Symposium to mark the 100th anniversary of the Belarusian Democratic Republic

‘Its Honourable Seat Among Nations' - Founding of Belarusian National Independence and Democracy in 1918

The Symposium to mark the 100th anniversary of the Belarusian Democratic Republic will gather academic speakers from Belarus, Poland and Lithuania to discuss for an UK audience the significance of the 1918 Belarusian Democratic Republic in Belarusian and regional history.

The symposium will focus on the political visions of an independent and democratic Belarusian state held in 1918, the activities of its leading figures and institutions, including their attempts to secure international recognition and otherwise to influence the international agenda at the time. The objective will be to highlight the underlying reasons for why the legacy of the short-lived republic became strongly entrenched in the political mind-sets of the proponents of an independent Belarus over the 20th century, and has remained important for the pro-democracy political community in Belarus to this day.

Programme

11.15   Welcome, coffee and tea (Mazaryk Room, SSEES)

Mr Mikalaj Packajeu (Chair, Association of Belarusians in Great Britain) Introduction

12:00-13:30    Panel 1 (Room 347, SSEESS)

Dr Pavel Tereshkovich (Independent Belarusian Bologna Committee) ‘Winners or losers? Belarusian nation-state-building within the context of the national revival in the East-Central Europe (1890s--1910s)’

Prof Darota Michaluk (Department of Politics and International Relations, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun) ‘The Activity of the Prime-Ministers of the Belarusian Democratic Republic in the International Sphere’

Dr Tamasz Blaszczak (Research Fellow, Department of Political Science and Diplomacy; Lecturer, Faculty of Humanities, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas; Lithuanian Studies Unit, Documentary Heritage Research Department, Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania) ‘The Problem of Diplomatic Recognition of Belarusian Democratic Republic by Lithuania’

13:30-14:00    Sandwich lunch break

14:00-15:30    Panel 2 (Room 347, SSEESS)

Prof Uladzimir Snapkouski (Department of International Relations, Belarusian State University, Minsk) ‘The Belarusian Democratic Republic as seen from London, based on Foreign Office documents 1919-1920’

Mr Aliaksandr Paharely (PhD student, Institute of Slavic Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences) ‘Preserving the Memory, Promoting Independence: Belarusian Democratic Republic in the Discourse of the Interwar Belarusian Christian Democratic Press’

Prof Arnold McMillin (Emeritus Professor SSEES/UCL) ‘Some of the Literary Responses to the BNR and the Slucak Uprising: A Brief Survey'

Prof Stanislau Shushkevich (First Head of State of the independent Belarus post-1991; Corresponding Fellow of the Belarusian Academy of Science) Closing Remarks

15:30-16:30    Reception (Mazaryk Room, SSEES)

Organised by: Dr Karalina Matskevich (ZBVB/ABGB), Mr Mikalaj Packajeu (ZBVB/ABGB), Dr Svetlana McMillin (SSEES)