A National University for Belarus: Searching for the Future

A conversation with philosopher Pavel Barkouski

An article by Pavel Barkouski dedicated to attempts to establish a national university for Belarus between 2000 and 2024 has been published in Wschodnioznawstwo. The article also mentions the initiative to establish the Astafey Valovich Belarusian Research University.

We spoke with Pavel about how these efforts began and why many of these projects never developed into fully fledged universities.

Mr Barkouski, how did the search for a national university for Belarus begin, and which initiatives should be mentioned first and foremost?

“It began with dissatisfaction with the way the official system worked. Initiatives emerged that sought to think of a university not as a diploma factory, but as a space for critical thinking: EHU, the Flying University, the Belarusian Collegium, later ECLAB, the Nil Hilevich University…

These were different forms of searching for an alternative, but they all revolved around the same fundamental need. Often, they were responses to a crisis in the education system, but not all of these efforts aspired to become a nationwide project — in the sense of representing the interests of Belarusian society as a whole.”

Why do you describe the Flying University, ECLAB and the Belarusian Collegium as “proto-university projects”?

“Their strength was freedom. They could experiment, talk about issues that official universities remained silent about, and work without ideological control. But that was also their weakness: they had neither a stable legal status nor sustainable resources, nor the ability to develop as institutions over the long term.

In Belarus, it was generally difficult to establish a private university, and even more difficult to expect it to enjoy academic autonomy. Therefore, these initiatives often resembled ‘playing university’ rather than representing a genuine opportunity to establish one.”

Why did Belarusian State University never become a model national university?

“Unfortunately, BSU never managed to integrate successfully into global academia, despite its scale. Its orientation remained predominantly post-Soviet, with the Russian academic sphere serving as a major point of reference.

It also failed to become a national university in linguistic terms: Russian remained the primary language of instruction during almost all periods. In addition, the development of academic research was for a long time subject to ideological constraints, which contradicts the principles of academic autonomy enshrined in the Magna Charta Universitatum.”

You also mention the Nil Hilevich University separately. What did this case demonstrate?

“It demonstrated that even a cautious attempt to create a Belarusian-language university within the country was politically unacceptable. The project had strong symbolic significance, but under those conditions it had no chance of developing sustainably.

The policies of the Belarusian authorities did not facilitate the emergence of nationally oriented and independent academic projects, because they viewed them as a threat to their dominance. As a result, Belarusian higher education remained entrenched as a regional, Russian-speaking academic periphery.”

In your view, what is the most important thing to value about EHU’s experience?

“EHU is undoubtedly the longest-running and most institutionally sustainable independent Belarusian academic project that has existed outside the country for a long time. It preserved the idea of an independent university space for Belarusians at a moment when this became practically impossible within Belarus.

For some Belarusian students, EHU was for many years a window into Western academia and demonstrated a different standard of education from that found in Belarus — although predominantly in Russian.”

Was EHU’s transformation into a more regional and international project an adaptation or a loss of its original idea?

“I would rather call it an adaptation. From the outset, EHU positioned itself as an attempt to integrate a European approach to higher education into the Belarusian academic environment. In order to survive and develop within the Lithuanian and European academic space, the university had to change.

This does not necessarily mean abandoning the original idea, but rather shifting the emphasis towards a broader regional mission. This also influenced its student recruitment strategy and language policy: EHU’s audience consists predominantly of Russian-speaking applicants from Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova and the Baltic countries.”

In exile, after 2020, the Belarusian Academy and the Free Belarusian University became increasingly visible. What have they contributed to our community — and where are their objective limitations?

“They saved people and knowledge. They made it possible to continue teaching, studying and pursuing academic work. They addressed important topics related to the development of Belarusian civil society.

But their limitation is structural: they have to operate within external frameworks and therefore cannot fully perform the role of a distinctly Belarusian university. More often, this means being integrated into personnel-training programmes in Poland or providing postgraduate education without creating strong research environments.”

Turning to the Valovich University: what limitations of previous projects are, in your view, being addressed here in a fundamentally different way?

“First and foremost, it is the illusion that one can do without institutional logic. Here, a long-term perspective is built in from the outset: a structure, a mission, academic rules, and an understanding that a university is a marathon.

The main task is to combine European academic experience and integration into the Western intellectual environment with the specific needs of Belarus: to create an influential centre for regional studies, a hub for knowledge and expertise, a strong foundation for Belarusian identity, and a system for training specialists for future reforms — effectively, our own Belarusian Yale or Harvard.”

Looking at all this experience, what will be the most difficult practical test for Valovich University?

“To maintain a balance between the idea and reality: not to lose its values, but also not to remain merely in the symbolic realm. And, of course, to prove that the project can exist for the long term rather than relying on the enthusiasm of a few people.

Successful examples of universities that were established in exile and later returned to their countries are inspiring. But enthusiasm from the founding team alone is not enough for success — what is needed is broad consolidation among different organisations and groups willing to support it.”