The Formation of American Post-war Belarusian Studies

Abstract

American post-war Belarusian studies during its initial stage differed from similar processes in other countries. The CIA, which was interested in using the Belarusian emigration for its own purposes, the Congress, and some senators, with whom the leadership of the Belarusian- American Association actively worked, originally played a significant role. The CIA supported the activities of the Chairman of the Rada of the Belarusian People’s Republic (in exile) Nikolai Abramchik, who was one of the first Belarusian emigrants to publicly declare Moscow’s anti-Belarusian policy, using such concepts as the “Russian genocide of the Belarusian people”, “occupation of Belarusian lands”, etc., calling on America to “protect the oppressed Belarusian people”. In 1954, a special commission of the Congress held hearings on the topic “The Communist seizure and occupation of Belarus”, during which a kind of methodological guidelines for the “correct” study of the history of Belarus were determined. Against the background of McCarthyism and the fight against the “Red scare” allegedly coming from Moscow, it completely fitted into the so-called totalitarian concept in American Russian studies (then Sovietology), and hence Belarusian studies, which was being formed. It was in such a difficult political and ideological situation that the first study by N. P. Vakar “Belarus. The Creation of a Nation” was being created in the Russian Research Center of Harvard, which was published in 1956, and not only received general recognition in the American scholarly community, but also superseded all kinds of political pamphlets in the academic space.