| Abstract [eng] |
Narrative of the Belarusian Regime in Response to the Political Crisis in 2020 The paper contains analysis of the Belarusian regime narrative changes in response to the political crisis in 2020. The political crisis in Belarus started in 2020 when the agitation of Belarusian presidential candidates began. The Belarusian regime began to repress the demonstrations of the opposition and protesters through violence and political decisions. After a while Belarusian opposition protest decreased and Alexander Lukashenko still rules the country. Using theory of narratives and Philipp Mayring content analysis model, this paper aims to reveal the changes of Belarusian regime narrative and why they happened. Narrative theory states that narratives are stories that are recognizable to the public. They are an important part of every state because they make sense of existing identities and states. Combining certain facts in narrative constructs world that society sees and reality they know. The theory states that narratives are variable and parts of them can be activated or deactivated. Narratives are modified to justify made decisions. For this reason, politicians manipulate narratives to achieve their goals. Using this theoretical approach analysis is made and additional context is provided to show change of Belarusian regime narrative change and to better understand the opposition. Belarusian regime narrative changes are divided into two parts – before 2014 and from 2014 to 2020. The most important parts are related to Belarusian language and the historical nation basis. The analysis identifies the main categories of narrative that emerge during political crisis of 2020. After a qualitative analysis of the content, four main categories of the regime's narrative were identified – „the brotherly nations “, the criminalization of the opposition, Lukashenko as the guarantor of Belarus existence and the Soviet past propagation. The story of the Second World War, which is well-known in the society, is being actively exploited in the above-mentioned categories, and it is being given new meaning and being adapted to today`s context. One of the examples is the fight against fascism, which adapted and now this fight meant violence against opposition forces. Belarusian regime also seeks to use the narrative to become closer to Russia and present it to the public as a positive step. Furthermore, the issue of the Belarusian language, which was previously associated with the Belarusian identity, completely disappears from the regime`s public discourse, but Russian language did not take this place so it cannot be said that this is complete return to Lukashenko ruling start. The promotion of pro-Belarusian history is declining, it remains only fragmentary. The Cultivation of pro-Soviet history is intensifying, it can be said that regime deactivated parts of the pro-Belarusian narrative but did not remove it from the narrative. The Narrative of the Belarusian opposition can be called “New Belarus”, it reflects democratic values, nationalistic symbols associated with the history of the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania, the story of World War II is reworked and protesters become the new heroes of Belarus. The narrative of the new opposition was similar to the regime narrative which was used 2014-2020, except one category – opposition to Lukashenko. Partly it can be said that it made him attractive and familiar to the public. At the time regime had to change its narrative in order not to fight the same values, attitudes, but more research is needed to fully confirm these assumptions. To sum up, the narrative used by the Belarusian regime since 2020 has justified violence against the opposition and made it similar to a fight against fascism. At the same time, it returns to fraternal relations with Russian, which is especially important knowing Putin`s influence on Lukashenko. |
