The number of mixed marriages with Russians is high among Belarusians – love is more important than ethnic identity, but there are some other traditional values: close-knit family, children raising, hard working and conscientiousness, and love to your homeland, its history, culture, language. The deputy chairman of the Council of the Regional Ethnical Cultural Autonomy “Belarusians of Moscow,” Oksana Solopova, told Rossiskaya Gazeta on the character of the peoples. She has been dealing with studying fates of Belarusians in Russia for a long time.
According to the results of the recent population census, about 40 thousand Belarusians live in Moscow, and more than 500 thousand Belarusians live in Russia. Oksana Solopova thinks: “After the Soviet republics chose the path of independence, their historians began to show interest to their national history. State officials and local politics were interested in studying national history of new states. The process of statehood establishing, forming of civil nations should rely on a clear national idea. What can be more helpful in its development than the history of peoples and the country? Interests of historians and politics coincided.”
In the early 1990s Belarus experienced search for “a Belarusian idea.” European civilization archetypes, emblems of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and religious Christianity vision values were suggested… However, they failed to become a basis for the all-Belarusian national idea. In the late 1990s the Administration of Belarusian President initiated several research humanitarian conferences aimed at defining principles of the national concept of the statehood establishing and ideology for the Belarusian country.
Soon the image of Belarusian motherland became the national idea for the Belarusian people. It absorbed universal values: patriotism, civic consciousness, religiosity, and historic and ethnic originality. Thus, there is another group of those who are interested in Belarusian history – the Belarusians.
The Belarusians living in Russia are representatives of intelligence, specialists and high professionals.
“Russian Belarusians are comfortable with being citizens of Russia. But for Belarusians the question “who we are?” is defined by the question “where did we come from?” The political situation changes usually. Any one-sided usage of diaspora resources in politics leads to the clash within diaspora which includes various people with different political views,” Oksana Solopova believes. “The Belarusians say “a Belarusian doesn’t like risks”, they have a word “доброзычлiвасць” which means goodwill, sincere tolerance, but they don’t forget about Belarus’s interests.”
The historian is sure that both states should be interested in cooperation with diasporas: “The role of diasporas in establishing and promotion of the positive investment image of the country of living and the country of origin is great. Potential of social ethnic-cultural organizations is high and can influence the situation effectively.”
Answering the question why Belarusians of Russia do not strive for monoethnic marriages, Oksana Solopova emphasized that Russian Belarusians connect it with tolerance and goodwill to people of various confessions and ethnic groups. The Belarusians don’t strive for absolute biological purity.
