The Militia and the Special Services in the Contemporary Politics of History of Belarus

The fundamental direction of politics of history in Belarus under the rule of Aleksandr Lukashenko has been to maintain and cultivate the memory of the Great Patriotic War and the Soviet period. Although the Republic of Belarus remains the most faithful heir to the Soviet inheritance, over time its politics of memory has begun to shift towards the establishment and consolidation of its own history of Belarusian statehood. The last several years have more actively revealed the authorities’ new trend in the field of politics of history, which involves the creation of a heroic image for the secret service (NKVD, KGB) and the militia in the history of the Belarusian state. This tendency is characterised by a nonaggressive, but national-level, wide range of commemorative measures which are aimed at creating a myth of the KGB and the militia. Starting from the Great Patriotic War, which remains central to the Belarusian government’s politics of history, new historical heroes have begun to emerge in the form of officers of the security services. The military and intelligence services are still linked to the figure of Felix Dzerzhinsky, and the cultivation of his memory in Belarus still predominates over the commemoration of other historical figures. A number of events (including those at state level) dedicated to the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Belarusian militia and the KGB in 2017 gave a particular boost to these commemorative measures. In this article, the author will analyse the Belarusian authorities’ current politics of history in this regard by introducing readers to a variety of commemorative practices (the unveiling of monuments, official speeches, films, historical reconstructions, etc.). Moreover, attention will be drawn to the current policy in Belarus and the place within it for the special services, as well as the lack of any consideration of the Soviet past (the Stalinist repressions, Kurapaty, the NKVD, access to archives), the international aspects of Belarus’s current politics of memory (links to Russia), and the martyrological and sacral character of the memory of the KGB and militia