Nowadays Belarusian issue, particularly in regard to the study of problems identity, became extremely important.This is not a coincidence, because the modern world wants to know who are the Belarusians that suddenly appeared as something special along with the birth of the Republic of Belarus on the international political map.In addition, the study of identity most often used in combination as “national identity” still remains one of the most pressing study problems in the social sciences.Finally, special attention should be given to the Belarusian case in terms of its features.However, the Belarusian identity is challenged today like the reality and like the concept, which is explained, in turn, not only by features of the Belarusian case in particular, but by a general theoretical debate over the fundamental concepts such as “identity” and “nation”.

In order to study Belarusian identity different conceptual approaches should be applied, i.e. as the concept of “identity as a given”, and the “identity as a construction.”In addition, it is necessary to use an approach, of which the starting point is the study of identification processes in each case.This will determine the role of the Belarusian language as well as to analyze the impact of historical and geographical / geopolitical factors on the content of identity and the ways of its formation.It is in this vein, we propose an analysis providing reasons clarifying the Belarusian case.

Published in Russian. Web-magazine “SAKAVIK”, #1, March 2013

Categories: Гісторыя, Мова, Нацыя