The name “White Russia” and the origins of Belarusian studies in the West after 1945

Nazwa „Biała Rosja” i początki badań nad Białorusią na Zachodzie po 1945 roku

ORCID: Anton Saifullayeu: 0000-0001-8832-9625

Afiliacja: University of Warsaw

Strony: 265–286

Wydanie: Lublin 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36874/RIESW.2025.4.11

Sposób cytowania: A. Saifullayeu, The name “White Russia” and the origins of Belarusian studies in the West after 1945, „Yearbook of the Institute of East-Central Europe” 23 (2025), issue 4, pp. 265–286, DOI: https://doi.org/10.36874/RIESW.2025.4.11

Słowa kluczowe: Belarusian studies, decolonisation, knowledge production, Russian colonialism, Slavic Studies, Sovietology

Keywords: Belarusian studies, decolonisation, knowledge production, Russian colonialism, Slavic Studies, Sovietology

Abstrakt: This article examines the emergence of academic discourse on Belarus in the Western, English-language academia from the end of the Cold War until the early 1990s. It shows how the Russian colonial narrative about Belarus was incorporated into the terminological framework of the Western, and primarily American, scholarly circulation. The primary sources are publications in Slavic and Soviet studies journals from 1945 to the late 1980s, supplemented by the memoirs of Nicholas P. Vakar and representatives of the Belarusian diaspora. Methodologically, the article adopts a decolonial approach to interrogate the conditions and processes of knowledge production. The findings indicate that from the end of World War II until at least the first post-Soviet decade, knowledge about Belarus remained fragmentary, contextual, and filtered mainly through a Russian lens; the dominance of Russian émigré scholarly networks constrained the visibility of the Belarusian diaspora. The findings confirm earlier observations regarding the Russian-centric orientation of Western Sovietology and underscore the need for terminological, methodological, and research recalibration considering contemporary developments. The analysis contributes to a deeper understanding of the processes involved in decolonising knowledge about the post-Soviet region, Eastern Europe, and Belarus within Western academic discourse.

Słowa kluczowe: Belarusian studies, decolonisation, knowledge production, Russian colonialism, Slavic Studies, Sovietology

The name “White Russia” and the origins of Belarusian studies in the West after 1945

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