EastERN EURoPE BELARUS

The nation we now know as Belarus formed in 1918, after a millennium of being under the control of empires such as those of the Scandanavian Varangians, the Mongols, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Kingdom of Poland, the Russians and the Germans. When World War I ended the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic becoming a founding member of the Soviet Union.    

After World War II, which decimated more than 3/4 of Belorussian cities, Joseph Stalin installed a policy of  “Sovietization” to keep the West from influencing Belorussia. The renamed "Belarus" finally became independent in 1991, but independence from the Soviet Union hasn't necessarily made it free.  Alexander Lukashenko became president in 1994 and, as of this writing in 2018, still presides over the government and its many policies reminiscent of the Soviet era, his “cult of personality” quite strong. 

In class this week we experience a Belarusian holiday that predates even Lukashenko – the summer solstice festival of Kupalle.