rightly pays much attention to these themes. The bulk of the book is occupied by a thorough discussion of the implementation of Belarusization in the fields of education, in textbooks and in the bureaucratic apparatus, respectively, each with a dedicated chapter. The last part of Marková's monograph is devoted to the termination of the Belarusization experiment between the late 1920s and the 1930s and the official comeback of Russification. After providing a summary of Belarusization efforts in the 1920s, the short but dense conclusion hosts an incisive discussion of the national question in early Soviet Belarus based on Anthony Smith's and Miroslav Hroch's theories of nationality and nationalism. After having been exposed to a great amount of information on the legislative framework and the enactment strategies of Belarusization, readers are confronted with the sad truth of [End Page 218] its failure, which may explain why today's Belarus is essentially a Russophone country. The question of the poor outcomes of Belarusization and the related issue of its partial successes – Marková frequently emphasizes its positive, although short-lived effect on rural secondary education – may be seen as the weakest spot in the book. Readers...