CRISIS OF BELARUSIAN STUDIES

It has long been noted that Belarus is not a subject of special interest to either Europe or the rest of the world. The interest is of course declared, as ignoring a country located in direct proximity to the European Union does not seem very politically correct. But this interest is nominal, as it is displayed rather through admiring the wild exoticism of the “last dictatorship in Europe” than through trying to give the Belarusian issue an intellectual and strategic treatment. A good example of this is a virtually complete lack of academic and expert circles outside Belarus which would engage in Belaru¬sian studies. It would take two minutes to enumerate all the specialists in the subject of Belarus, and most of them are dealing with our country as a supple¬ment to the subject of Ukraine. Our country is, indeed, the “heart of darkness” amidst the European continent: it is better to forget its terrible irrationality, or just wait until Russia finally regains its abandoned province.