Roundtable • We Need to Talk About Belarus: Perspectives On and From a Failed State

This roundtable will address the political situation in the countries neighboring Ukraine and that are involved in the war in one way or another. Belarus’ status in the world is full of paradoxes: the UN considers Belarus an aggressor country because it provided its territory for the Russian military equipment. Yet this was done by Lukashenko, whom neither the EU nor the US has recognized as president since 2020. What is Belarus? Is it a failed state or a failed country? How can migration from the country be understood and evaluated? Is Belarus as fundamentally divided into loyalists and “liberals” as it can be seen in Russia, or have there been other rifts? How we can continue discussing Belarus today and what research prospects does this open?

Participants: Felix Ackerman, professor of public history at Fernuniversität in Hagen; Snezhana Rogach, political activist (Minsk); Pavel Tereshkovich, anthropologist, visiting researcher at Justus Liebig University Giessen; Andrei Vazyanau, lecturer at the European Humanities University in Vilnius; Almira Ousmanova, professor at the European Humanities University in Vilnius.

The discussion will be moderated by Elena Trubina (Postdoc Fellow, CSEEES)

Registration for this event is required. Please register here: https://bit.ly/3SfpCqG