Discussion
The events of recent years in Eastern Europe (primarily the political crisis of 2020 in Belarus and Russia's war in Ukraine) have shown how important history and its interpretations remain for post-communist societies. Russia's ignoring of Belarus' subjectivity made the issue of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) in 2022 part of geopolitical and civilizational choice of its future. Two strategies emerged – rapprochement with GDL's former allies and confrontation with them. Official Minsk actively joined the struggle in the historical field, increasingly weaving GDL history into its domestic and foreign policies. This happened against the background of strong blow to the community of GDL researchers, who openly expressed their disagreement with the results of presidential election. The author is one of them. Confrontation with Lithuania, Poland, which took an uncompromising stance against the Belarusian authorities, and Ukraine ensued. Contrary to Lithuania Minsk claimed monopoly over the history and heritage of the GDL. State resources, appealing to history, spread anti-Western (mainly anti-Polish) ideas.
In late 2023/early 2024, amid rising anti-immigrant sentiment in Lithuania (over 62,000 Belarusians emigrated to Vilnius since 2020), public attempts were made to provoke a split between Lithuanians and Belarusians based on the interpretation of the history and heritage of the GDL. While they argue over who owns what part of the GDL heritage, the Kremlin, with its plans to restore the empire, claims its entire heritage.
As integration with Russia deepens, Belarus synchronizes its historical memory and unifies historical science with the Russian one, which influences public opinion in Belarus through the Joint Russian-Belarusian historical commission and activation of Russian actors of memory politics. Instead of Belarusian researchers and promoters of the GDL, displaced from their institutions and homeland, the country's cultural and scientific space is occupying by the Russian world. Russia introduces its narrative about the GDL, based on the imperial concept of the triune Russian people, its historical figures and idealised events, connected with Belarus, into Belarusian educational programmes, historiography and collective memory. The installation of gygantic monument to the Russian commander Alexander Nevsky in Minsk demonstrated the post-colonial mentality of Belarusian political elites and officials.
The response to suppressing the Belarusian-centred narrative is rejected historians' educational activities. Using modern means of communication, they spread free historical thought from abroad to both sides of the Belarusian border. The history and memory about the GDL remain a powerful political argument in the hands of the Belarusian regime's opponents. The more GDL is in Belarus, the less Russia is. 
