TO THE THEORIES ABOUT TUTEISHASTS IN BELARUSIAN LITERARY HISTORY: BETWEEN EAST AND WEST

The formation of the cultural identity of individual nations did not follow the same pattern because the broad spectrum of events and stimuli that determine culture and identity ensures that cultural diversity is shaped not only by geographical, political, and social conditions but also by accepting these conditions and accepting oneself in these conditions. This aspect allows us to address the multi-layered cultural features of the Belarusian cultural complex based on literary texts reflecting the defining periods of the constitution of Belarusian individuality. The starting point is the phenomenon of the so-called tuteishasts (local affiliation), which appears in Belarusian literature (and culture in a broader sense) as an attitude guaranteeing a safe position between foreign ideologies and their influence. Existing and own interpretative findings are confronted with theories about the importance of ethnicity and the national identity of modern nations. We perceive self-identification as the specific essence of national identity. The awareness of belonging to a particular culture and accepting the environment’s expectations is part of the group identity, a combination of personality and group. Its feature is the sharing of specific social and cultural characteristics. It is gradually being built, developed, and best identified in contact with foreign culture, which allows us to use literary texts as a basis for interpretative explanations of the foundations of national identity in the Belarusian context.