KUPALINKA, BELARUS -- It hardly seems a fitting end for a man many consider a father of the nation. Stanislav Shushkevich pads around his wood-walled dacha wearing coveralls, a lumberjack shirt and suspenders, his thick fingers dirty from a morning spent working around the small countryside cottage. He apologizes several times for the mess, and has to clean tools off the kitchen table to make space for us to sit and talk. Like many Belarussians, gardening at his dacha has long been a hobby for him, but these days it's more than that for Mr. Shushkevich -- it's almost all...