{"id":54670,"date":"2023-12-11T11:33:21","date_gmt":"2023-12-11T08:33:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/api.pozirk.online\/?post_type=longreads&p=54670"},"modified":"2023-12-11T11:33:23","modified_gmt":"2023-12-11T08:33:23","slug":"kalinouski-negativity-suits-lukasenkas-pro-russian-politics","status":"publish","type":"longreads","link":"https:\/\/pozirk.online\/en\/longreads\/54670\/","title":{"rendered":"Kalino\u016dski negativity suits \u0141uka\u0161enka\u2019s pro-Russian politics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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After the 2020 postelection protests, state propaganda launched a campaign of negativity against Kastu\u015b Kalino\u016dski, a leader of the 1863-64 anti-Russian uprising seen by historians as the founding father of the Belarusian national idea. The drive comes in response to the opposition\u2019s effort to emphasize the rebel leader\u2019s legacy and integrate it in its platform.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The negative campaign was initiated by influential officials from Alaksandar \u0141uka\u0161enka’s inner circle. Although the Belarusian ruler has no sympathy for Kalino\u016dski and encourages his vilification, he has not been directly involved in the attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Empire strikes back<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2013, Belarusians marked the 150th anniversary of the 1863-64 uprising and the 175th anniversary of Kalino\u016dski’s birth. As expected, the government largely ignored it. Nevertheless, the state post service Bie\u0142po\u0161ta printed cards with a stamp dedicated to the uprising leader, while the National Library held a special exhibition. A local authority restored a memorial plaque to Kalino\u016dski in Minsk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ten years later, the country has changed radically. Minsk has completely ignored the 160th and 185th anniversaries, respectively, and commemorative events in the National Library were out of the question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June, Vadzim Hihin, a senior propaganda official known for his admiration for the Russian Empire, was appointed as director of the National Library. The rising propaganda star openly admires Mikhail Muravyov, then governor-general of Vilna who played the key role in suppressing the uprising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hihin is working hard to ruin the Kalino\u016dski legacy. He presents the uprising as Polish and Kalino\u016dski as a bad guy who executed Belarusian peasants, a Catholic, an enemy of the Orthodox, a Pole, and a fighter for the interests of Poland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These clich\u00e9s currently dominate state propaganda. On Hihin’s initiative, the education ministry removed Spikes Under Your Sickle<\/em>, U\u0142adzimir Karatkievi\u010d\u2019s iconic novel about the uprising, from the school curriculum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aleksander Dyukov, head of the Moscow-based Historical Memory foundation, also joined the crusade against Kalino\u016dski, along with Belarusian propagandist Ryhor Azarjonak and pro-government activist Volha Bondarava. The foundation pushes Russian interpretations of history in post-Soviet countries, promoting imperial narratives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Propaganda likens fighter against autocracy with Bandera<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

On May 16, the state-controlled daily SB. Belarus Segodnia<\/em> ran a lengthy interview with the head of \u0141uka\u0161enka’s administration, Major General Ihar Sierhiajenka, who is also head of the National Council for History Policy. Sierhiajenka, a historian by training who made his career in secret services, admitted that the government will continue to use history for its propaganda interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking of key figures in national history, the general noted that Kalino\u016dski had played a role similar to Ukrainian nationalists Roman Shukhevych and Stepan Bandera. Sierhiajenka sees Kalino\u016dski as a fighter for the restoration of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and a historical figure used by “the external enemy” to “drive a wedge between brotherly peoples and divide society.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sierhiajenka jabbed at Poland and Lithuania, as well as pro-democracy politicians who cherish Kalino\u016dski\u2019s legacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2006, protesters against the rigged presidential election gathered at Minsk’s Kastry\u010dnickaja Square and renamed it Kalino\u016dski Square. A Polish scholarship program for young Belarusian activists and victims of repression, established in the same year, was also named after Kalino\u016dski.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reburial of Kalino\u016dski’s remains in Vilnius in November 2019 was attended by hundreds of Belarusians, many of whom traveled a long way from Belarus to the Lithuanian capital. During 2020 protests, Kalino\u016dski was a source of inspiration for the opposition. And a military unit of Belarusian volunteers fighting alongside Ukrainians against Russian invaders was named after him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Minsk’s negative campaign was initiated by senior officials like Hihin who have been given a free hand to push pro-Russian narratives. The government sees Kalino\u016dski, just like the white-red-white flag, as a symbol of its opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The struggle against opposition symbols is seen as a means of stabilizing and consolidating the regime in the fight against its external and internal enemies. The growing ideological pressure from Moscow is forcing Minsk to adopt the Russian perspective on the 1863-1864 uprising and its leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u0141uka\u0161enka busy with other things<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the Soviet Union, Kalino\u016dski was commemorated as a fighter against tsarism. Local authorities named streets in Minsk, Hrodna, Mahilio\u016d, Lida and other Belarusian cities in his honor. They renamed a village in Svis\u0142a\u010d district, where Kalino\u016dski spent his childhood, Kalino\u016dskaja, and named a school in Svis\u0142a\u010d after him. Outstanding sculptor Zair Azhur designed a monument to Kalino\u016dski, which was erected in Svis\u0142a\u010d in the late 1950s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early 1990s, the Belarusian Popular Front and other pro-democracy forces promoted Kalino\u016dski as a national hero, but \u0141uka\u0161enka, who came to power in 1994, took a more cautious approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November 2019, he called Kalino\u016dski “our man,” but would not describe him as a national hero, and claimed instead that the rebel leader was a contradictory personality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the second year of his presidency, in 1995, Belarus established the Order of Kastu\u015b Kalino\u016dski as the highest state award. The decision had been probably made before \u0141uka\u0161enka took office. He abolished the order nine years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the late 1990s, historians and publicists cast the “anti-Russian uprising” in a negative light and blasted Kalino\u016dski, sensing the tacit support of officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More recently, authorities in Belarus have bulldozed Polish graves associated with the 1919-1921 Soviet-Polish war and Armia Krajowa (Home Army) Second World War soldiers. The law enforcers branded works of literature by Vincent Dunin-Mracinkievi\u010d, a participant in the 1863 uprising, extremist content. Last week, media reported that authorities renamed a school in Svis\u0142a\u010d that used to bear Kalino\u016dski’s name.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is still a Kalino\u016dski street in Minsk and probably there are streets named after him in other towns. Azhur\u2019s monument to him is still standing in downtown Svisla\u010d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For \u0141uka\u0161enka, who is preoccupied with holding on to power, the fight for “historical truth” is not yet a top priority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

* * *<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kalino\u016dski is one of the most politicized characters in Belarusian history. After the 2020 protests, Hihin and his comrades-in-arms have been trying to compromise his image as a leader of the uprising against autocracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The campaign is still somewhat half-throttle. If \u0141uka\u0161enka gives his go-ahead tomorrow, his cronies will start erasing the Kalino\u016dski memory with all the ruthlessness they can muster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After the 2020 postelection protests, state propaganda launched a campaign of negativity against Kastu\u015b Kalino\u016dski, a leader of the 1863-64 anti-Russian uprising seen by historians as the founding father of the Belarusian national idea. The drive comes in response to the opposition\u2019s effort to emphasize the rebel leader\u2019s legacy and integrate it in its platform. 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