A comprehensive and revelatory history of modern Belarus—from independence to Lukashenka's contested 2020 re-election.



'Andrew Wilson has done all students of European politics a great service by making the history of Belarus comprehensible, and by showing how the future of Belarus might be different than its present.'—Timothy Snyder, author of Bloodlands



Protests continue in Belarus in the aftermath of 2020's fraught presidential election. In this updated edition of his exploration of Belarus's complicated road to nationhood since it gained independence in 1991, Andrew Wilson has added two new chapters that reveal the extent of Aliaksandr Lukashenka's grip on power, the growth of the opposition movement and the violent crackdown that followed the vote. Wilson also examines the prospects for Europe as a whole of either Lukashenka's downfall or his survival with Russian support.