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Warsaw – Minsk: Incomparable Comparisons

Paviel Bielavus

Warsaw and Minsk, two capital cities, are separated by 500 kilometers only, but this distance separates Poland and Belarus not so much in geographic as in geopolitical aspects. Between the countries, along the Western Bug, through forests and grassland, there is a frontier between the West and the East, the European Union and something which is not the European Union at all, the democracy and the not-yet-a-democracy, Europe and something that resembles Europe, and finally between wide-gauge and narrow-gauge railroads which makes the population of “Minsk – Warsaw” train to wait nervously for two night hours for the permission to visit the land where we are expected, apparently, but not everyone is allowed to leave there.

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Belarusian Euro-realists

Raman Jakauleuski

A domestic discussion as for the bright future of Belarus, continuously promoted by the local democrats, must have begun. Surprisingly, it was initiated neither by the high and mighty nor by others. It was stirred up by the behavior of “alien” Euro-optimists from different structures.
They assure everyone that they are waiting for Belarus in Europe and propose a tool of “European Partnership” to meet the goal. A fit of interest to a sovereign Belarus on the part of Euro-optimists concurred quite strangely with revelations of some Euro-sceptics.

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The Polish Lessons of Liberty

Frants Charnyshevich

Once during a seminar, dedicated to the Polish experience of political and economic transformations I heard a phrase from a Polish participant that arose a feeling of genuine surprise and even inner protest in the present Belarusians’ minds. The phrase was articulated as follows: “These Belarusians are bad students. We’ve been teaching them how to build democracy and issued a lot of money to them. However, they failed to make a revolution, despite having just the same situation the Poles used to have during the martial law period in Poland.” It wasn’t so embarrassing to hear the words about “bad students” than to perceive direct comparisons between the current political situation in Belarus and the times of “Salidarnasc” in Poland.

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Belarus and the “Civilizing” Mission of Poland

Paviel Usau

There is no doubt that Poland is one of the most active geopolitical players in Eastern Europe. And it is not surprising because it is determined by historic traditions and its geographic location as well as by the internal political will. Aspirations to revive the former glory of Rzeczpospolita influence in large measure the geopolitical strategy of today’s Poland stipulating its relations with its eastern partners, primarily with Ukraine and Belarus.

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The Polish Way Seen through the Belarusian Glasses

Khviedar Skrajnovich

Exactly twenty years ago the Polish Republic started the process of parting with the Socialist heritage and with unforgettable years of “popular democracy”. “Everything began in Gdansk” – this keynote is discernible in studies of professional historians and reasonings of common people on the other side of our border with the European Union. The process which was allegedly started by workers of shipyards was going on in a not less memorable way outside of Polish borders than in the “home country”. Touching – to tears – embraces of Germans against the background of the destroyed Wall recur to the memory together with not less dramatic – also to tears – scenes with protesters from Vilnius who were crushed on asphalt.

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Right-wing Poland – Left-wing Belarus

Piotr Rudkouski

Some reminiscence is required at the beginning of my story. It was the year of 198… I don’t remember precisely, but it happened rather in the second half of the 1980-ies. I remember how my father and I were trying to “pick up” Poland with the use of our “Horizon” TV-set, produced in the USSR. Sometimes, we succeeded, due to the highly precise positioning of our aerial, placed on a four- or even five-meter pole. “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” my father started crying at certain moments of time. It meant that I could seize doing gymnastics with the pole, as “Poland” had been “picked up”.

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Poland 89’ – Belarus 91’. Inadequate Changes: Educational Reform

Lina Novik

The democratic revolution of 1989 in Poland, the first of its kind in Eastern Europe, laid the foundation of transformations in all spheres of life of the Polish State. The victory over the three whales of the Soviet model of the State governance – political monopoly of one party, unitary nature of the State power and singleness of the State property – demanded the radical transformation of the third, public sector, as well as the first, State one; as for the entrepreneurship, it should have been built from scratch. All this required new human resources: one way or the other, they still were all-important. This is why the educational reform was among the most important ones, in my opinion.

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How I Almost Became an Invader

Alaksandar Klaskouski

Twenty-nine years ago on a wonderful August day I suddenly found myself in shoes (more exactly, in tarpaulin boots) of someone who was a step away from becoming an occupant. A rumor has gone around that our alarmed division would go to Poland.
Was it so or not, it has remained under the veil of the military secret.

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Belarus and Poland: Conditions of Choice

Juras Kalasouski

When in 1989 “Salidarnasc” won the elections in Poland, and in 1991 the BPF managed to give the Declaration of State Sovereignty the constitutional law status, this meant that the Polish People’s Republic and the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic existed no more. These events also led to the fall of Communist governments in neighbouring states. But after this Belarus and Poland came to a parting of the ways…

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