Another Scientist Fired from Academy of Sciences

28.02.2007.

According to RFE/RL

On 19 March a sitting of the attestation commission of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus took place. The commission found that a candidate of historical sciences Iauhen Anishchanka doesn’t suit the position of a senior research worker of the Institute of History. The following day Mr. Anishchanka wrote application for resign from the position on his own free will.

Iauhen Anishchanka explained that he did this as the attestation commission didn’t propose him to take any other position or correct any mistakes. He believes that the real reason for such conclusion of the commission is his research that doesn’t comply with the state ideology as well as the policy of the institute’s director Aliaksandr Kavalenia that is aimed at liquidation of the remnants of academic liberties. In his work Mr. Anishchanka investigates the 2^nd half of the 18^th century, when the three divisions of the Great Principality of Lithuania (Belarus’ ancestor) took place. He proves that the Russian Empire and czarism played the key role in these divisions that predefined the fate of Belarusians for the next centuries. In 2004 the Supreme attestation commission declared his conclusions groundless and declined his doctor dissertation on this topic. Mr. Anishchanka is the author of 370 publications, 13 of which are books. He worked for the Institute of History for over 20 years. Before him the new institute administration also fired such prominent historians as Nina Stuzhynskaia, Henadz Sahanovich, Andrei Kishtymau and Siarhei Tarasau.