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International Congress of Belarusian Studies in 2018
After a long process of preparatory negotiations and measures, the Organizing Committee has to announce that the International Congress of Belarusian Studies will not take place in 2018.
From November 2017, on the initiative of the Organizing Committee, representatives of the academic community, government bodies and other stakeholders, the preparatory work has been conducted for the Congress to take place in Belarus. Over the past seven months, fruitful and intense negotiations have been carried out with the Belarusian State University, the National Academy of Sciences, representatives of the academic community, civil society organizations and other stakeholders.
However, the discussion of the technical details has revealed a significant number of organizational difficulties. Apparently, holding the Congress at a high organizational level, coordinating the interests of all parties and defining priorities requires considerably more time and organizational measures and can not be implemented this year.
We express our gratitude to all academic and public institutions, government bodies, which formally and informally supported the Organizing Committee in their endeavor to host the Congress in Belarus for the first time. We also understand that many of the technical and organizational obstacles are technical in nature and we do not see any political connotations in them.
In accordance with the previously defined concept, the Organizing Committee has plans to hold the next International Congress of Belarusian Studies in 2019 outside of Belarus and will continue working to have the Congress take place in Belarus in 2020.
Nevertheless, in 2018 the Organizing Committee is going to carry on the tradition of Congress’s Award for the best scholar publications in previous year. The details will be announced shortly.
Andrei Kazakevich,
Head of the Organizing Committee