Colonial Linguistic Heritage
Language and Nation in Lukashenka’s Belarus
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The language debate in President Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s Belarus is a politically explosive topic. The struggle over how to interpret language history also concerns the point in time when Belarusian began its own development vis-à-vis Russian. In the debate over language in the present, two issues dominate: language policy since Lukashenka came to power and the competition between two varieties of Belarusian, a competition linked above all to orthography. All three discussions are of central importance for the self-understanding of the Belarusians as national and the political orientation of Belarus.
(Osteuropa 12/2010, pp. 69–80)