WHOSE ARE YOU, GUYS?

During the latest population census in Belarus, 81.2% of population placed themselves among Belarusians, 73.7% said Belarusian is their native language but only 36.7% said they speak Belarusian at home (according to the data of opinion polls, the part of Belarusian-speaking citizens is several times lower).

Asked about their mother tongue, why did several times more people than those who speak Belarusian at home chose Belarusian as their mother tongue? One of the possible explanations is as follows. Many took the question about mother tongue as the question about national identification – Belarusian should be my mother tongue since I’m a Belarusian. In addition, difference between the groups of Belarusian speakers registered in population census and in opinion polls is also explained with the mechanism of national identification. When the state asks the question about language of communication at home, many feel uncomfortable to say that they are Belarusians but communicate on non-native language with their husbands, wives and children. Thus, 81% of those who place themselves among Belarusians during the census is quite a convincing indicator of ethnic identification.

Data of the latest opinion poll as well show the great power of cultural identification. Connection between answers to the question about cultural identification and about the language of everyday communication is well seen in Table 1.

Table 1. Connection between answers to the question “To what cultural tradition do you relate yourself?” and “What language do you mainly use in everyday communication?”*, %

* Table is read across

The majority of respondents relate themselves to the Belarusian culture in all language groups without an exception. People can put different sense into the concept of culture but we think this is the declared choice which has prior importance in this case rather than compliance of answers with certain criteria of belonging to a culture. While ethnicity is taken almost as a nature-given feature, the situation with culture is more flexible. Man’s cultural identification can change and this is more than ethnicity a matter of choice. On the other hand, culture is a more multifaceted connection than the unity of birth. If the majority including the majority of Russian-speaking citizens relate themselves to the Belarusian culture, this means the talks about non-existence of the Belarusian nation and its outstanding formation have no grounds.

Remarkably, although around a half of Belarusian citizens still consider themselves Soviet people (see http://www.iiseps.org/6-06-4.html), only 13.3% relate themselves to the Soviet culture. The gap between the part of people considering themselves Soviet people and the part relating themselves to the Soviet culture shows that the number of Soviet people will be going steadily down. What’s more, many of those who assess themselves in this way may appear to be cunning even with themselves. The reality of independent nation state blurs the Soviet identity.

We should like to draw your attention to the group of respondents identifying themselves with the all-European culture. It is small but very significant. It is (8.1%) much smaller than the number of respondents standing for accession of Belarus into the EU (36%) and it is smaller than the number of those who place themselves among Europeans (36% in March opinion poll). In other words, different cultural self-identifications except Soviet are consistent with the European choice.

Data in Table 2 show in what way cultural self-identification is connected with some socio-demographic characteristics.

Table 2. Connection between answers to the question: “To what cultural tradition do you relate yourself?” and age and education*, %

* Table is read across

Thus, the Belarusian culture remains dominating in all age and education groups. Connection between self-identification and age and education appear quite weak. However, quantities in other groups seem to depend greatly on socio-demographic characteristics. The respondents who relate themselves to the Russian culture are more often youths and their part decreases progressively as we pass to elder age groups.

As regards those who identify themselves with the Soviet culture, this connection changes mirror-like and becomes stronger. Thus, the people of Soviet culture among respondents who are 60 and over exceed nearly 20-fold (!) this same group among young respondents. Age appears as well a very strong factor for bearers of all-European culture.

Similar dependence can be found if we look into connection between cultural types and education. Bearers of Russian culture make greater part among well-educated people even though the difference between the parts is a little more than the margin of error. The percent of those who relate themselves to the Soviet culture is twice as much among poorly educated respondents than among well-educated respondents. Finally, percent of adherents of all-European self-identification jumps up 7-fold in the group of well-educated people!

In conclusion, we should like to say that Belarusian cultural self-identification is dominating in Belarus. It is also dominant in all language, age and education groups. Self-identification with the Russian culture is more characteristic of the youth and the Russian-speaking citizens. Soviet identification is the least typical of Belarusian-speaking respondents and the youth and the most typical – of elderly respondents and poorly educated respondents. All-European cultural identification is popular the most among the youth, well-educated people and Russian-speaking population.