CEECON-Congress: Negotiating Diasporic Identity: Cultural Productions and Narratives in Exile after 2020-2022
The political mass mobilisation against the authoritarian regime in Belarus in 2020, followed by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, led to massive waves of migration and displacement. Lithuania, Poland, and Germany became the primary destinations for the displaced persons, including a significant number of artists, writers, theatre and cinema makers, and other cultural professionals. This influx contributed to a surge in cultural productions related to the concept of “culture in exile”.
The panel focuses on narratives of diasporic identity that have recently emerged in such a culture in exile. We rely on the concept of diasporic identity developed in cultural studies and migration studies, focusing on the transformation and hybridisation that occur with cultural identity in motion. Mainly, the papers focus on the popular culture narratives emerging in the Belarusian culture in exile. However, as this phenomenon closely relates to the cultures of host communities and other diasporas, we approach this topic from a transcultural perspective. The aim is not only to reveal how the visions of diasporas are constructed through popular culture narratives but also to investigate the dynamics of negotiations, conflicts, and contradictions among different diasporic agents and communities, including potential counter-narratives.
The panel operates at the intersection of several fields, primarily cultural studies and migration studies, and incorporates perspectives from literary and visual analysis, performance studies, and feminist theory.
Organiser: Matthias Schwartz (ZfL Berlin)
Ulyana Veryna (ZfL Berlin/Uni Bremen): From Commemoration to Mobilization: The “Night of the Executed Poets” and the Belarusian Diaspora after 2020
This paper conceptualizes diaspora as a processual, event-based formation emerging through moments of cultural mobilization. Drawing on process-oriented approaches (Tölölyan; Brubaker; Sökefeld) and theories of cultural, hybrid, and postmodern diaspora (Hall; Gilroy; Cohen), it argues that commemorative rituals produce diasporic identity and belonging through participation, which is neither pre-given nor necessarily sustained beyond the event.
The “Night of the Executed Poets,” commemorating the mass execution of over 100 members of the Belarusian intelligentsia in Minsk on 29–30 October 1937, is analyzed as a ritualized commemorative practice whose meanings have evolved over time: from an oppositional post-Soviet initiative, to resistance against the Lukashenka regime, and eventually developed into a structured ritualized form. The study traces the event from its emergence in 1988, through the popular-oriented project The (Non)Executed, which combined lectures, songs, and films in 2017, to its role in the diasporic context after 2020, when it became a focal point for collective gathering. The case demonstrates that ritualized commemoration can generate collective belonging among dispersed participants, producing situational diasporic identities. In exile, the “Night of the Executed Poets” shows how such identities are actively formed through shared ritual and performance, extending our understanding of diaspora as an emergent, participatory process.
Ulyana Veryna, Doctor of Science in Philology, Habil., is a scholar of Eastern European literatures. Her research explores the dynamics and innovations of East Slavic literary systems during periods of transformation, the transnational and multilingual dimensions of literary modernity, theories of genre and poetic form, and the theory and practice of poetic translation. From 2022 to 2025, she worked on the project “Transnational Phenomena of the Literary Process of Belarus in the 1920s–1930s” at the Institute of Slavic Studies, Carl von Ossietzky University (Oldenburg), supported by the Philipp Schwartz Initiative. In 2025–2026, she conducted the project “Transnational Turn as Literature Breaks with Language and Territory: East Slavic Vector” at the University of Bremen under the EU4Belarus SALT II fellowship.
Pavel Niakhayeu (Jagiellonian University Krakow/ZfL Berlin): Uprooted Scenes. Belarusian Music in Exile
This paper stems from the dramatic recent transformations and uprooting of the Belarusian music scenes caused by political repressions and violence, migration, isolation and militarization of the county, censorship and legal framework changes. Since 2020, the political crisis and then Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine posed unprecedented challenges to the polarized Belarusian society. At least 500,000 people have emigrated from the country since 2020. Among them were hundreds of musicians and other music scene actors (DJs, VJs, promoters, managers, technicians, journalists and critics) and a significant part of their audience. They all ended up in new cultural, economic and political situations abroad where they are not only adapting to new environments, navigating various everyday obstacles and conflicts, but also (re)constructing their identities.
I argue that music and networks built during and around music events and communities are among the key elements of Belarusian diaspora’s cultural life and resilience in the EU and other countries. The diasporic music scene provides Belarusian migrants with social spaces where sonic citizenship is practiced, information is exchanged, networks are articulated, boundaries between different groups are negotiated, blurred or reconfigured, contacts with the host societies and other migrant diasporas are created and maintained.
Based on a qualitative study of music events, networks and communities of Belarusian diaspora in Poland, as well in Lithuania, Germany and other countries, this paper analyzes how do uprooted Belarusian music scenes function in diaspora hubs across Europe and maintain links across the EU-Belarus border that is turning into a new Iron Curtain.
Pavel Niakhayeu is a Belarusian sound studies and music sociology researcher. MA in Sociology / Visual & Cultural Studies (European Humanities University, Vilnius, 2008). In 2008-2022 was a lecturer at this university. Co-editor of “P.S.Soundscapes” (Topos Journal, 2018). 2023-2024 – research fellow at the VisiBYlity project (Institut für Europäische Politik, Berlin). 2024-2025 – research fellow at the Center for Belarusian and Regional Studies of EHU (Vilnius). Currently studies at the Doctoral School in the Social Sciences, Jagiellonian University, Krakow. Research interests: political soundscape, sonic violence and resistance, independent music scenes.
Tania Arcimovich (ZfL Berlin/Graduate Centre for the Study of Culture Giessen): Shifting Stages: Narratives, Identities, and Political Engagement in the Belarusian Theatre and Performance Scene in Exile
The Belarusian theatre and performance scene in exile after 2020/22 is characterised by diverse forms heavily influenced by popular culture products, images, and formats. The research focuses on the narratives these theatre and performance productions propose and the contradictions, such as the differing perceptions of migration and its relation to ‘Belarusian’ as identity and/or belonging, including contested reference to pop-culture formats.
The paper investigates the evolving landscape of Belarusian theatre and performance in exile following the events of 2020/22, emphasising its dynamic engagement with popular culture and diverse expressive forms. The research analyses the narratives constructed by these productions, focusing on the complexities and contradictions inherent in the experiences of migration, identity, and belonging among Belarusian artists. Three primary perspectives structure the inquiry: the politics of identity – highlighting culture’s pivotal role in contemporary civic debates; the politics of representation and voicing – examining questions of agency and division within the Belarusian cultural field; and the interplay between Belarusian self-positionality and the frameworks of Western contemporary theatre, particularly transnationality and mobility. Drawing on several performances and productions created by Belarusian artists in Poland, Germany, Lithuania, and Georgia, this paper further explores how the Belarusian performance and theatre scene in exile reflects shifts in identity related to migration and displacement. It also examines how these productions narrate and contribute to the emergence of a new subject in exile, including the expansion of the epistemic landscape on the issue.
Tania Arcimovich is a postdoctoral researcher whose primary focus is cultural studies, feminist theory, and history. She earned her Master’s in Sociology (Cultural Studies) from the European Humanities University (Vilnius) and defended the dissertation at the International Centre for the Study of Culture (Justus Liebig University Giessen) on the topic of avant-gards in Soviet Belarus. In 2024-2026, she participated in the international research project “Protecting Academia at Risk: Towards a New Policy Agenda for Thriving Culture of Higher Education in Europe” (Erfurt University). In 2024-25, she also curated the research laboratory at the European Humanities University, supervising scholars from Belarus on gender and migration.
Chair/Discussant: Nina Weller (ZfL Berlin)
For the full conference programme, https://ceecon.de/en/program/.