This paper discusses a weak ethnicity identification in Belarus' post-communist nation development (but a strong nation-state identification). Novel dynamic self-perception patterns in Belarusian society can be read as start of a slow ‘heating’ of ethnocultural vitality, as a result of elite agency. In this context, the ‘ethnic temperature’ concept may be explored from the view of its effect on group vitality and survival, but also as a fact relying on several political, cultural and historical factors.