The The Nazi Occupation of Belarus: Collaboration and Resistance in Historiography

di Olga Baranova
in Memoria e Ricerca n.s. 33 (2010), p. 153

The article examines how different issues of the Second World war and the Nazi occupation of Belarus were presented and treated in the Soviet historiography, Western historiography of the Cold War period, and post-communist Russian and Belarusian historiographies. The special focus of the analysis is on the representation of such controversial issues as resistance, Soviet partisan movement, and cooperation by some Belarusian people, at that time Soviet citizens, with the German occupation authorities. The article highlights the main themes and terminology used in Soviet and Western writings in the 1950s – 1980s and demonstrates how often ideological bias and particular political situation of the period in which history is written affects the views and approaches that historians take in their studies. Furthermore, it analyzes the main changes that occurred in historiography after the collapse of communism and examines how the same issues: war-time collaboration and resistance, were discussed in the post-Soviet period, in the 1990s – beginning of the 2000s, by Western, Russian and Belarusian scholars. Key words: Historiography, Occupation, War-time Cooperation, Resistance, Soviet Union, Cold War ideology.