Counter-hegemony in today's Belarus: dissident symbols and the mythological figure of Miron Vitebskii

Abstract

Tackling the role of state symbols in negotiating national identity and political development, this research focuses on Belarus where the alternative white-red-white flag became instrumental in protests against the dominant political discourse. Since 1995, oppositional mass media have been reporting about cases of this tricolor being erected in hard-to-reach and/or politically sensitive places. These actions were mainly attributed to some “Miron,” whose identity remained concealed and served as a simulacrum of a national superhero in non-conformist discourse. The image of Miron immediately acquired multiple functions: condemning the Soviet colonial past, struggling for the European future, and creating a nation-state rather than the Russian-speaking civil-state of Belarus. Yet, first and foremost, Miron became a means for contesting the authority of the president who has been in power since 1994. Concentrating on the methods employed for the construction of the counter-hegemonic fakelore project of Miron and its aims, this article explores the vernacular response to its creation.