Belarusian Historians in Exile: New Circumstances, Old Problems

Oleg Łatyszonek

To the memory of Ivan S. Lubachko

Exile is a common experience for Belarusian historians. It could be said they almost always live in exile, even when in Belarus, because in their motherland they are often treated like strangers, even like enemies. This never-being-at home state has lasted for the entire period in which Belarus has existed as a modern nation. Belarusian national historiography was formed late, but not as late as is commonly held even by Belarusian historians themselves. A fundamental text, entitled Who Were Our Most Ancient Grandparents, appeared in 1863 in a school handbook, published by the Tsarist administration in Vilnius.1 The author of this text constructed a model of Belarusian history that is currently used today. First, he considered Belarus within its contemporary borders (earlier, only its eastern part was regarded as Belarus proper). Second, he regarded the ancient Krivichi tribe to be the direct ancestor of the Belarusians. In his view, ancient Belarus was a separate country from Kyivan Rus’. The author described Belarusian-Lithuanian relations as being akin to long-term cohabitation. In his opinion, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the common state of the Lithuanians and Belarusians in which, however, the Belarusian language, culture and the Orthodox confession predominated. This situation lasted until the union with Poland in 1569 and the religious union in 1596, when the Orthodox Church was subordinated to Catholicism. Consequently, this text contains all the questions important for modern Belarusian historiography. And, last but not least, the author understands “Belarusians” as meaning “we, Belarusians”, not “they”. What is interesting is that this text was written in the Western-Palessian dialect which differed significantly from the central dialect spoken between Vilna and Minsk that eventually became the basis of the Belarusian literary language. It also still seems very strange that the founder of Belarusian historiography remains anonymous, although contemporary Belarusian historians have pointed to several possible authors.

1 Rasskazy na belorusskom narečii. [Stories in Belarusian dialect]. Vilno, 1863.

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Belarus had no university until the end of the Tsarist regime, and that meant that Belarus remained in relative obscurity and also that Belarusian historians were educated outside Belarus and spent a considerable part of their lives abroad. Is this sufficient reason to consider them émigré historians? It would seem not. As long as they remained within the borders of the Russian Empire, they were within the borders of the same civilization and culture. Of course, study- ing and working in St. Petersburg or Moscow naturally brought Belarusians closer to the Russians and their culture, in the same way as staying in Kyiv or Kharkiv entailed closeness to Ukrainian culture. Contact with Poles would have been even easier in St. Petersburg than in Warsaw, since Belarusians often appeared as representatives of the Tsarist regime, as for example the eminent Belarusian linguist, ethnographer and literary historian, Jaŭchim Karski, who was chancellor of the Russian University there. Until the end of the Russian Empire, no Belarusian historian emigrated beyond Imperial borders for any reason; they did not visit even Lviv or Kraków for any length of time. The year 1910 saw the publication of Vaclaŭ Lastoŭski’s A Brief History of Belarus2 a book that marked the next important step in the development of Belarusian historiography. The work was only a compilation, but as it was written in Belarusian and edited several times; moreover, it was a popular historical work among the Belarusian people. Lastoŭski also became the head of the first Belarusian government in exile. In 1918–20 the Belarusians failed to establish an independent state. The fact that the occupants of Belarus changed frequently— the Bolsheviks, Germans, Poles and then, yet again, the Bolsheviks—hindered the consolidation of a Belarusian political movement. In 1919 there was a fatal split in the Council of the Belarusian People’s Republic (henceforth bpr) which had its seat in Polish-occupied Minsk. Those willing to fight against the Poles had to emigrate to Kaunas, where they appointed a government with Lastoŭski as its head. Later this government relocated to Germany. Following its split in 1925, part of the government together with the Deputy Prime Minister, Aliaksandr Ćvikievič, decided to move to Soviet Belarus, while the President Piotra Krečeŭski and his successor Vasil Zacharka took up residence in Prague. Curiously enough, all these political leaders dabbled in history, although it is difficult to ascertain which one of the two—Lastoŭski or Ćvikievič—was the more illustrious historian. Lastoŭski was first to offer the hypothesis that the term Rus’ had a religious character and that its spread across Eastern Europe was connected to the advancements of Christianity of the Byzantine Rite. Later, this hypothesis was used and popularized by a Polish émigré historian

2 Vlast [V. Lastoŭski]: Lastoŭski, 1910.