Beyond Death: 'Genocide' Trials in Belarusian Courts

• In Event: War, Liberation, Repression: Trials as Storytelling in the USSR and Post-Soviet Space

Abstract

Since 2021, Belarusian state actors have been developing a master narrative about a “genocide of the Belarusian people” that is said to have taken place between 1941 and 1951. The development of this narrative is closely based on the concept of the “genocide of the Soviet people” pursued in Russia, but differs, e.g., in terms of time period and territory. Under the guise of historical reappraisal, the Belarusian state leadership is attempting to control civil society opposition by means of “memory laws.” By aggressively propagating a historical master narrative, the regime also wants to create legitimacy and a basis for national identity. In April 2021, the General Prosecutor’s Office opened criminal proceedings for the “genocide of the Belarusian people” and began investigating former Nazi perpetrators and their collaborators, mainly of Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Estonian nationality. Amendments to the Belarusian Code of Criminal Procedure now allow posthumous trials. On February 8, 2024, the trial of Volodymyr Katriuk, who had been involved in the 1943 Khatyn massacre as a member of the Schutzmannschaft Battalion 118, began at the Belarus Supreme Court. The case of Katriuk, who emigrated to Canada in 1951, was investigated several times while he was alive, but he was never convicted. Katriuk died in 2015. This paper discusses the approach of the General Prosecutor’s Office to prosecuting individuals as NS perpetrators under the specially created criminal acts even after their death and using this approach to legitimize the regime in terms of historical politics.

Author

• Gundula Pohl, U of Hagen (Germany)