Abstract:
The article undertakes a critical examination of the relevance of interpreting Belarusian identity through the conceptual framework of being “in-between” East and West. In the aftermath of the 2020 protests in Belarus and the onset of Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, the author reevaluates Ignat Abdziralovich’s early twentieth century theory of “in-betweenness” as a form of decolonial thought. The analysis draws parallels between the ideas of Abdziralovich and those of Czesław Miłosz and Milan Kundera, with the objective of elucidating the correlation between the contentious ideological concept of Eastern Europe and the issue of Belarus’ positioning within the European context. The argument is made that the historical and theoretical limits of conceptualizing Belarusian identity in terms of in-betweenness can be demonstrated through the lens of distinguishing between geocultural and geopolitical dimensions and the changing relationship between them.
Keywords:
Belarus, Eastern Europe, in-between positionality, borderland, identity, decolonization
How to cite:
Shchyttsova, Tatiana. “Toward a Critical Hermeneutics of ‘In-betweenness’: Re-reading Abdziralovich, Miłosz, and Kundera in the Times of the New Imperial War in Europe.” Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture 9, no. 2 (2025): 13-36. https://doi.org/10.14394/eidos.jpc.2025.0012.
Author:
Tatiana Shchyttsova
Department of Social Sciences, European Humanities University
17 Savičiaus Str., 01127 Vilnius, Lithuania
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0014-3856
tatiana.shchyttsova@ehu.lt
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