VICTORY – ONE FOR EVERYBODY

Another celebration of Victory Day caused the traditional controversy about its meaning and value. An impression was created that in the current year it was so violent as never before in both Belarus and Russia. In Russia “an interchange of views” between the politician L. Gozman and journalist U. Skobeida became an event; in Belarus a well-known blogger A. Kabanov deleted all his friends on Facebook who had congratulated him on the high day having called them “asinine mutants of propaganda”.
However, more academic and conceptual discussions about World War II, including its meaning for the nation building in Belarus, have been in progress for a long time, and they are not connected with a certain date.

Nevertheless, exactly the acuteness of the controversy associated with May 9 became one of the reasons which induced IISEPS to repeat in June the question from the last year’s poll concerning assessment of the events of the XX century (Table 1).

As it can be seen, priorities of respondents in the given question have not changed at all within a little more than a year: the victory in the Great Patriotic War used to rank first and is still number one as a source of national pride, “one victory for everybody” – in the truest sense of the word. Almost for everybody.
The data of Table 2 give us an idea how the hierarchy of historical events – reasons for being proud – is connected with socio-demographic characteristics and political preferences.
Table 2. Distribution of answers to the question: “Which events of the XX century, in your opinion, can Belarusians be proud of to the fullest extent?” depending on socio-demographic characteristics and political preferences*, %

* The table is read across
The general impression Table 2 produces is as follows: besides electing Belarus first president, assessments of other events of Belarusian contemporary history depend slightly on the factors they should have depended on, at first sight. The numbers of those who consider that electing A. Lukashenko in 1994 was an event to be proud of differ manifold among various socio-demographic groups and groups with different political beliefs. At the same time, other political events, which academic and political swords are being crossed over, are assessed approximately equally by all the groups analyzed in Table 2. The difference among the assessments does not, as a rule, exceed 10 percentage points, and more often is considerably smaller.
As it is, the hierarchy of the events (again with the exception of electing A. Lukashenko) remains the same in all the groups. And victory in the Great Patriotic War is an absolute leader of assessments in all of them. The young and the old, respondents with University diplomas and primary education, those for and against A. Lukashenko, “Belo-Russians” and “Euro-Belarusians” – assessments of the Victory in all these groups exceed assessments of the rest of the events many times, and the difference at that is rather insignificant.
We would like to call in question the common explanation, which is often employed in order to level the value of the unanimous opinion of society concerning the Victory. It is often said that such unanimity is an outcome of mass propaganda: current Lukashenko’s, and former Soviet of the time of Brezhnev’s epoch. In a down-to-earth form the thought was formulated by the above mentioned A. Kabanov. In the opinion of such view supporters, propaganda is almighty; it is able to elevate an insignificant event up to a nationwide value.
A more realistic view is that propaganda is powerful but not in the least almighty. It can strengthen, “twist”, fuel sentiment and conceptions that exist besides it and used to exist before it; it may speculate on values, interpret them, but it cannot create them.
In addition, already the data of Table 1 cogently demonstrate this selective “omnipotence” of propaganda.
If the echo of Soviet propaganda is so loud, then where has its much louder and more significant topic – “The Great October”– disappeared? By the way, the information policy of the present Belarusian state also assigns the revolution of 1917 a place of honor: Belarus is probably the only state in the world where November 7 is a state holiday devoted exactly to that revolution. So where is it in the conceptions of Belarusians? It ranks last. Why does the propaganda, almighty as far as the memory about the war is concerned, prove to be powerless with regard to the memory about the revolution?
Talking about modern propaganda, it should be noted that the main subject of its laudation is by no means the Victory, but A. Lukashenko, his accession in 1994 and his beneficent fatherly governing. So where is the significance of this new era in the consciousness of the population? It occupies the modest 4-5 place level with the forming of the BPR, which until quite recently used to be interpreted by the official propaganda as “a puppet quasi-state of bourgeois nationalists”, and even today is not praised to high heaven. If the propaganda is almighty, what would it cost it to move its boss and main hero to the top position? However, it did not manage to do so.
The data of Table 2 give us additional arguments against the theory of the propaganda omnipotence. Let us assume that for those who trust the president, declare for integration with Russia, finally, for those who trust state mass media their piety to the Victory is a derivative of their political beliefs and information preferences. They value the Victory because the propaganda they trust has convinced them to do it. What should be said then about their political antagonists, those who are for European integration, who are against A. Lukashenko, who do not trust the state propaganda, but for whom the Victory is a value as well? Did the propaganda manage to convince them of nothing but one thing? Such a version sounds too artificial to be correct.
In theory the hypothesis that the minority, for whom the Victory is not a victory at all, are the true bearers of the national and democratic discourse has the right to exist. However, the data of Table 3 more likely refute the hypothesis.
Table 3. Connection of assessments of the victory in the Great Patriotic War with socio – demographic characteristics and political beliefs, %

As we can see, there is a difference: among those not proud of the Victory there are more respondents who do not trust A. Lukashenko and advocate Belarus’ European choice, and also more respondents who take pride in attaining independence in 1991. However, even as far as this question is concerned, the difference is not cardinal – those who consider the Victory a source of pride are by no means 100% “Euro-Belarusians” and Lukashenko’s opponents. As for the rest of the questions of Table 2, including the ones about the state symbols and attitude to the BPR, the difference among the groups is in general rather insignificant. Thus, those for whom the Victory is not a source of pride are not one and all adherents of the national and democratic discourse, these are by no means people of “a new ideological heaven and new earth” (or a new hell, in somebody’s opinion).
Attempts to deconstruct the Victory as a value, and ideally to extirpate it from people’s memory completely have come into fashion in certain political and intellectual circles. Factoring out historical and scientific, as well as moral aspects of the problem, let us hold true to the sociological spirit of our analysis. It follows from the data of Tables 1-3 that the victory in the Great Patriotic War is the most wholesale historical value of Belarusians, and it is the value which unites the population regardless of political watersheds. And from the political point of view it looks simply like madness to erect additional barriers between oneself and society throwing challenge down to it, disputing its most precious and most universally recognized value.
And from the point of view of national construction, one should remember how many tears have been shed over the absence of unity and common values among Belarusians. However, one (and probably the only one) is present. It is clearly defined sociologically, it is all-out. Let us imagine someone managed to destroy it (although it does not follow from here that it will happen in reality). What can replace it? The question is not whether alternative values exist as such, the question is in their integration might, in their ability to embrace a greater part of society.
One, of course, can hope for “the magic wand” of the Belarusian Television, possessing which it is possible, in the opinion of some people, to convert Belarusians to any faith. However, it seems that it is a consequence of the intellectuals’ na?ve belief in the efficiency of brutal force, including the force of state propaganda. On the other hand, if one does not sympathize with in this belief, then an obvious danger becomes evident: if the substitutes of the value mechanism that ensures unity at the moment are able to embrace only a small part of society won’t the nation devoid of common values go to pieces?