The banned edition of “The History of Belarus. Methodical instructions for seminars.” Appeared online.

According to NGO’s press cutting service, the site of the students and graduates of the World Economy specialty of the Belarusian State Agricultural Academy http://gorki-meo.org now contains a full version of the book “The History of Belarus. Methodical instructions for seminars.”
The book was banned by the BSAA administration almost at the moment it was printed. The whole edition was confiscated and the authors were forced to give away their copies. The dissatisfaction of the administration was caused by the contents - “variance to state ideology”. The additional opinions of the critics and the scientific body of the academy were ignored. 500 copies of the book were printed on money of the academy. The whole edition managed to “live” for a week. But the authors managed to safe some copies of the book from extermination. According to the “free information” principle a group of enthusiasts placed the text of the edition online. The motives for this were:
a) the book is well written - this small reference book may really help to educate a citizen of independent Belarus, a country with a tangled, difficult, but long history, but not a country of an unknown state origin, where the history begins or from BSSR times, or from the first presidential elections.
b) The thing called common for everyone “state ideology” doesn’t exist. And it may not exist according to Constitution, until article 4 is not deleted. It says: The Democracy in Belarus accomplished through a variety of political institutes, ideologies and views. The ideology of political parties, religious or other civil organizations, social groups may not be set as obligatory to citizens.
The most educated of the so-called “ideologists”, at least those who read the constitution knows that perfectly and so often use euphemisms instead of the term “state ideology”, like “ideology of the state”, etc. The least educated are ready to confiscate books, fire the teachers, and expel students for the sake of some phantom ideology. Just like those once burned the books and the heretics.
The full text of the book may be found here:
http://gorki-meo.org/lib/h_b/historyja_bielarusi_metadyczka.htm