Belarus emerged from the ashes of the Second World War to become the third most important Soviet republic. Previously a peasant borderland, it experienced a spectacular industrialization leap in the first two post-war decades, which bore fruit and continued during the leadership of Petr Masherau, the Belarusian communist party’s chief in 1965-1980. Under Masherau, expansion and modernization of industry were seen as political priorities, and the story of national ‘rags to riches’, which celebrated rapid industrial progress and achievements, was just as prominent in public discourse as the commemoration of the war. While historians have focused on war memory as the most important tool of Soviet Belarusian nation-building, this paper argues that in the long 1970s, the politics of modernization in Belarus became not only the centerpiece of the Soviet regime’s legitimacy, but also a centerpiece of national Belarusian identity. Understanding its dynamics helps us understand how the late-Soviet empire functioned; it also helps explain Belarus’ post-socialist trajectory.
Natalya Chernyshova is a historian of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe with nearly two decades of research and teaching experience. Her expertise and publications focus on Belarusian history, Soviet nationalities politics, material culture and everyday life during late socialism.
