The Soviet roots of the 2020 protests: the unlikely history of Belarusian civic nationalism

This chapter takes a long view at the 2020 protests and argues that while they marked a watershed in Belarusian history, important features of the protest movement, such as its civic nature, commitment to non-violence, and a sense of shared identity, have roots in the developments of the late Soviet decades, and particularly, the Masherau years of 1965-1980. Using discrete examples of commemorative tourism, heritage building, and the project of compiling the Belarusian Soviet Encyclopaedia, the chapter recasts the long 1970s as a time when Belarusians were repeatedly reminded that they were a nation. This message was reinforced by the successes of post-war economic and social modernisation that brought with it relative prosperity and stability after decades of turmoil and violence. The outcome of these developments was a national identity that combined civic and ethnic elements, valuing modernity but not discarding ethnicity, and it created the foundations for the contemporary national identity that the 2020 protests brought to the fore.