While Aliaksandr Lukashenka, the President of Belarus, was faithfully saluting the participants of the Parade on May 9, a diplomatic scandal regarding Belarus was storming with all its might. There was a rumor in the Internet that the President of Belarus was “asked” to leave Moscow celebrations on urgent request of George Bush.

But both the Parade on May 9, and the preceding campaign was nothing to compare with the debate on the names of the streets. Even politically indifferent observers of the web portals ‘open.by’ and ‘tut.by’ immediately labeled this toponymy reform as one of the least popular authority decrees.

The names of Francysk Skaryna and Peter Masherov will remain on the city map though. But they will be given to different streets according to Lukashenka’s decision. The names of those streets in their turn will be given to some other streets, etc. Hardly ever has such a phenomenon of migrating names of the streets occurred before, no wonder it annoys so many educated people.

Besides, it should be mentioned that both Francysk Skaryna and Peter Masherov are very popular historic figures in the country. The first one is a Belarusian humanist, printing pioneer and a great educator of a European scale, who lived at the beginning of the XVI century. The second was a Partisan Commander during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, the Head of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic in the 1960-70s of the XX century. Both personify the myth of the “golden age” of the Belarusians. For some – that would be the time of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with Belarusian lands forming its territorial backbone. For others – that would be prosperous time of “Zastoy”(“Brezhnev stagnation”), when the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was socially and economically better off against the background of some other republics of the USSR.

It is not surprising that activists from the opposition immediately seized the opportunity to benefit from Lukashenka’s obvious blunder. They started collecting signatures against renaming of Francysk Skaryna Avenue. On May 11 in the central square of Minsk police broke up the first meeting of those who stand against the idea of renaming the streets. One of the leading parties in opposition – Belarusian Popular Front – announced its intention to appeal against the toponymic novelty to the Constitutional Court.

As a matter of fact the claim of the opposition to defend the historic names of the two main avenues, is quite disputable. The names Masherov Avenue and Francysk Skaryna Avenue are no more historic than the new names - Avenue of Victors or Independence Avenue. To be accurate from the point of view of history one should have named the main street of the Belarusian capital after the “Father of Nations”–Stalin Avenue. That’s how during the rebuilding of Minsk City after the World War II they named the avenue that connected Zakharjevskaya and Gubernatorskaya streets, which were in ruins as a result of bombing.

It’s far more important to understand the motives that drive Lukashenka’s decisions. Come to think of it, it is clear to everyone in Belarus that veteran organizations on whose request and approval the names of the streets will be changed, in reality have nothing to do with this decision.

Peter Masherov, who during the World War II was one of the leaders of the Partisan war, is still very popular with the elder people. On the other hand the term “independence” is not peculiar to the vocabulary of the veterans. Most Belarusian experts think that when Aliaksandr Lukashenka made that decision on May 8, he simply satisfied his own whim to ride along Avenue of Victors and not Masherov Avenue. He views the former leader of the Soviet Byelorussia as his competitor in a certain sense, whose name may hamper Lukashenka in his effort to win the votes of elder people and pensioners. It could also be that Lukashenka is aware of a possibility of that name’s becoming a brand, since Peter Masherov’s daughter is actively involved in the opposition. Thus, she was one of those who signed the declaration of the newborn movement “Sila Naroda” (“Strength of the People”). Nationalists look upon the whole renaming campaign as just another neurosis of “anti-Belarusian authorities”.

It’s far more interesting to analyze Lukashenka’s decisions in the context of the ancient historical dispute about the time when the Belarusians first began seeing themselves as a nation. There is a long-standing dispute between the two schools of historians in Belarus that try to find out when the Belarusians first got what is called a “national identity”. According to one opinion this occurred back in time of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Opposed to it is the opinion that the Belarusians became a nation de facto during the World War II, when over 800 000 people were one way or the other involved in the Partisan war.

It appears that having made the decision to rename the streets Lukashenka cut the Gordian knot of historians. He both got rid of the name of Francysk Skaryna, who symbolized the epoch of theGrand Duchy of Lithuania, and simultaneously depersonalized the Soviet epoch. To the forefront is brought the idea of independence. So from now on it is the end of the USSR and Lukashenka’s coming to power that is considered to be the starting point of Belarusians as a nation and Belarus as an independent state. Lukashenka in this case appears as the Father of the Belarusian nation.

What’s the most interesting about it is that it really could be so.

The author is a columnist of the Belarusian weekly newspaper “Nasa Niva”. The article is written specially for "Eurasian Home".

May 16, 2005