Abstract

The paper deals with the issues of formation of the new national identity in Belarus under conditions of post-soviet transformation. Under the term of “post-soviet national identity” the author means the identity of the population of the Republic of Belarus that will be adequate to its status of a newly independent state acquired after1991.Special attention is paid to the existing major research approaches to the problem of construction of Belarusian national identity. According to the author’s view, both existing approaches are not adequate, therefore the author put forward a new approach that goes beyond the discussions on language and national culture and corresponds to the concept of plurality of identities. The author describes the so-called “Belarusian paradoxes” of national identity as being based on the opposition of “nation” and “people” and corresponding to the western model of “creation of modern nations” within the post-colonial theory that is not applicable to the post-soviet Belarus. All the attempts to apply this model to contemporary Belarus have lead the scholars to several “cultural paradoxes” that, however, can be explained within a new approach