Abstract
Anton Liavitski: Perestroika und die Ursprünge von Lukašėnkas Konservatismus, in: Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 2022. Berlin: Metropol Verlag, pp. 189–204.
This essay examines the ideological underpinnings of Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s power system in Belarus. Although many scholars have deemed the conservative ideology advocated by Lukashenka and his political allies as a flexible tool to maintain political power, the discussion here highlights the rich and complex nature of Belarusian conservatism. The basic arguments that fueled Lukashenka’s rise to power were shaped in dynamic debates of the late perestroika era. The key question of these debates concerned the possibility of a meaningful change in society. Liberal ideology conceived the societal change at a structural level, resulting in a new economic and political order. The conservative backlash to perestroika’s optimism employed the traditional concept of morality developed by the Soviet intelligentsia. Deep anti-capitalist sentiment rejected the post-Soviet reforms and laid the ideological groundwork for a conservative takeover of the republic.
Über den Autor
Anton Liavitski, M. A., geb. 1993 in Paljaninavičy, Belarus. 2010 bis 2016 Studium der Geschichte und Politikwissenschaft in Minsk mit Aufenthalten an der Universität Leipzig, seit 2016 Promotion an der Graduiertenschule für Ost- und Südosteuropastudien (LMU München) über die Diskursgeschichte der Demokratisierung in Belarus in den späten 1980er- und frühen 1990er-Jahren.
