Reconsidering Revolution: Uladzimir Karatkevich’s Critique of Post-Stalinism via the 19th Century

• In Event: Belarus III: Partisans, Empire, Revolution: Building the Belarusian Nation through Literature, Music, and Teaching of History

Abstract

The work of Soviet Belarusian author Uladzimir Karatkevich has been fundamental for the constitution of a romantic image of a Belarusian nation. His writings of the 1960s are central to this: In several novels, plays, and short stories, Karatkevich explores the revolutionary struggles of the 1863 period, with the Kalinouski uprising against the Russian Empire as the focal point. He draws a historical line pointing to a revolutionary legacy he characterizes as essentially Belarusian. Karatkevich’s texts thereby establish the cornerstones of a new concept of the Belarusian nation, which sees 1863 as the “political birth of Belarus” (Ablameyka). They do so in the form of popular literature, were widely printed by state publishing houses, and read by millions in Soviet times.
This paper discusses the complex and contradictory processes at work here: Karatkevich formulates a critique of his present by counterposing it to a history of revolution non-identical to the October Revolution and the country built by it. This points to unfulfilled moments of liberation in the 1960s - a potential in society unfulfilled at the moment of writing. On the other hand, though, Karatkevich does so within the Soviet literary establishment, using the styles and imaginaries it offers, conforming to some of its limitations. How does the revolutionary 19th century reappear in thaw Belarus? What critical view on history is possible in early post-Stalinist times? And how does that inform understandings of the Belarusian nation to this day?

Author

• Jakob Wunderwald, U of Potsdam (Germany)