Lukashenko is not shy about making Russian the dominant language in Belarus
When school started this year for Mikalai in BelarusThe 15-year-old boy discovered that his teachers and principals no longer called him by that name, and instead referred to him as Nikolai, its Russian equivalent.
Moreover, lessons at his school – one of the best in the country – are now taught in Russian, not Belarusian, which he spoke most of his life.
According toAssociated PressBelarusians like Mikalai are witnessing a new wave of “Russification” as Moscow expands its economic, political and cultural dominance to overpower its neighbor’s identity.
This was not the first time, as Russia, both during the Tsarist and Soviet eras, imposed its language, symbols and cultural institutions on Belarus.
But with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the country began to assert its identity, Belarusian briefly became the official language, and a white, red, and white national flag replaced a version of the red hammer and sickle.
Russia dominates every aspect of life in Belarus
But all that changed in 1994, after Alexander Lukashenko, a former Soviet collective farm official, took power. The authoritarian leader made Russian an official language, alongside Belarusian, and abolished national symbols.
Now, after more than three decades in power, Lukashenko has allowed Russia to dominate every aspect of life in Belarus, a country of 9.5 million people. The Belarusian language, which uses the Cyrillic alphabet like Russian, is no longer heard on the streets of Minsk and other major cities.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko speaks to schoolchildren at Independence Day celebrations in Minsk on July 3, 2020. AP
Official business is conducted in Russian, which dominates most of the media, and Lukashenko speaks only Russian, and government officials often do not use their mother tongue.
The country relies on Russian loans and cheap energy, and has built a political and military alliance with Moscow that allows President Vladimir Putin to deploy troops and missiles on its territory, which has been used as a launching pad for the war in Ukraine.
Belarus is “occupied”
“I understand that Belarus is occupied… and who is the president there? It’s not Lukashenko. The president is Putin,” said Svetlana Alexievich, the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate who lives in Germany in virtual exile.
“The nation has been humiliated and it will be very difficult for Belarusians to recover from this,” she added.
Belarusian cultural figures have also been persecuted and hundreds of nationalist organizations have been closed. Experts say Moscow is trying to implement what the Kremlin intended to do in neighboring Ukraine when the war there began in 2022.
Children are deprived of their mother tongue.
“It is clear that our children are being deliberately deprived of their native language, their history and their Belarusian identity, but parents have been strongly advised not to ask questions about Russification,” said Mikalai’s father, Anatoly, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition that his last name not be used for fear of reprisal.
“We were informed about the coincidence of school curricula with Russia this year and were shown a propaganda film about how Ukrainian special services recruit our teenagers and force them to commit acts of sabotage in Belarus,” he said.
Mikalai School was one of the few schools where paperwork and some courses were taught in Belarusian. But in recent years, dozens of teachers have been fired and the Belarusian section has disappeared from the school’s website.
Human rights defender Ales Bialiatski, who was convicted in 2023 on charges related to his Nobel Peace Prize-winning work, had demanded that his trial be held in Belarus, but the court refused and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.
Lukashenko: Thank you Putin!
Lukashenko mocks his native language, saying: “Nothing great can be expressed in Belarusian… There are only two great languages in the world: Russian and English.”
Speaking to Russian state media, Lukashenko recounted how Putin once thanked him for making Russian the dominant language in Belarus.
“I said, wait, what are you thanking me for? … The Russian language is my language, we were part of one empire, and we are participating in (helping) this language to develop,” Lukashenko said.
Belarus was part of the Russian Empire for centuries and became one of the 15 Soviet republics after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Daily use of the Belarusian language declined and persisted only in the west and north of the country and in rural areas.
Schoolchildren perform at a ceremony marking Belarus Day in honor of the flag and national emblem in Minsk. AP File
Belarusian language is fading away
In 1994, about 40% of students studied in Belarusian; now this percentage has dropped to less than 9%.
Although Belarusian, like Russian, is an East Slavic language, its vocabulary is quite different.
In 1517, Belarusian publisher Franciszek Skaryna was among the first in Eastern Europe to translate the Bible into its native language.
Even speaking Belarusian is seen as a show of opposition to Lukashenko and a declaration of national identity. It played a key role in the mass protests after the disputed 2020 election gave the authoritarian leader a sixth term. In the brutal crackdown that followed, half a million people fled the country.
“The Belarusian language is increasingly seen as a sign of political disloyalty and is being abandoned in favour of Russian in public administration, education, culture and the media, on orders from the hierarchy or for fear of discrimination,” said Anaïs Marin, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Belarus.
At the same time, “more and more people want to speak Belarusian, which has become one of the symbols of freedom, but they are afraid to do so in public,” said Alina Nahornaga, author of “Language 404,” a book about Belarusians who have been discriminated against for speaking their native language.
Like Ukraine, Belarusians had a desire for rapprochement with Europe that was accompanied by their nationalist sentiments, said Belarusian analyst Valery Karbalevich.
Russification of Belarus
“The Kremlin quickly realized the danger and began the process of gradual Russification in Belarus,” he added.
This has prompted pro-Russian organizations, joint educational programs and cultural projects to spring up “like mushrooms after the rain — against the backdrop of brutal repression against everything Belarusian,” Karbalevich said.
Protesters carrying old Belarusian flags march during an opposition rally in Minsk. AP File
Censorship and bans affect not only contemporary Belarusian literature, but also its classics. In 2023, the prosecutor’s office declared the 19th-century poems of Vincent Donin-Martsinkevich, who opposed the Russian Empire, to be extremist.
When the Kremlin began supporting Lukashenko against anti-government protests in 2020, it secured his loyalty and carte blanche in Belarus.
“Today, Lukashenko is paying Putin with our sovereignty. Belarusian national identity, culture and language are our strongest weapons against the Russian world and Russification,” said exiled opposition leader Svetlana Tsikhanouskaya.
Four cities in Belarus now host “Russia House” to promote its culture and influence, offering seminars, film clubs, exhibitions and competitions.
“The goal is to plant Russian narratives so that as many Belarusians as possible see Russia as their own,” said analyst Alexander Fridman. “The Kremlin is sparing no effort and acting on a grand scale, which can be especially effective and dangerous in a situation where Belarus finds itself in media isolation, and there is almost no one left inside the country to resist the Russian world.”
Because of this dominance, the Yanka Kupala Theater troupe, the country’s oldest, almost entirely fled Belarus amid political repression.
Its former director, Pavel Latushka, now an opposition figure abroad, says the new administration could not recruit enough new representatives and had to invite Russians, “but it turned out that no one knew Belarusian.”
“Putin published an article denying the existence of an independent Ukraine in 2021, and even then we understood very well that he was pursuing similar goals in Belarus,” Latoshka added.
“The main course was supposed to be from Ukraine,” he continued, with “Belarus as dessert.”
