Nelly Bekus
Biographic Data
| ID | 258727 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nelly Bekus |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nelly |
| FAMILY NAME | Bekus |
| SIGNATURE | BEKUS N |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Exeter |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7206-0019 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 65 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Tracing the Origins of Kazakho-Futurism: Local Artistic Imaginaries and Global Cosmic Endeavours
This article explores how cultural representations of outer space in Kazakhstan reflect and shape public debates on the history and legacy of the Soviet cosmos while offering new perspectives on national cosmic imaginaries. Kazakhstan inherited much of the Soviet outer space physical infrastructure, including its most potent artefact, spaceport Baikonur. The article demonstrates that the artistic representations of the cosmic themes provide an im…
Belarus in the Long Shadow of 2020
The long shadow of 2020’s protests against a rigged election continues to shape Belarus’s political, social, and cultural landscape. The country has undergone a profound reconfiguration of state-society relations, and the ruptures exposed by the protests were further deepened by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Though the regime suppressed the protests and reasserted control, the events of 2020 triggered a deep societal transformation marked by new forms…
Aspirations and Challenges of Space Techno-Science in Global Semi-Peripheries: A View from Kazakhstan
This article contributes to the emerging scholarship on space programmes developed by nations across global semi-peripheries, and it uncovers the major factors and challenges shaping the outer space agenda both domestically and internationally. Drawing on the case of Kazakhstan, the article discusses how the development of the space industry has been accompanied by the government’s efforts to indigenise space techno-science, while public discours…
Reassembling Society in a Nation-State: History, Language, and Identity Discourses of Belarus
The article examines the political and cultural processes of nation-building over thirty years of independence in Belarus. It argues that in becoming a nation-state Belarus has faced challenges similar to the other post-Soviet nations but has proved an exception in the choice of strategies it used to address them. The paper examines how, on the eve of independence, the nationalist elites devised policies aimed at consolidating statehood around th…
Introduction to the Special Issue on Protest and Authoritarian Reaction in Belarus
Understanding the scale and nature of changes that have occurred in Belarus since the 2020 protests, not only at the political but also at the societal level, is crucial to our ability to interpret the role that Belarus has played in the current crisis in the region and to understand the potential for, and possible directions of, long-term change. This article provides interpretive frameworks for studying the Belarusian protests and their contrib…
Memory wars in postimperial settings: The challenges of transnationalism and the risks of new totalizing mnemonics
Outer space technopolitics and postcolonial modernity in Kazakhstan
This article examines the role of outer space technopolitics in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. It explores how outer space, the technological artefact of global relevance, works as a postcolonial fetish of modernity that is called upon to produce what it represents, that is, the reality of a technologically advanced Kazakh nation. The article shows that in its project of becoming a spacefaring nation the country reiterates major incentives that have mot…
The campaign of the “fighting women”: The Belarus election of 2020 and its aftermath – a conversation with Veranika Tsapkala
On 29 October 2020, the Kule Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Alberta sponsored a Zoom webinar organized by David R. Marples and featuring Veranika Tsapkala, one of three female members of the opposition campaign in the Belarusian presidential election of 2020. Their campaign replaced that of three candidates who were denied registration to run. Tsapkala represented the original electoral campaign of her spouse, Valeryi, which co…
Echo of 1989? Protest Imaginaries and Identity Dilemmas in Belarus
The revolution of 2020 in Belarus has often been described as a new 1989 and there is no doubt that the emancipatory appeal of the Belarusian protests is similar to the one that sustained the 1989 revolutions. But will building the democratic system-the major aspiration of the Belarusian protesters-follow the scripts of liberalization and westernization in evidence in other eastern and central European countries? Will self-determination in post-L…
Introduction: The Sociology of Belarusian Protest
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Symbolic Capital of the Memory of communism. The quest for international recognition in Kazakhstan
Socialism, Heritage and Internationalism after 1945. The Second World and Beyond
The international histories of cultural heritage protection have been commonly focussed on the Eurocentric trajectories of heritage evolution in the twentieth century and trace the Western roots of cultural globalisation in the field of conservation and preservation of monuments. The current theme section offers the first examination of the contribution of socialist states, institutions and experts to the evolution of heritage concepts and polici…
Transnational circulation of cultural form: Multiple Agencies of Heritage Making
The article analyses the evolution of the Soviet heritage-making policy in late socialism. Based on archival sources and interviews with former key experts from the Soviet ICOMOS committee, as well as other activists in conservation and heritage protection in former Soviet republics, the article explores the multi-faceted nature of the construction of heritage in the Soviet context that involved a complex interplay between local and international…
Belarus's Winding Path to a Post-Soviet Identity
Some of the state's recent initiatives have sought to reappropriate ethno-cultural and pre-Soviet history and tradition, shaping a new politics of identity
Agency of internal transnationalism in social memory
The article examines the limitations of methodological nationalism in the studies of social memory through a case study of memory of Stalinist repression in Belarus. It analyses how various social agencies - national and local activists, religious organisations, and international foundations - use the memory of repression for constructing post-Soviet Belarusian identity by embedding their national representations in larger transnational framework…
Ideological Recycling of the Socialist Legacy. Reading Townscapes of Minsk and Astana
This article addresses the ways in which the systemic transformation of the former Soviet republics has been reflected in urban development in two capital cities, Minsk (Belarus) and Astana (Kazakhstan). Changes taking place in these capitals have been analysed through the prism of an ideological recycling of the socialist legacy, a concept that permits exploration of which aspects of the socialist legacy have been jettisoned and which retained, …
Constructed ‘Otherness’? Poland and the Geopolitics of Contested Belarusian Identity
The rise of Belarus to political independence has required it to delineate its cultural boundaries in-between two ‘Others’—Poland and Russia. This essay explores a range of portrayals of Poland in Belarusian cultural artefacts, including television programmes, film, novels, and theatre performances—from the image of an ‘Other’ that threatens Belarusian identity, to the main ally supporting the European choice of Belarusians. Examples from Belarus…
Per Anders Rudling, The rise and fall of Belarusian nationalism
Ethnic identity in post-Soviet Belarus: Ethnolinguistic survival as an argument in the political struggle
This article discusses the Belarusian case of post-communist development and the role and status of Belarusian ethnicity in Belarus' nation-formation process. ‘Nationalizing nationalism’ (Brubaker), as realised by the Belarusian state through various social and cultural practices, is aimed at the creation of a Belarusian national entity without reference to the ethnocultural core of Belarusians. As a result of the nationalising practices of the B…
Struggle over Identity: The Official and the Alternative "Belarusianness"
Nationalism and socialism: “Phase D” in the Belarusian nation-building
This article presents the history of Belarusian national development in the light of Miroslav Hroch's theory and demonstrates how the initial process of national awakening typical for small nations in eastern and central Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century described by M. Hroch continued under Soviet rule after the Bolshevik revolution. Changes which were brought to Belarusian society together with socialist modernization in…
Struggle over identity: The official and the alternative Belarusianness
Struggle over Identity: "The Official and the Alternative "Belarusianness
Rejecting the cliché about "weak identity and underdeveloped nationalism," Bekus argues for the co-existence of two parallel concepts of Belarusianness—the official and the alternative one—which mirrors the current state of the Belarusian people more accurately and allows for a different interpretation of the interconnection between the democratization and nationalization of Belarusian society.The book describes how the ethno-symbolic nation of t…
Echo of 1989? Protest Imaginaries and Identity Dilemmas in Belarus
The revolution of 2020 in Belarus has often been described as a new 1989 and there is no doubt that the emancipatory appeal of the Belarusian protests is similar to the one that sustained the 1989 revolutions. But will building the democratic system-the major aspiration of the Belarusian protesters-follow the scripts of liberalization and westernization in evidence in other eastern and central European countries? Will self-determination in post-L…
Agency of internal transnationalism in social memory
The article examines the limitations of methodological nationalism in the studies of social memory through a case study of memory of Stalinist repression in Belarus. It analyses how various social agencies - national and local activists, religious organisations, and international foundations - use the memory of repression for constructing post-Soviet Belarusian identity by embedding their national representations in larger transnational framework…
Ideological Recycling of the Socialist Legacy. Reading Townscapes of Minsk and Astana
This article addresses the ways in which the systemic transformation of the former Soviet republics has been reflected in urban development in two capital cities, Minsk (Belarus) and Astana (Kazakhstan). Changes taking place in these capitals have been analysed through the prism of an ideological recycling of the socialist legacy, a concept that permits exploration of which aspects of the socialist legacy have been jettisoned and which retained, …
Introduction: The Sociology of Belarusian Protest
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Constructed ‘Otherness’? Poland and the Geopolitics of Contested Belarusian Identity
The rise of Belarus to political independence has required it to delineate its cultural boundaries in-between two ‘Others’—Poland and Russia. This essay explores a range of portrayals of Poland in Belarusian cultural artefacts, including television programmes, film, novels, and theatre performances—from the image of an ‘Other’ that threatens Belarusian identity, to the main ally supporting the European choice of Belarusians. Examples from Belarus…
Ethnic identity in post-Soviet Belarus: Ethnolinguistic survival as an argument in the political struggle
This article discusses the Belarusian case of post-communist development and the role and status of Belarusian ethnicity in Belarus' nation-formation process. ‘Nationalizing nationalism’ (Brubaker), as realised by the Belarusian state through various social and cultural practices, is aimed at the creation of a Belarusian national entity without reference to the ethnocultural core of Belarusians. As a result of the nationalising practices of the B…
Reassembling Society in a Nation-State: History, Language, and Identity Discourses of Belarus
The article examines the political and cultural processes of nation-building over thirty years of independence in Belarus. It argues that in becoming a nation-state Belarus has faced challenges similar to the other post-Soviet nations but has proved an exception in the choice of strategies it used to address them. The paper examines how, on the eve of independence, the nationalist elites devised policies aimed at consolidating statehood around th…
Nationalism and socialism: “Phase D” in the Belarusian nation-building
This article presents the history of Belarusian national development in the light of Miroslav Hroch's theory and demonstrates how the initial process of national awakening typical for small nations in eastern and central Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century described by M. Hroch continued under Soviet rule after the Bolshevik revolution. Changes which were brought to Belarusian society together with socialist modernization in…
Socialism, Heritage and Internationalism after 1945. The Second World and Beyond
The international histories of cultural heritage protection have been commonly focussed on the Eurocentric trajectories of heritage evolution in the twentieth century and trace the Western roots of cultural globalisation in the field of conservation and preservation of monuments. The current theme section offers the first examination of the contribution of socialist states, institutions and experts to the evolution of heritage concepts and polici…
Struggle over Identity: "The Official and the Alternative "Belarusianness
Rejecting the cliché about "weak identity and underdeveloped nationalism," Bekus argues for the co-existence of two parallel concepts of Belarusianness—the official and the alternative one—which mirrors the current state of the Belarusian people more accurately and allows for a different interpretation of the interconnection between the democratization and nationalization of Belarusian society.The book describes how the ethno-symbolic nation of t…
Outer space technopolitics and postcolonial modernity in Kazakhstan
This article examines the role of outer space technopolitics in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. It explores how outer space, the technological artefact of global relevance, works as a postcolonial fetish of modernity that is called upon to produce what it represents, that is, the reality of a technologically advanced Kazakh nation. The article shows that in its project of becoming a spacefaring nation the country reiterates major incentives that have mot…
Transnational circulation of cultural form: Multiple Agencies of Heritage Making
The article analyses the evolution of the Soviet heritage-making policy in late socialism. Based on archival sources and interviews with former key experts from the Soviet ICOMOS committee, as well as other activists in conservation and heritage protection in former Soviet republics, the article explores the multi-faceted nature of the construction of heritage in the Soviet context that involved a complex interplay between local and international…
Introduction to the Special Issue on Protest and Authoritarian Reaction in Belarus
Understanding the scale and nature of changes that have occurred in Belarus since the 2020 protests, not only at the political but also at the societal level, is crucial to our ability to interpret the role that Belarus has played in the current crisis in the region and to understand the potential for, and possible directions of, long-term change. This article provides interpretive frameworks for studying the Belarusian protests and their contrib…
Memory wars in postimperial settings: The challenges of transnationalism and the risks of new totalizing mnemonics
Symbolic Capital of the Memory of communism. The quest for international recognition in Kazakhstan
Struggle over Identity: The Official and the Alternative "Belarusianness"
Nationalism and socialism: “Phase D” in the Belarusian nation-building
This article presents the history of Belarusian national development in the light of Miroslav Hroch's theory and demonstrates how the initial process of national awakening typical for small nations in eastern and central Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century described by M. Hroch continued under Soviet rule after the Bolshevik revolution. Changes which were brought to Belarusian society together with socialist modernization in…
Struggle over identity: The official and the alternative Belarusianness
Struggle over Identity: "The Official and the Alternative "Belarusianness
Rejecting the cliché about "weak identity and underdeveloped nationalism," Bekus argues for the co-existence of two parallel concepts of Belarusianness—the official and the alternative one—which mirrors the current state of the Belarusian people more accurately and allows for a different interpretation of the interconnection between the democratization and nationalization of Belarusian society.The book describes how the ethno-symbolic nation of t…
Ethnic identity in post-Soviet Belarus: Ethnolinguistic survival as an argument in the political struggle
This article discusses the Belarusian case of post-communist development and the role and status of Belarusian ethnicity in Belarus' nation-formation process. ‘Nationalizing nationalism’ (Brubaker), as realised by the Belarusian state through various social and cultural practices, is aimed at the creation of a Belarusian national entity without reference to the ethnocultural core of Belarusians. As a result of the nationalising practices of the B…
Per Anders Rudling, The rise and fall of Belarusian nationalism
Ideological Recycling of the Socialist Legacy. Reading Townscapes of Minsk and Astana
This article addresses the ways in which the systemic transformation of the former Soviet republics has been reflected in urban development in two capital cities, Minsk (Belarus) and Astana (Kazakhstan). Changes taking place in these capitals have been analysed through the prism of an ideological recycling of the socialist legacy, a concept that permits exploration of which aspects of the socialist legacy have been jettisoned and which retained, …
Constructed ‘Otherness’? Poland and the Geopolitics of Contested Belarusian Identity
The rise of Belarus to political independence has required it to delineate its cultural boundaries in-between two ‘Others’—Poland and Russia. This essay explores a range of portrayals of Poland in Belarusian cultural artefacts, including television programmes, film, novels, and theatre performances—from the image of an ‘Other’ that threatens Belarusian identity, to the main ally supporting the European choice of Belarusians. Examples from Belarus…
Belarus's Winding Path to a Post-Soviet Identity
Some of the state's recent initiatives have sought to reappropriate ethno-cultural and pre-Soviet history and tradition, shaping a new politics of identity
Agency of internal transnationalism in social memory
The article examines the limitations of methodological nationalism in the studies of social memory through a case study of memory of Stalinist repression in Belarus. It analyses how various social agencies - national and local activists, religious organisations, and international foundations - use the memory of repression for constructing post-Soviet Belarusian identity by embedding their national representations in larger transnational framework…
Socialism, Heritage and Internationalism after 1945. The Second World and Beyond
The international histories of cultural heritage protection have been commonly focussed on the Eurocentric trajectories of heritage evolution in the twentieth century and trace the Western roots of cultural globalisation in the field of conservation and preservation of monuments. The current theme section offers the first examination of the contribution of socialist states, institutions and experts to the evolution of heritage concepts and polici…
Transnational circulation of cultural form: Multiple Agencies of Heritage Making
The article analyses the evolution of the Soviet heritage-making policy in late socialism. Based on archival sources and interviews with former key experts from the Soviet ICOMOS committee, as well as other activists in conservation and heritage protection in former Soviet republics, the article explores the multi-faceted nature of the construction of heritage in the Soviet context that involved a complex interplay between local and international…
The campaign of the “fighting women”: The Belarus election of 2020 and its aftermath – a conversation with Veranika Tsapkala
On 29 October 2020, the Kule Institute for Advanced Study at the University of Alberta sponsored a Zoom webinar organized by David R. Marples and featuring Veranika Tsapkala, one of three female members of the opposition campaign in the Belarusian presidential election of 2020. Their campaign replaced that of three candidates who were denied registration to run. Tsapkala represented the original electoral campaign of her spouse, Valeryi, which co…
Echo of 1989? Protest Imaginaries and Identity Dilemmas in Belarus
The revolution of 2020 in Belarus has often been described as a new 1989 and there is no doubt that the emancipatory appeal of the Belarusian protests is similar to the one that sustained the 1989 revolutions. But will building the democratic system-the major aspiration of the Belarusian protesters-follow the scripts of liberalization and westernization in evidence in other eastern and central European countries? Will self-determination in post-L…
Introduction: The Sociology of Belarusian Protest
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the ‘Save PDF’ action button
Symbolic Capital of the Memory of communism. The quest for international recognition in Kazakhstan
Memory wars in postimperial settings: The challenges of transnationalism and the risks of new totalizing mnemonics
Outer space technopolitics and postcolonial modernity in Kazakhstan
This article examines the role of outer space technopolitics in post-Soviet Kazakhstan. It explores how outer space, the technological artefact of global relevance, works as a postcolonial fetish of modernity that is called upon to produce what it represents, that is, the reality of a technologically advanced Kazakh nation. The article shows that in its project of becoming a spacefaring nation the country reiterates major incentives that have mot…
Reassembling Society in a Nation-State: History, Language, and Identity Discourses of Belarus
The article examines the political and cultural processes of nation-building over thirty years of independence in Belarus. It argues that in becoming a nation-state Belarus has faced challenges similar to the other post-Soviet nations but has proved an exception in the choice of strategies it used to address them. The paper examines how, on the eve of independence, the nationalist elites devised policies aimed at consolidating statehood around th…
Introduction to the Special Issue on Protest and Authoritarian Reaction in Belarus
Understanding the scale and nature of changes that have occurred in Belarus since the 2020 protests, not only at the political but also at the societal level, is crucial to our ability to interpret the role that Belarus has played in the current crisis in the region and to understand the potential for, and possible directions of, long-term change. This article provides interpretive frameworks for studying the Belarusian protests and their contrib…
Aspirations and Challenges of Space Techno-Science in Global Semi-Peripheries: A View from Kazakhstan
This article contributes to the emerging scholarship on space programmes developed by nations across global semi-peripheries, and it uncovers the major factors and challenges shaping the outer space agenda both domestically and internationally. Drawing on the case of Kazakhstan, the article discusses how the development of the space industry has been accompanied by the government’s efforts to indigenise space techno-science, while public discours…
Belarus in the Long Shadow of 2020
The long shadow of 2020’s protests against a rigged election continues to shape Belarus’s political, social, and cultural landscape. The country has undergone a profound reconfiguration of state-society relations, and the ruptures exposed by the protests were further deepened by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Though the regime suppressed the protests and reasserted control, the events of 2020 triggered a deep societal transformation marked by new forms…
Tracing the Origins of Kazakho-Futurism: Local Artistic Imaginaries and Global Cosmic Endeavours
This article explores how cultural representations of outer space in Kazakhstan reflect and shape public debates on the history and legacy of the Soviet cosmos while offering new perspectives on national cosmic imaginaries. Kazakhstan inherited much of the Soviet outer space physical infrastructure, including its most potent artefact, spaceport Baikonur. The article demonstrates that the artistic representations of the cosmic themes provide an im…
Political science (20 works) · Sociology (17 works) · Law (16 works) · Politics (15 works) · Eastern European Communism and Reforms (14 works) · Law (12 works) · Political economy (10 works) · History (8 works) · Aesthetics (6 works) · Communism (6 works)