Yulia Ponomareva1; 1 Southern Federal University, Russian Federation
Discussion
August 2020 was marked by the rapid growth of protest movement in Republic of Belarus due to the public discontent with the election fraud; this article examines the protests during the political crisis in the Republic of Belarus in 2020 as a specific kind of political performance. The violation of human rights as the consequence of military troops’ assaults during the protests did not suppressed the opposition, but just escalated the political crisis and caused the prolonging of peaceful demonstrations. Scrutinizing the issue can demonstrate the complexity of whole process of political performance, which is taking place in Belarus. This article aims to study the protests as a bright example of political theatre and performative assembly concepts based on selected works of J. Butler and Guy Debor. Demonstrations could be considered as a multilateral act of communication; its scheme involves protesters, aiming to reshape the objective reality into new framework, and governmental office with military forces, whose actions are more of a reactionary nature and are characterized by aggressive omnipotence and ferocity. The spectacle concept involves the preponderant pole of representation, or the role of artists in the spectacle. As a result, the author detects factors (gender, semiotic and national) that were acutely manifested during the protest and can further influence the development of both domestic political and international relations in Belarus.
