Abstract
The increasing interest in the history of the countries of the former socialist bloc, both in the social sciences and in the humanities in general, is a natural response to changing political, socio-economic and cultural realities. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the new historical circumstances in which Belarusian society found itself helped to highlight the problem of national identity.
The attainment of state independence linked to the evolving situation of sovereign self-determination in Belarus and required the creation of a new version of the national history. The response to these changes was the emergence of new studies in contemporary Belarusian history and, significantly, a growing academic interest in the problems of national identity Belarus faced.