КАНСТРУКЦЫІ ГІСТОРЫІ БЕЛАРУСКАЙ ЛІТАРАТУРЫ Ў НАВУКОВЫМ АСВЯТЛЕННІ МАРЫЁН РУТЦ

Abstract

The writing of the history of literature (Literaturgeschichtsschreibung) — a research trend in the humanities in the 21st century — remains largely underdeveloped in relation to the Belarusian literature. Marion Rutz’s article problematizes the conceptual foundations of the Belarusian historiography of the ancient and early modern periods. Those concepts have been formulated since the times of Maksim Harecki and have changed little in the latest academic volume History of Belarusian Literature of the 11th–19th Centuries (2006). The attempts to create historical accounts of the Belarusian literature development perfectly illustrate the constructing nature of history which depends on the nature of modernity; they also reveal the specificity of the Belarusian “place of memory”. This article analyzes more than ten historical reviews that describe Belarus’s old written legacy. The author examines the principles of inclusion/ non-inclusion, periodization, definition of cultural specificity of Belarus in the chosen area of research. Most authors of the historical reviews strive to solve an insoluble problem — to create an exclusively Belarusian history of literature, which was heterogeneous in its essence. This article treats the problem of the titular nation and the terminological correlation between “Belarusian literature” and “literature of Belarus” within the frameworks of identity and geopolitics. The author suggests possible directions for conducting future studies in this research tradition and underscores potentially controversial points that may appear in the process.