On 29 June the Ostrogorski Centre held the first Ostrogorski Forum on foreign policy and security in Minsk. The theme of this year's conference was 'Inertia, strengthening neutrality or changing the foreign policy orientation? Foreign policy in Belarus at the...
This month Freedom House published Nations in Transitions report on Belarus authored by the Editor-in-Chief of Belarus Digest Yaraslau Kryvoi. According to methodology, country experts prepare reports while Freedom House has a final say on the ratings. Most of...
The removal of sanctions against Belarus earlier this year has led to increased interest from institutional investors such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Alain Pilloux, Acting Vice President of this major development bank visited Belarus last...
The 2015 issue of the Journal of Belarusian Studies released today is almost entirely about history. It focuses on the Belarusian-Polish-Lithuanian borderland and the period stretching from the uprising of 1863 to the inter-war period of the 20th...
On 1 September the Central Elections Committee of Belarus announced that four presidential candidates had submitted enough signatures to run in elections scheduled for 11 October this year. Although few question the outcome of this elections and the official victory...
Two months ago dozens of prominent Belarusian intellectuals and civil society leaders called for the establishment of a Belarusian national university. This push followed realisation by leaders of Belarusian civil society that they were powerless to influence the election...
Belarus is returning to the international spotlight, but for once, not just as the “last dictatorship in Europe”. The two summits that Minsk hosted in the past year on the conflict in east Ukraine indicate a tentative shift in...
In 2014 Belarus Digest published over 250 articles. Below we listed top ten most viewed articles published this year. Top three articles deal with Ukraine. Interestingly, the fourth article correctly predicted the currency crises which Belarus is facing now. 1....
Belarus Digest interviewed Bruce Bucknell, British Ambassador to Belarus who has been serving in Minsk since July 2012. He also runs a blog about his work in Belarus. Bruce Bucknell shared his views on Belarusian identity, importance of...
On 27 June the Ostrogorski Centre launched the latest issue of the Journal of Belarusian Studies during a gathering of the Belarus Research Council in Vilnius. Additionally, Ryhor Astapenia presented the Centre's Belarus Profile project to Belarusian researchers -...
Belarusians are the most travel-restricted nation in Europe. Both their own government and the European Union seem to be determined not to let them out. The Belarusian authorities prevent leading opposition activists, students and state bureaucrats from travelling to...
The 22-year-old Belarusian Victoria Azarenka has just defeated Maria Sharapova to win the Australian Open and take over the women's No. 1 tennis ranking. Very few people know that Sharapova's parents are also from Belarus. They fled their home to escape the...
Last Friday the Library of Congress website published an article called 'Belarus: Browsing Foreign Websites a Misdemeanor'. The story authored by Peter Roudik raised a huge wave of attention first in the blogosphere and then in the mainstream...
Last month the Belarusian youth web site generation.by published a diagram showing that 2/3 of European Humanities University (EHU) graduates do not return to Belarus after completing their studies. According to generation.by, the data came from a poll of...
Last month Yale University Press published Andrew Wilson's book "Belarus - The Last European Dictatorship". The book covers Belarusian history from Polatsk Principality to the present day Belarus and offers particularly interesting insights into Lukashenka's rise to power and the system...