MIDDLE CLASS VALUES, PSYCHOANALYSIS, RELIGION, AND THE DEBATES ON BELARUSIAN NATIONAL ESSENCE IN INTERWAR POLAND

Abstract

This article examines debates on Belarusian national character among Belarusian intellectuals and political activists in interwar Poland (1921-1939), with particular attention to the role of the Belarusian Christian Democratic movement. The study explores how discussions of national character became a tool for addressing broader questions of national identity, social modernization, and cultural transformation in a society marked by political fragmentation, confessional diversity, and the absence of a developed middle class. Drawing on periodicals, political writings, memoirs, and scholarly literature, the article analyzes the intellectual origins of these debates and situates them within wider European discussions on national character, psychology, and nation-building. Special attention is paid to the influence of secular concepts of psychology and psychoanalysis, which Belarusian Christian Democrats combined with religious and moral principles in order to formulate a program of national renewal. The article demonstrates that their vision of social change was closely connected with the adoption of West European and North American middle-class values, including civic responsibility, self-discipline, education, and active participation in public life. It concludes that concepts of national character served as a flexible ideological instrument for mobilizing Belarusian society, promoting modernization, and strengthening national consciousness among the predominantly rural population.