Belarus is a typical borderline country featuring multi-ethnicity, including various cultures, denominations and languages co-existing one near the other. Current socio-linguistic situation in Belarus may be defined as socially conditioned diglossia. Russian is the language of the governing elites, all-level education, popular culture and massmedia. Urban inhabitants speak almost entirely Russian, and the majority of village inhabitants speak Belarusian dialects. When, during Lukaszenka’s rule, Belarusian language fell once again in disgrace, it once again became a symbol of national revival and a fighting tool of opposition. Representatives of democratic elites speak Belarusian, but only when they hold informal meetings or political events. Based on biographic interviews held with the representatives of the Belarusian intelligentsia in Belarus, the Author has revealed a process of the narrators’ discovering an importance of a mother tongue as a sign of national identity. The process of realizing the importance of the Belarusian language in the life of an individual, as well as ethnic community, as well as a process of conscious learning of the language is, for contemporary Belarusians, one of the stages of shaping national identity. Learning the language is followed by participating in Belarusian symbolic culture and remembering history and reviving common memory, which finally leads to conscious identity with a mother land in a symbolic sense, which is broader than purely territorial reference.
Język jako czynnik zakorzenienia w tożsamości narodowej na przykładzie białoruskojęzycznej inteligencji na Białorusi
