SUMMARY:

The Institute for Belarusian Culture was the main research establishment of Soviet Belarus between 1922 and 1928. The article analyzes the scientific activity of Inbelkult’s Jewish and Belarusian scholars, and in particular their links with non-Soviet scholars and institutions. By comparing the Jewish and Belarusian sectors, it demonstrates that the institutional and political constraints imposed by the Belarusian Party apparatus were not the only factors in mechanisms of cooperation between Inbelkult and non-Soviet science. The scientific traditions, ideological sympathies and reputation of Belarusian and Jewish scholars shaped their relations with colleagues abroad, no less than the official policy, initially relatively tolerant toward “bourgeois” scholarship. The emphasis placed on international links by Jewish scholars differentiated them from their Belarusian counterparts after 1926 and shows that until 1928 Inbelkult did not produce and diffuse knowledge exclusively in the context of Soviet science.