Rejection of the mobilized linguicism policy and the Belarusian national identity

Mobilized linguicism is a tool for constructing national identity by giving the language of the titular nation the character of a fundamental integrating unit. In practice, the implementation of such a policy implies the exclusion of other languages and erects institutional barriers to the political participation of national minorities. On the territory of Belarus, the policy of mobilized linguicism was not recognized by the citizens of the republic, so the government of President Lukashenko took a course to abandon this practice. The phenomenon of mobilized linguicism revealed by M.N. Guboglo has a great importance for the development of national selfconsciousness on the territory of the post-Soviet republics. In this article, the authors substantiate the refusal of the government of Belarus from the policy of mobilized linguistics and the contradictions of the Belarusian nation-building. Such a contradiction is ensured by the existence of two opposite directions of Belarusian nationalism, differing in terms of cultural continuity. The governmental discourse of nation-building insists on the Soviet continuity of the Republic of Belarus, its rejection of the policy of ethnic restrictions and suppression of the cultural development of other nations. The discourse used by the Belarusian opposition perceives the Belarusian nation as the heir to the European tradition based on the historical continuity of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In this regard, the desire to use mobilized linguistics is often found among supporters of oppositional discourse as an instrument of cultural homogenization. The article analyzes the features of the language policy in the territory of post-Soviet Belarus and draws conclusions regarding the effectiveness of the policy pursued in the field of constructing the Belarusian national identity.

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