The vision of World War I in Belorussian school and academic textbooks
The article analyzes the vision of World War I in Belarus, which is reflected in school and academic textbooks. The author compares quotations from Soviet and Post-Soviet Belarusian textbooks. In modern educational sources the Soviet clichés are used, which carry a negative connotation, e.g. “Great Power Chauvinism”, “flag-waving”, “imperialistic war”. Notably, such negative definitions are less common in Soviet school textbooks than in modern ones. The authors of modern Belarusian textbooks deny the patriotism of the citizens of the Russian empire and point out that the support of the motherland in the war was impossible without total government propaganda. It is sometimes difficult to distinguish quotations from Soviet and Post-Soviet academic textbooks. In one of the textbooks World War I is not described at all, being just mentioned in passing. The Soviet clichés have been carried over to the contemporary historical discourse. The events of World War I can hardly be used in the framing of the national Belarusian idea; therefore Belarusian researchers estimate the support of the Russian government by the Belarusian society during World War I negatively. During the early stage of the war the Belarusian nationalistic press did not support its country and declared that the Belarusian nationalists did not care which side got the victory. Some Belarusian nationalists collaborated with the German occupation authorities. Now these nationalists are treated as national heroes. The striving for justifying the actions of the national heroes led to the support of the old Soviet clichés concerning World War I and to the emergence of new ones. The tendency to idealize the bearers of the ideas of the Belarusian nationalism in the early XX century resulted in giving the “required” negative assessment to all the ideologically “unfavorable” events.