Call for Articles: Special Issue of the Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society 1/2017, edited by Felix Ackermann, Mark Berman and Olga Sasunkevich

A New Land. Rediscovering Agency in Belarusian History, Politics and Society

This special issue of the Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society will provide a forum for discussion of what Belarusian Studies are today and which new approaches and questions are needed to revitalize the field in the regional and international academic arena.

The major aim of the issue is to go beyond the narratives of dictatorship and authoritarianism as well as that of a never-ending story of failed Belarusian nationalism – interpretive schemes that are frequently used for understanding Belarus in scholarly literature in Western Europe and Northern America. Bringing together ongoing research based on original empirical material from Belarusian history, politics and society, this issue combines a discussion of the concept of autonomy/agency with its applicability to trace how individual and collective actors who define themselves as Belarusian – or otherwise – have manifested their agendas in various practices in spite of and in reaction to state pressure. In recent years, these displays of autonomy range – from the blossoming of intellectual public events in Belarus to the openly held protests against the results of the latest presidential elections. Looking further back in time, agency can be recognized in strategies of partial accommodation and manoeuvre under the Soviet regime. Individuals, families and larger social groups found ways to manifest their agency, thrive and even pursue cultural, educational and political goals within the authoritarian state system of Soviet Belarus. This issue offers new approaches for interpreting Belarusian society as a dynamically changing set of agencies. In doing so it attempts to overcome a tradition of locating present Belarusian political and social dilemmas in its socialist past. In this way it hopes to break with the image of Belarus as a society trapped in a seeming endless post-Soviet period. The editors assume, that even under authoritarian rule, the modes of self-preservation, discontent and public debate change over time. New approaches in Belarusian Studies will provide a conceptual way out of the contemporary understanding of the society as strictly post-Soviet. Beyond this, we wish to open up the discussion for how the concepts of autonomy and agency should inform a critical understanding of Belarusian society.

Authors who are interested to contribute to this issue should send their abstracts of 300 words and short bios by January 31, 2016 to belarusianstudies@gmail.com. Selected authors will be contacted by February 15, 2016. Full articles will be due by June 1, 2016. The proposed texts will undergo a double blind peer-review process. Maximum length: 7.500 words.

This special issue on Belarusian Studies has emerged from the workshop “Contextualizing Belarus: Belarusian Studies as Interdisciplinary Area Studies”, organized by Felix Ackermann and Olga Sasunkevich at the European Humanities University in May 2015 with the support of the German Academic Exchange Service.