CIVIC IDENTITY

There’s a common opinion that the Belarusian nation is “semi-built” and the Belarusian identity is hazy and unclear. However, polling results disprove this pessimistic standpoint. (See Table 1).

Clearly, by far not all Belarusian citizens have been abroad, and therefore this issue is to a certain extent hypothetical for many of them. On the other hand, comparison with foreign countries (even hypothetical) reveals the most accurate identification as the man recognizes himself/herself in comparison with others.

Table 1 disproves the fears that identities different from Belarusian civic and ethnic identities are widely spread in Belarus.

On the contrary, it is noteworthy that the part of respondents who said they would identify themselves as Russians or other ethnic minority representatives abroad are by far less than the parts of these nationalities within the population of Belarus as per population census. For example, according to the census, the part of Russians is 11%. This points out to a great assimilation force of the Belarusian society when other, non-ethnic community, i.e. citizenship of Belarus, appears more notable for a considerable part of other ethnic representatives, yet this doesn’t mean that they forget about their ethnicity.

Comparison of data in Table 1 with the results of population census shows that this substitution of ethnicity with citizenship is as well typical of ethnic Belarusians. According to population census, they make 81% of the country and according Table 1 only every second of them follows this type of self-identification.

Such preference of civic identity is also proved in answers to the question on the role and rights of the country’s largest ethnicity. (See Table 2).

There is an obvious superiority of those who adhere to the civic model of Belarusian nation while supporters of ethnic nationalism make only 13.6% of respondents. We should like to compare this data with the results of Russia’s opinion poll conducted by Y. Levada’s center one year ago. According to this polling, 16% of Russians totally supported the “Russia for Russians” slogan and 37% more agreed that “it would be good to implement this idea, yet within reasonable limits.” This data cannot be fully comparable with the data in Table 1 as our question offered several variants of status of basic nationality while the Russian question required building up your attitude to only one variant. In addition, the formula “Belarus (Russia) is the state of Belarusians (Russians)” is not as strict as the formula “Belarus (Russia) – for Belarusians (Russians).” However, taking into account these adjustments we can say that there was more adherents of ethnic nationalism in Russia a year ago than in Belarus now.

How is the preference given to this or that key ethnicity status related to political stances of respondents and their foreign political preferences? Table 3 gives the answer to this question.

Difference of political standpoints within studied groups is not very significant. The betweennes group is slightly more inclined to accession into Europe and less – to integration with Russia. It is the least willing to vote for A. Lukashenko and the most – for an opposition representative. As regards the two strongly marked groups, the so-called “civic nationalists” and “ethnic nationalists,” their political aspirations appear pretty close except for their attitude to Russia-Belarus integration. Thus, civic nationalists are most inclined while ethnic nationalists – least inclined to integrate with Russia. Although the state-run mass media claim that the opposition expresses the opinion of those who “are ready to make all the Russians go away,” this is still a question if ethnic nationalists want to oust the Russians. As regards the electoral preferences of ethnic nationalists, they are approximately the same as in the society.

However, we should like to remind that, as the data in Table 3 shows, in this case the state-run mass media pursue their political goals and appeal to the dominating conception of the preferred nation model.

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