Abstract

Contemporary political elites of Belarus and Ukraine play a very important role in the development of socio-political processes in both post-Soviet republics. Not only comparison, but even an attempt to describe them is a difficult task. First of all, because there is little research about the political elites of these two countries as such. To describe and understand the contemporary Belarusian and Ukrainian political elites, we have to study in detail their functioning in the Soviet period. It is necessary to compare current political elites in the post-Soviet area regarding their different characteristics (structure, origin, internal relations etc.) and including different levels (for example power elite and counter-elites).