Fredrik Wadström develop the background to Belarus vs. Belarus – Sveriges Radio

Should one say Belarus or Belarus? The issue has uppmräksammats after Svetland Aleksijevitj received the Nobel Prize in Literature. Recommendation This Sveriges Radio is Belarus, but earlier today, Fredrik Wadström, formerly Russia Correspondent and employees on Culture Editor, gone out with that he continued going to say Belarus. It has attracted both postiva and negative reactions. In Kulturnytt 15:45 told Frederick Wadström more about the background to the evaluation.

– There’s been quite a long process where more and more of us have become aware that this does not last. In the word Belarus is not Russia. And if the country chose to rename themselves to something that refers to other historical concepts we must also be sensitive to it.

– This with Belarus can not return to the beginning of the 1800s in the sense that it was a Russification of the area during the Russian Empire which then held still during the Soviet era they called it the “Belarusian Soviet Republic”. Then, when the country became independent in 1991 had any reason we left Belarus not only in Swedish, but in many European languages. The English abandoned the other hand, the old name and says today Belarus.

– And now that we have a Nobel Prize winner who Svetlana Alexievich that set this country on the map, we must probably think seriously whether it is not time to switch if for this with Russia in the word Belarus sends all the wrong signals, both historically, politically and culturally.

But how much is this a language issue, and how much is it a political issue?

– There’s a language issue in the sense that there is no Russia in the word so therefore it becomes strange, but if we think that there are some political nuances in it that’s not the same thing that there is in other parts of the world. For example, the Russian Federation for many years known as the country of Belarus, namely what is the country’s actual own name and that we want to go over to the Culture editors. But recently it has which swung as Russian state media, which is of course very much megaphones to what power do and want to send the signals have changed to Belorusia, which is thus the equivalent of Belarus. And it says the part that Russia no longer sees this as a completely own area but as part of the Russian cultural and historical and political sphere. So where is the policy says Fredrik Wadström.

Kulturnytt P1

Going forward, named Belarus preferably used in the Culture Editor Programs .