The “Partisan Republic”: Colonial Myths and Memory Wars in Belarus

Abstract

This chapter combines trauma theory and postcolonial theory in the study of memory in post-war and post-Soviet Belarus. It argues that the Soviet myth of Belarus as the “Partisan Republic” displaced trauma, attempting to delimit the contours of memory but only deferring the painful process of coming to terms with the past. In addition, it examines the creation of a monolithic image of Soviet Belarusianness based on the memory of the war, i.e. the construct of the “Partisan Republic,” as a form of colonial discourse a means of imposing hegemonic identity norms on a dominated population. Both the Soviet-era resistance to this myth and the unmaking of the edifice in the post-Soviet era are analyzed in terms of postcolonial theory through discussion of the works of several Soviet and post-Soviet authors, musicians, and artists.