Description

The collective monograph “Belarus in the Twenty-First Century: Between Dictatorship and Democracy” was published in English in London in 2023. This book claims to provide a comprehensive overview of recent events in Belarus. Its authors explore why and how the people rose up for the idea that Belarus must change. It shows how the old regime, eager to preserve the Soviet legacy, reluctant to reform, and slow in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, faced a surge in public mobilization — both vertical (bottom-up) and horizontal — against a backdrop of deteriorating economic conditions. Participants in this movement demanded a transformation of the relationship between state and society, developing a new understanding of Belarusian popular agency.

The book outlines the course of recent events. The authors, weighing how deeply current demands for change are rooted in society and how promising they are, describe various aspects of social mobilization in detail. Overall, the book argues that although the old regime endures, Belarusian society has changed fundamentally, fueling hopes that change will eventually occur.

“I urge you to read this book not just as a scholarly treatise — I recommend engaging with it through a personal lens. Many authors and respondents interviewed for the book were forced to leave the country. Many are unable to return home, and some were arrested. In addition to their scholarly work, they can share details of their personal biographies. Over the last two years, I have learned a great lesson: ‘popular agency’ […] is formed from thousands of such small human stories. It is our duty to preserve them, reflect on them, and build our identity upon them, and this book helps us do exactly that.” — Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya.

Editors:

Alena Karascialiova — Professor of Political Science and Global Sustainable Development, Director of the Institute for Global Sustainable Development (IGSD) at the University of Warwick, UK.

Iryna Piatrova — Assistant Professor at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES), University College London.

Nastassia Kudlenka — Researcher at the Institute for Global Sustainable Development, University of Warwick, UK.