O białoruskiej rewolucji z perspektywy antropolożki wsi
On the Belarusian revolution from the perspective of an anthropologist of peasant communities

Author(s): Anna Engelking
Subject(s): Studies of Literature, Belarussian Literature, Polish Literature, Philology, British Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Belarusian revolution of 2020; value system; peasant ethos; discourse; nationalism
Summary/Abstract: The article is devoted to the discourse of the 2020 Belarusian revolution, which the author analyses from the perspective of her long experience of ethnographic fieldwork in Belarusian villages. The discourse expresses values characteristic of the peasant ethos and, at the same time, constitutive of contemporary Belarusian culture, shaped by civilian, not military, values. The author focuses on three key, interconnected values: life, the human being, and dignity, together with their antiviolence orientation. She points out that the Belarusian cultural matrix appears to be universalism: it highly values bonds that create a humanistic, aideological community of equals. It is a pragmatic community concerned with life and survival. The ethical dimension of the Belarusian revolution is characteristic of a culture that draws primarily from the ethos of peasants, not one of nobles or the Romantic paradigm infused with nationalism.

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