Geopolitical Narratives on Belarus in Contemporary Russia
Geopolitical Narratives on Belarus in Contemporary Russia

Summary/Abstract: This article questions recent attempts to label Russia’s policy towards Belarus as either imperialist or pragmatic. Applying critical geopolitics and narrative analysis, it is suggested here that Russia’s policy vis-à-vis Belarus is best understood as negotiated between three competing geopolitical narratives – fraternity, parasitism and paternalism. Clashing in their (spatial) representation of the Belarusian Other, these narratives have advocated different policies and implied dissimilar constructions of the Russian Self. Coexisting uneasily during the Putin era, these narratives only loosely resemble the dominant ‘schools of thought’ in Russian foreign policy.

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