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This edited volume examines political contestation in contemporary Belarus through the lens of everyday, bottom-up vernacular practices and creative interventions. Spanning art, education, research, humor, music, diaspora culture, and public creativity, it addresses core questions: How do grassroots creative acts serve as subtle or overt forms of resistance in a highly repressive context? How do physical spaces—cultural venues, universities, schools—shape these practices? And how do such vernacular efforts become arenas for exercising agency and reclaiming autonomy?
While most scholarship on Belarus centers on formal institutions like elections and organized opposition, this book breaks new ground by foregrounding lived, bottom-up experiences as powerful modes of contestation and resistance. Its interdisciplinary approach—drawing on political science, communication, linguistics, ethnography, and feminist autoethnography—integrates diverse epistemologies and methods to challenge state-centric narratives and illuminate the dynamics of Belarusian society from below.
Contributors include: Hanna Komar (University of Brighton), Vasil Navumau (Ruhr University Bochum), Katsiaryna Lozka (KU Leuven), Peter Vermeersch (KU Leuven), Kate Antanovich (State College Pennsylvania), Tatsiana Kulakevich (University of South Florida), Anton Dinerstein (independent researcher), Todd Sandel (University of Macau), Tania Arcimovich (Erfurt University), and Anastasiya Fiadotava (Estonian Literary Museum). This collection offers fresh, grounded insights into how ordinary Belarusians navigate and contest authoritarian power through creativity, culture, and everyday agency.
Katsiaryna Lozka (Edited by)
Dr. Katsiaryna Lozka is a postdoctoral researcher at the Egmont Institute and KU Leuven (Belgium). She holds a PhD in Political Science from Ghent University, an MA in EU International Relations and Diplomacy Studies from the College of Europe in Bruges, and an MA in European Studies from Comenius University in Bratislava. Previously, Katsiaryna was a research fellow at the University of Oxford’s Belarus Observatory, a visiting researcher at the University of Vienna, the University of Tartu, and a research fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the US. Her research appeared in the Journal of International Relations and Development, Nationalities Papers, European Security, and the Journal of Slavic Military Studies, among others. Katsiaryna is also a steering committee member of the ECPR Network on Sovereignty, Statehood, and Conflicts, and a co-founder of the Ukraine-plus Knowledge Center at Ghent University.
David R Marples (Foreword by)
Prof. David R. Marples is Distinguished University Professor at the Department of History and Classics at the University of Alberta. He is author of over 20 books and numerous academic articles on topics ranging from 20th Century Russia, Stalinism, contemporary Belarus, contemporary Ukraine, and the Chernobyl disaster. Among his books are: Understanding Ukraine and Belarus (2020), Ukraine in Conflict (2017), Our Glorious Past: Lukashenka’s Belarus and the Great Patriotic War (2014), and Heroes and Villains: Creating National History in Contemporary Ukraine (2008).