The politics of state celebrations in Belarus

1 INTRODUCTION

The symbolic production of WWII commemorations has been the recipient of one of the Belarusian government's most dedicated streams of public spending since the start of Aliaksandr Lukashenka's presidency over 25 years ago.¹ Lukashenka regularly confirms financial support for the organisation of military parades. In preparation for the 2017 Independence Day parade, he stated, ‘No cost should be spared, especially since the cost is not that substantial. The parade should be authentic and impressive. This is why it is held. It is a demonstration for the people that having eaten war bread was not in vain’ (President, 29 May, 2017).

However, not all Belarusians share the President's sentiment about the need for military parades. Every year, online petitions to stop military parades are circulated, arguing that they disturbed the everyday life of city residents, damaged roads and created dangerous traffic situations. Two dramatic events have also contributed to public concerns. On 3 July 2008, more than 40 people were injured when a bomb exploded during the Independence Day concert. More recently, on 3 July 2019, an incident during the Independence Day fireworks killed one spectator and injured 10 people. Moreover, the decision to hold a military parade on 9 May 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated public concerns regarding the government's public health response and called into question the appropriateness of public commemorations during the pandemic. These public grievances are unlikely to shift the government's strategy of symbolic production. However, investigating the narratives and practices of Belarusians during state celebrations can help to clarify the complex ideological power relations between the state and its citizens in an authoritarian context.

Previous analyses of celebrations in non-democratic political settings have shown that symbolic performances can be used to reaffirm existing political hierarchies and provide visible affirmations of popular consent. Studies on military parades in the Soviet Union (Lane, 1981) and China (Kuever, 2012) emphasise that such events aim at crafting a transferrable image of unprecedented greatness and the unity of the people. The question, however, is how distinctive these events are from national celebrations in democracies.

Researchers recognise that constitutive elements of nation states such as flags, anthems, monuments and celebrations reaffirm the boundaries of the state order for both citizens and other nations. Smith (2000: 814) has assigned to symbols and rituals a normalising function: ‘Formal parity is achieved, as the new nation, displaying its symbolic and ritual credentials, is “recognised” and thereby becomes a member of the “diplomatic” comity of nations. In its national manifestations, a new kind of intra-historical religion with its novel liturgies, symbols, and rituals provides the bond and inspiration for the citizens’.

An analysis of the production of such ideational practices will be incomplete without systematically investigating how people negotiate and understand the meaning of celebrations and holidays—the popular consumption of nationalism (Fox, 2006). How do these ideational strategies of political elites affect state celebratory practices and people's perceptions? In this study, I focus on citizens and their participatory roles in the symbolic production of these celebrations.

To approach the analysis of popular terms and practices of state celebrations, I used the methodological principles of political ethnography (Schatz, 2009; Schwartz-Shea & Yanow, 2012). The observations in this article are drawn from six focus group discussions, ethnographic observations during state celebrations in April–October 2015 in Belarus and the analysis of media archives, photographs and recordings.

2 THEORISING CELEBRATIONS: BETWEEN RITUAL AND PERFORMANCE

The phenomenon of collective celebrations has inspired numerous academic inquiries, including reinvigorated interest in how national sentiment is expressed (McCrone & McPherson, 2009) and experienced (Tsang & Woods, 2014). In fact, selecting a well-rounded concept from a vast amount of literature on the subject has proven to be a complicated task. Different concepts found in the academic literature on the subject such as rites (Smith, 2014), festivals (Mosse, 1975), commemorations (Pfaff & Yang, 2001) and ceremonies (Uzelac, 2010) point out the conceptual pluralism and indicate various forms of symbolic activities that express national sentiment.

The enduring social practices of national communities that reference national symbols and emphasise collective belonging have been conceptually defined through theories of ritual (Kertzer, 1988) and performance (Alexander, 2004). While the ritual aspect is rooted in the influential contribution of Émile Durkheim, the cultural pragmatics theory of Jeffrey Alexander favours the multidimensional term of performance ( Fox, 2014: 40; Uzelac, 2010: 1724–25). The concepts of ritual and performance have guided others in locating their theoretical contribution to the subject. However, these theoretical contributions were directed at understanding symbolic practices in democratic political contexts. Therefore, I attempt to explore what could constitute a firm theoretical ground for analysing practices of state celebrations in an authoritarian political context.

The neo-Durkheimian approach interprets the role of rituals through the prism of social integration. Rituals enhance solidarity and social commitment through a shared set of beliefs and practices and sustain deep emotional bonds among members of a community (Etzioni, 2000). This understanding is often adopted in the literature on nationalism. Ritual-like practices in national communities are recognised as symbolic measures that elevate feelings of national belonging and strengthen the political loyalty of citizens to the nation state. From national days, commemorations and sport events to presidential inaugurations and citizenship oaths, national rituals are embellished repetitive acts that are designed ‘to perpetuate notions of sameness and of a shared experience’ (Elgenius, 2011a: 95). Built on elites' narratives and symbols, national rituals are rooted in performative practices that enact mythical structures of national identity to bring together citizens and political elites.

The neo-Durkheimian perspective has also embraced the complexity of power relations. In his contribution, Steven Lukes points out the mobilisation bias in rituals and stipulates the role of rituals in legitimising political regimes, thus contributing to the stability of the political system (Lukes, 1975). For Lukes (1975: 302), rituals can be seen as institutionalised activities of social control that ‘draw people's attention, and invoke their loyalties, towards a certain, powerfully-evoked representation of the social and political order.’ By reinforcing the dominant definitions of the political, the elites are able to mobilise public consent and establish appropriate channels and permissible limits of political conflict.

Reflecting on Lukes' contributions to the theory of rituals, political rituals can be defined as governed and controlled symbolic activities, used strategically by political elites to attain or defend political power vis-à-vis other social groups (Cohen, 1974; Cubitt, 2007). This concept embraces several important aspects. First, the emphasis on governed and controlled symbolic activity indicates that political rituals are communicative and formalised events that present a certain ceremonial style, core symbolic meanings, performative ritualistic elements and discursive constructions. Rituals entail ‘the repetitive use of emotionally charged symbols in symbolically significant locations at symbolically appropriate times’ (Kertzer, 1988: 92).

Second, the concept assigns agency, both to political elites and to the people. Through political rituals, people come to interpret their everyday experiences in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’ and to acquire an understanding of political order and disorder (Kertzer, 1988: 92). While the political elites sponsor, design, enact and reinforce symbolic meanings in rituals, it is the public response and engagement that are key components in the ritualisation of a symbolic practice. By publicly engaging in a political ritual and displaying their social dependencies, people affirm boundaries of the political sphere and provide visible consent to the existing political order. By the same token, practices of public disobedience and withdrawal from public participation show gaps in the legitimation of political order in a society.

And third, rituals prominently feature symbolic devices which affirm and reinforce community boundaries. However, ‘it is the very ambiguity of symbols which makes them so effective as boundary markers of community’ (Cohen, 1985: 55). Though rituals have an established design and follow a repeated pattern, their expressive form makes them open for interpretation.

Victor Turner (1967) suggests that it is the ambiguity of symbols and the structure of rituals that make them a dynamic entity with both an integrative and divisive function. This means that rituals do not necessarily enhance social ties between individuals; they can also become a site of conflict and an occasion to challenge political domination. The double-edged nature of rituals becomes apparent when ritual-like events spark public protests. Drawing on resonant political anniversaries in Eastern Europe and China, Steven Pfaff and Guobin Yang (2001: 542) recognise that ‘official political rituals have a double-edged character that reinforces relations of domination while simultaneously providing aggrieved actors with the opportunity for dissension’. Taking this understanding as our point of departure, the next step is to reflect on the authoritarian political context and integrate it into the conceptualisation of ritual-like symbolic practices.

In an analysis of ideological practices surrounding Hafez al-Assad's cult in Syria, Wedeen (1999) observes that rituals are used as a disciplinary device to produce public obedience to political authorities. Matveeva (2009) comes to a similar conclusion in her analysis of autocracies in Central Asia. She observes how authoritarian elites make use of the symbolic power of rituals to reinforce their legitimacy claims. Focusing on state celebrations in Uzbekistan, Adams (2010) proposes to apply the concept of ‘mass spectacle’ to these events as a way to recognise their function as an ideological and mobilisation tool for legitimising a political regime. These contributions emphasise that ruling elites design and make use of rituals to mobilise citizens and provide a visible affirmation of popular consent to the existing political order. The lines between loyalty to a nation state and to political elites are blurred by merging the public expression of national sentiment with public displays of consent to the existing political order.

The mobilisation output of ritual-like events, especially a public display of consent, remains the main focus of studies on symbolic events in autocracies. Thus, rituals in autocracies are often classified as rites of rulers (Lane, 1981). This analytical perspective shifts the focus to symbolic management undertaken by ruling elites, their ideology, and discursive strategies. Therefore, it fails to capture an understanding of rituals as a dynamic communicative tool that is interpreted by people under certain social and political conditions. Popular meanings of rituals cannot be inferred from the discourses of ruling elites (Fox, 2014: 40).

Recognising the conceptual limitation of the neo-Durkheimian perspective in democratic contexts, Alexander (2004) introduces the cultural pragmatics perspective on symbolic practices. He offers the concept of performance that acknowledges the reflective role played by the audience. He recognises that audiences may be as engaged as they can be distracted. They can observe and understand without experiencing emotional or moral signification (Alexander, 2004: 531). Reading Alexander, Fox (2014) notes that audiences are taught to be critical and even cynical; they are thus more prone to reject narratives than to accept them. Therefore, the unity and coherence that is observed in a successful performance is difficult to achieve. To describe the interaction between performance and audiences, Alexander (2004) offers the concept of authenticity as a way of defining a successful performance: ‘Performances in complex societies seek to overcome fragmentation by creating flow and achieving authenticity’. The audience's perception of authenticity is important for their engagement in a performance in order to feel convinced by its narrative. The failure to achieve authenticity is associated with an insincere performance when acting comes with the motive to manipulate the audience.

The addition of authenticity to the conceptual understanding of celebrating is especially important in an authoritarian context, where citizens are often portrayed as passive consumers of ideological content or observers of official ceremonies designed by autocratic political elites. How people engage in state celebrations and what they think about these events, the ceremonial style and official narratives are important for understanding the symbolic power of celebration practices in a society. With this goal in mind, I conducted ethnographic observations during official ceremonies and commemorations organised by the Belarusian government and conducted six focus group discussions with Belarusian citizens.

3 ETHNOGRAPHIC FIELDWORK IN AN AUTHORITARIAN CONTEXT: NOTES ON METHODOLOGY

The purpose of the focus group discussions was to understand the everyday language people use to describe how they celebrate and observe the state celebrations and commemorations specified in the official calendar adopted by the Belarusian government. The purpose of studying how people narrate their public roles and talk about celebratory routines was to further the understanding of symbolic practices. This study was informed by the interpretivist goal (Adams, 2009; Cramer, 2015; Schwartz-Shea & Yanow, 2012; Wedeen, 2009) to provide ‘a coherent account of participants’ understandings as a prerequisite for adequate explanation and ascertain the sources and consequences of such understandings' (Soss, 2014: 133). In other words, I focused on how people combine their identities and their positions on the current government to make sense of state celebrations. Additionally, I relied on my observations and encounters with participants to examine how state celebrations as symbolic practices function in an authoritarian political context.

Discussions on research ethics (Fujii, 2012; Knott, 2019) in a dynamic and politically sensitive field motivated me to reflect on my encounters with participants. The Belarusian political context of a stable autocratic regime requires us to examine the sensitive nature of political debate and find a practical solution to discussing a sensitive subject in a semi-public setting. I also considered how participants' perspectives were represented in the study and whether I was able to capture diverse storylines from focus group discussions.

4 STATE CELEBRATIONS IN BELARUS: DATES AND DESIGN

Reinstating a suitable past and reinventing state traditions (Hobsbawm & Ranger, 1983) were at the top of Lukashenka's agenda after he entered office in 1994. In the national referendum of 1995 the official state symbols, the coat of arms Pahonia (the Pursuit) and the white-red-white flag, were reverted to their Soviet predecessors, although with some minor changes, and Russian was established as the second official language. The 1996 referendum constitutionally legitimised a shift in the official state calendar, establishing 3 July as Independence Day. Constitutional changes, which expanded the scope of the president's executive powers, granted responsibilities of planning and budgeting state celebrations to the presidential administration.

The previous date for Independence Day, 27 July, marked the adoption of the Belarusian Declaration of Independence in 1990, but the date did not hold the same symbolic appeal as the Great Patriotic War commemorations. The proposed Independence Day was suggested to be held on the date of the liberation of the city of Minsk during World War II. Victory Day on 9 May, Commemoration Day for the Victims of the Great Fatherland War on 22 June and Independence Day on 3 July were meant to form a discursive connection between the legacies of Belarusian statehood and collective memories of WWII.

Until the change in the city statute of Minsk in 2000, Minsk City Day was celebrated together with Independence Day. After the referendum in 1996, the first celebration of Independence Day was supposed to be on 3 July 1997, which coincided with the 930th anniversary of the founding of Minsk. The official change in planning activities for Independence Day was institutionalised by the presidential ordinance no. 157 (Pravo.by, 2001) on state celebrations, celebratory days and commemoration dates in the Republic of Belarus on 26 March 1998 (see Table 2).

A state calendar marks time in the everyday lives of people. By looking at the official calendar, I was interested in what temporal articulations and symbolic significance people would assign to state celebrations. Table 2 includes four categories according to presidential ordinance no. 157 (an extensive list of professional days is excluded). These categories are specified as state celebrations, religious celebrations, secular celebrations defined as ‘all-republic celebrations’ and remembrance days.

In my focus group discussions, I used only three categories of celebrations (state, religious and secular celebrations) to create the interactive flash card exercise described above. This article offers only a limited perspective on commemorative events; a more thorough examination of literature on memory politics in Belarus (Fedor, Kangaspuro, Lassila, & Zhurzhenko, 2017; Lewis, 2019) would go beyond the scope of this article.

The period of 2003–2004 was marked by the government's initiatives to establish ideological control over education, culture and public events. The plan for Independence Day celebrations entailed relocating the military parade into a new space, which gave creative freedom to experiment with symbolic content and actively use state symbols and colours. The 2004 Independence Day celebrations became an example of how a state parade should be designed and styled (Krivolap, 2008; Shirokanova, 2010). It also created a reproducible image for commercial purposes, mass media and public spaces. The major events were moved to the current venue—Praspiekt Peramožcaŭ (Avenue of the Victors)—next to the monument ‘Minsk – Hero City’ and the newly built museum of the Great Patriotic War, which was opened on 2 July 2014 and dedicated to the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Great Patriotic War. The symbolic transformation of Independence Day was followed by the renaming of the major avenues in Minsk by presidential decree on 7 May 2005 (Sarna, 2008). The difference in design and style between the Independence Day parade and the Victory Day parade was erased.

Constitution Day, which marks the adoption of the Belarusian Constitution on 15 March 1994, and State Flag and Coat of Arms Day, celebrated on the second Sunday of May, were also established in 1998. Though incorporated into the official calendar, these celebrations lacked performative and ideological dimensions. During the first years of the regime, its ideational strategy was attuned to war commemorations and did not conceptually accommodate these dates. However, State Flag and Coat of Arms Day was strategically placed in May, falling into the cycle of celebrations stretching from 1 May to Independence Day. Official celebration activities on these dates varied in style but included a flag-raising ceremony by the Belarusian honour guard in the presence of Belarusian pioneers, the younger unit of the Belarusian Republican Youth Union, the state-financed ideological youth organisation (Silvan, 2019).

In 2013, the newly built Plošča Dziaržaŭnaha Sciaha (State Flag Square) was unveiled in front of the Palace of Independence, then still under construction. The whole architectural ensemble, including the former two and the Supreme Court's building, was designed to express a new ideational aspiration of the Belarusian autocratic leadership: the principle of state sovereignty. It also created geographical space for adding a performative element to the State Flag and Coat of Arms Day—performing an oath of allegiance to the state symbols.

Although the core celebrations were legally established during Lukashenka's first presidential term, the process of stabilising them as a public practice underwent a design transformation. The changes in the institutional design of state celebrations show that the ruling elite has made a conscious effort to design events. However, some symbolic changes are not so obvious to observers. The dominant perception is that state celebrations represent a continuous and established practice. They are historical, as they take root in the Soviet legacies, while they should also be recognised as symbolic inventions of the Belarusian autocratic leadership.

5 NARRATIVES OF CELEBRATING: THE BOTTOM-UP PERSPECTIVE

6 CELEBRATING AND AUTHENTICITY

After having categorised celebrations and calendar dates, I asked participants about their understanding of celebrations (prazdniki). In moderating the discussions, I focused on the descriptive elements of participants' celebratory routines. I asked what they did, where they went and how they engaged in activities offered during state celebrations. I was interested in how participants would describe the practice of celebrating (using active verbs, such as prazdnovat’ [celebrating] and otmechat’ [marking]) and what dates and events they would use as examples of their celebratory routine. At the end of each focus group discussion, I asked participants to brainstorm how they would want to organise a public celebration and what they consider important to change.

Using a grounded theory approach to coding the focus group conversations, three descriptive categories emerged: (1) private practices of celebrating which are considered the most authentic and emotionally charged, (2) public practices of celebrating, making use of public entertainment offered during celebrations and (3) public practices of celebrating connected to state mobilisation strategies during official celebrations, ceremonies and state-organised events (Table 4).

In describing practices of celebrating, participants of all groups were consistent in differentiating between two settings: in the private context, celebrating constituted an anticipated and emotionally charged ritual that is performed with family and friends; in a public or semi-public setting, celebrating depended on the role one has to perform and the level of involvement in official events. To better distinguish between public and private practices, participants of FG1, FG2, FG4 and FG5 used ‘obligation’ (obiazalovka) and, more sarcastically, ‘voluntary but compulsory’ as a description of celebratory practices during Independence Day. Participants of other groups (FG3 and FG6) used similar euphemisms to describe participation in state celebrations, especially in the official part of celebrating events, such as parades or flower laying ceremonies. Celebratory practices during official state ceremonies failed to engage participants emotionally, as they were obliged to attend such events. Participants also noted that they were often asked to purchase tickets for sporting events and concerts. Such celebratory practices were considered the opposite to what participants identified as authentic.

Authenticity in celebrating was presented as authenticity of emotions and symbolic attachment to an event. When asked about their celebratory practices, participants spoke about the private sphere and discussed events that were emotionally significant for their family and friends and that hold positive connotations and personal attachments. In describing them, participants used such verbs as anticipating, waiting and preparing.

In comparison, public practices of celebrating were framed as performing a certain role in a public setting. If participants were included in one of the target groups of state mobilisation (mainly school and university students, members of the state-sponsored youth organisations and state employees), they were keen to acknowledge that the practices of attending official events are not celebratory but rather obligatory, enacted due to compliance with a request or part of their job function (e.g., school teachers). Being conscious of this practice as public performance, participants felt the absence of authenticity and the lack of emotional attachment that such an event can bring. Participants noted that state authorities have failed to design symbolic measures that would make official events emotionally enticing and authentic. When collective attachment is strong, as it is in the case of the 9 May commemorations, the replication of the design and narrative for Independence Day does not automatically produce the same symbolic significance for collective identity. However, since participants comply with their public role of performing and attending, the Belarusian leadership is able to maintain the image of public support for the regime.

These observations are consistent with other studies on the ideational strategies of authoritarian regimes. Investigating citizens' patriotic practices in Russia, Goode (2016) has observed a similar line of division between categories of practice. Interviews and focus group discussions with Russian citizens showed that respondents define practices that are performed or activated ‘from above’ as inauthentic and view them as personally unconvincing, yet effective in manipulating other people. Wedeen (1998) has characterised some ideational practices as ‘acting as if’, when citizens are not required to believe in the official narrative or to feel an emotional attachment to these events, and as a rule, they do not. However, they are required to comply with established practices and act as if they do. Summarising my discussions and findings, a similar conclusion can be drawn. The autocratic Belarusian leadership uses official events to mobilise certain social groups and to socialise people to perform their roles in a public setting. People comply with the established practice but they do not form an attachment to it. In terms of generating collective identity and enhancing a social bond, official state celebrations have a limited social binding function.

The failure of Independence Day to perform a community-binding function corresponds to the general pattern of ceremonial initiatives found also in democratic settings. Based on the historical analysis of national celebrations in Europe, Gabriella Elgenius (2011b: 412) has argued that a unifying narrative (the historical genesis) is significant for the establishment of national days, as is the nature of the national day design: ‘ceremonies are not easily invented or exported to other nations without a suitable narrative’. The same can also apply to the reinvention of previous historical legacies. In the context of Belarus, the appropriation of collective remembrance practices and the Great Patriotic War narrative works for the 9 May celebration but fails to provide a convincing narrative for Independence Day. In addition, neither the form nor the style of the official parts of these celebrations actively engages citizens. Taking into account that a similar celebration takes place on 9 May in Russia, the design and structure of Independence Day are not distinctive enough for people to recognise the symbolic importance of these celebrations for national identity.

7 CONCLUSION

This article aimed at exploring how people engage in state celebratory practices in authoritarian Belarus. My observations drawn from discussions with Belarusian citizens indicate that people are conscious about the authoritarian political context within which they participate in celebrations, and they make a distinction between celebratory practices that take place in private and public domains. By focusing on how people interpret and talk about celebrations, I have established that the meaning of celebrating is linked to authenticity and a unifying narrative. When people talk about state celebrations, they recognise the performative aspect of these events and their role as spectators. State celebrations are defined as inauthentic because they do not create an emotional attachment and are designed to include only certain social groups. In addition, public celebratory practices are forced onto people through a sense of duty or a need to comply with an official request. These celebratory practices are also passive, since they do not require any involvement beyond mere presence at an event. Both the absence of a unifying narrative and the structural design of the celebration do not create a seamless performance for citizens.

As a result, these events do not fulfil their community-binding function. However, the ruling elites use these official events to mobilise certain social groups who publicly comply with the symbolic order and accept their roles in official ceremonies. Most importantly, these events demobilise citizens who oppose the established political order and ideational politics of the autocratic elites. Participants said that their strategies during state celebrations are to avoid public spaces, not to participate, or to leave the city. It indicates that these celebrations contribute to the persistence of the authoritarian system. On the one hand, they create a reproducible image of public support for the authoritarian leadership; and on the other, they socialise people to perform and display an acceptable form of public behaviour and set norms of acceptable celebratory practices.

This observation leads me to the discussion on the open nature of symbolic constructions, as they can be both a source of unification and a source of conflict. In Belarus, the authoritarian leadership has dominated public space and has controlled the official narrative and design of state celebrations as well as acceptable celebratory practices. Institutional, legal and administrative restrictions on public gatherings and heavy fines for unauthorised events limit the public space for alternative celebrations. In the absence of significant conflict or grievances that the population wants to voice against the incumbent, the established system of state celebrations works. However, when accumulated political grievances gain political urgency for a society, other symbolic dates and alternative celebrations receive public attention and become an important platform for mobilising citizens. This also happens in the stable authoritarian context of Belarus.

A major public protest in spring 2017, sparked by the enforcement of an unemployment tax, took place on 25 March—the day of the annual celebration of the establishment of the Belarusian People's Republic in 1918, which in recent history has been associated with the Belarusian opposition and social mobilisation against the autocratic leadership. The collective memory of alternative celebration dates, such as Dziady, 25 March and the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster on 26 April are not erased by the official celebratory practices. People have used, and could still use, these symbolic events to protest against the current government. This shows how volatile symbolic politics is when the invention of new symbolic traditions and the reinvention of old narratives do not appeal to all social groups, lacking authenticity and a historical genesis.

FUNDING INFORMATION

This work was supported by the FP7 People: Marie-Curie Actions, Initial Training Network ‘Post-Soviet Tensions’ from EU FP7/2007–2013 under the Grant 316825; the Open Society Foundations under the grant ‘Civil Society Scholar Award’; ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius under the grant ‘Trajectories of Change’; and a research grant from the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS) in Berlin. None of the funding bodies had any direct influence on the research process, including my fieldwork, or had any editorial control over the writing process. This publication reflects solely the view of author, and not the funding bodies.