The Polish‐Lithuanian commonwealth since 1989: National narratives in relations among Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine

Those who hold that national identity amounts to an organic historical tradition are likely to believe that it directly influences policy, while those who consider it recent and constructed are apt to contend that it is manipulated by political elites. A third position holds that nationally conscious people create narratives which, while constrained by brute historical facts, invariably prove their right to statehood. National conflicts, then, are best predicted not by the actual precedent of bloodshed, but by the interactions of the narratives of neighbouring nations which have recently attained sovereignty. This argument is tested by the case of contemporary relations among Belarus, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine.