Collection of articles on the history of Belarus download fb2. Vadim Rostov - a collection of articles on the history of Belarus Pages of the past articles on the history of Belarus

NATIONAL IDENTITY OF BELARUS

Any national identity is based, first of all, on the fact that a citizen identifies himself with his State and with his ancestors in the past. As for Belarus, in the past it (as a subject with that name) existed only from 1840 to 1863 (and the name was prohibited by Russia). Until 1840, we were always called Lithuania, but because of our “unpleasant for Russia” history, ideologists gave this name to Zhmudi-Samogitia of the Zhemoits and Aukshtaits, who in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania until about 1500 did not even have their own nobility.

A funny detail: the host of the series “Chronicle of Times” says that in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania the “Lithuanian gentry” consisted of Zhemoits and Aukshtaits. In fact, the Census of the Armed Forces of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1528 shows that on the territory of present-day Belarus and in the volosts of Kovno and Vilna, the entire gentry consisted of 100% Belarusians (Litvins) with surnames ending in “-ich”. And even in Zhemoytia-Samogitia itself (the current Republic of Lietuwa), 80% of the gentry are Belarusians with surnames starting with “-ich”, and only 20% of the gentry are Zhemoyts and Aukstaites with surnames starting with “-is”. That is, we ruled Zhemoytia and its people, and not vice versa! And during the Battle of Orsha in 1514, no Zhemoit gentry existed even in Zhemoytia itself! These were then natives and pagans who did not even have their own written language - so to imagine them as some kind of “nobles” (and even “princes”) is to engage in ridiculous fantasies. At the same time, the authors of the series call the family of Prince Mindaugas "Lithuanian princes", although this is the family of the Prussian king Ringold and his son Mindaugas - they have absolutely nothing to do with the Zhemoits and Aukstaites of the Republic of Lietuva, and besides, they did not know the language of the Eastern Balts (which their names have now been changed by the Zhemoits to the never-existent “Mindaugas” or “Vytautas”).

Everything is explained simply: after our occupation in 1795 and after our subsequent anti-Russian uprisings, tsarism set the task of depriving us of historical memory. Therefore, he began to instill the idea that, they say, it was not our ancestors who fought with Russia throughout their entire history, but they were only forced to do so by the Zhemoits and Aukstaites who oppressed them. Presumably, with their stone axes - from their thickets, in which they hid from the whole world, which is why they preserved a language so similar to ancient Indo-European.

Same with the name of the people. The term “Belarusian” first appears during the war of 1654-67. (in which every second of our residents died). This word, introduced by Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, did not mean any nationality, but only meant a collaborator and traitor who betrayed his faith and oath - and accepted the Muscovite faith with an automatic oath to the Tsar of Muscovy. At first, all Rusyns (now Ukrainians) of Eastern Ukraine who entered into an agreement with the Kremlin in 1654 are listed as “Belarusians” in the documents of Muscovy. Then, with the beginning of the war, the number of these Ukrainian “Belarusians” is supplemented by the inhabitants of the city of Chausy, who were the first to betray their faith and country - and swore allegiance to the faith and the king of the invaders. Then came Mogilev and our other cities, including Brest. They, however, then returned to their faith again and rejected the Moscow satrap (for which the inhabitants of Brest, by order of the tsar, were massacred and thrown on stakes into ditches to be devoured by animals, and the inhabitants, for example, of Mogilev were anathematized by the Russian Orthodox Church of Moscow "until the end of time" "). In our country, the “Belarusians” included us Litvins, and those rare Jews who betrayed their Judaism under the threat of death, and the Zhemoits with the Aukshtayts, and the Poles, and the Gypsies.

A characteristic detail: in the huge lists of thousands and thousands of our fellow citizens who were driven into Russian slavery preserved in Moscow, there is not a single “Belarusian”. There are only Litvins with surnames ending in “-ich” (that is, today’s Belarusians) and Zhmudins with surnames ending in “-is”. But the “Belarusians” (as those who accepted the faith of Moscow and the oath to its tsar) were not subject to murder or slavery; they were “new subjects of the Kremlin.” At the beginning of that war, many “Belarusians” appeared, and then they completely disappeared from us, since everyone who accepted the faith of Moscow with an oath to its tsar later abandoned it.

It was in this meaning that Catherine II saw the word “Belarusian” when she captured us during the division of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. At that time, she had absolutely no intention of changing our name Litvinians to “Belarusians,” since for her the term “Belarusian” did not mean our people, but only those who converted from Catholicism, Uniatism, Islam or Judaism to the Moscow faith. According to this principle, Catherine created two different hussar regiments: in Grodno, Uniates and Catholics served, and in Belorussian, those of our gentry who accepted the Moscow faith served.

The desire to “mentally link” our people with the Russian Empire then manifested itself in a completely different way: in 1820–1840. The officialdom of Russia uses the term “Lithuanian-Russians”, invented by them, in the name of us. This is also what the famous collector of Russian folklore I. P. Sakharov (1807–1863) calls our people in the first edition of his “Tales of the Russian People” in 1836. This is the name we would continue to be called under if it were not for our uprising of 1830-31. As part of the “liquidation of the foundations of separatism,” tsarism decided in 1840 to forever ban the word “Lithuania” itself and remove it from its state. At the same time, it was necessary to ban the name of our people “Litvins”. They came up with the idea that now let them be called Belarusians - they say, after all, by the decree of the Tsar of 1839, our Uniate faith was indeed prohibited and the Moscow faith was implanted in its place. That is, all of them turned out to be “Belarusians”. However, even in 1953 everything rural population In the Minsk region, when surveyed by ethnographers, they continued to call themselves Litvins, and not some kind of “Belarusians,” although they had lived for a long time in both the BPR and the BSSR.

Today, not even all Belarusian historians know these details about “how we became Belarusians” in 1840-63 - because everything has to be sought out and found bit by bit in dusty archives only today. The creators of the series “Chronicle of Times” do not know this for sure - like, of course, millions of Belarusians, because this is not taught in history lessons in schools.

Instead of clearly and clearly telling children about how and when tsarism replaced our name of the Litvin people with Belarusians, textbooks broadcast fables that “Belarusians lived in Lithuania ON” (that is, “in parallel” and virtually somewhere in History with its main people, the Litvins - our ancestors). That the documents of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were kept in the ancient Belarusian language (which was then called the Lithuanian language of the Litvins - our ancestors). And that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was ruled not by Belarusian princes, but by Lithuanian princes - although these are complete synonyms. The basis for this insanity is set by the encyclopedia "Belarus": "The Belarusian ethnic group was formed in the XIII-XVI centuries", although the Statutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania list all the peoples of our country: Litvins as forming a state, but Zhemoits, Aukshtayts, Rusyns (Ukrainians of Volyn) and Jews - as violated in their rights. And there are no “Belarusians” in the Statutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania! But all Litvins are 100% with our surnames ending in “-ich”, which we today find “Belarusian”. So what kind of “Belarusian ethnic group” was formed in the 13th–16th centuries in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, supposedly “different from Lithuania”? WE WERE THIS LITHUANIA - and not someone else. And not a single “Belarusian” existed in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

The ignorance of our 10-million-strong “nation” of this most IMPORTANT moment for us - how the Litvins were turned into “Belarusians” in 1840, and Lithuania into “Belarus” - is a MONSTROUS HOLE in our national consciousness. This HOLE interrupts the connection between our generations and our entire history, and is an obstacle to us seeing our country today as the historical heir of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

The most interesting thing is that this mental HOLE in the continuity of the national consciousness of the people was also in the BPR. There they received freedom and declared Statehood, returned their state symbols - but no one knew how and why “Belarus emerged from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.” In particular, this issue was completely ignored in the famous book by V. U. Lastovsky (member of the BPR government) “A Short History of Belarus,” published back in 1910 in Vilna. Not having an answer to this question, which is vital for our national identity, even the BPR government began to rush around frantically, doubting its Statehood - and finally decided to turn to Democratic Russia with a request to join it as a federal entity. As is known, Russian Democratic Republic Kerensky was overthrown by the Bolshevik junta, and they soon attacked the BPR, and Lenin ordered the complete liquidation of our State, including us in the RSFSR. A good lesson for Belarusians.

Because of this HOLE in the continuity of the national consciousness of the people, we were not able to establish ourselves as a National State in the mid-90s, like Russia, Ukraine and other countries of the ex-USSR. We are the only ones in the ex-USSR who did not introduce the national name of our currency (Belarusian thaler and penny), did not introduce the national name of the parliament (Rada), and abandoned the historical symbols of the Statehood of our ancestors.

Collection of articles on the history of Belarus PRINT OF MINDOVG “There are no Belarusians” ON AND THE BATTLE OF KULIKOV How Ivan the Terrible “liberated” Polotsk. Reflections on National History The Unknown War 1654–1667 THE DEATH OF LITHUANIA 1939: CAPTURE OF WESTERN BELARUS WHERE LITHUANIA CAME FROM? To the millennium of Lithuania LITHUANIA-BELARUS AND ZHMUD-LETUVA “Rus'” AND “BELARUS” Disputes about our history THE FORGOTTEN “CHASE” WHO ARE THE “EASTERN SLAVS”? ON and VKM MYTHS ABOUT SUSANIN OLD DISPUTES. A story about the struggle of the CPSU with the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 1960s IN SEARCH OF THE SLAVS. Where and how did the Slavs come from? BELARUS COSSACKS. Did the Belarusian Cossacks once exist? PARADOXES OF BELARUS HISTORY. “IVANS WHO DO NOT REMEMBER RELATIONSHIP” Vilnia-Vilno-Vilnius. History of this city

Collection of articles on the history of Belarus

PRINT OF MINDOVG

Rice. 1. Image of the seal of Prince Mindovg.

The strangeness of the seal is not only in its runic inscription, but also in its combination at the same time Orthodox cross on the shield of the horseman of the “Pursuit” - and the Catholic crown. Doctor of Technical Sciences from Yekaterinburg Oleg Leonidovich Sokol-Kutylovsky was able to read the runic inscription on the seal. He gave the decoding in his article “Slavic runic inscription on the seal of Prince Mindovg” (Sokol-Kutylovsky O.L., Slavic runic inscription on the seal of Prince Mindovg // “Academy of Trinitarianism”, M., El No. 77-6567, pub. 14018 , 11/17/2006). I will give excerpts from this interesting publication.

DECODING THE INSTRUCTION

“An impression of the seal of Prince Mindovg, which depicts the coat of arms “Pahonia”, was published in the book by V. U. Lastovsky “A Short History of Belarus”, published in 1910 in Vilna. The image contains runic signs that have not yet been read. After reading a number of Slavic runic inscriptions, I tried to read this rather late inscription from the mid-13th century, when, it would seem, Slavic runes had already fallen out of use. However, it turned out that at that time Slavic runes were still used in some places, and in their original form, without borrowing signs from other writing systems.

If it were not for the existing runic inscriptions, one would think that in Fig. Figure 1 shows an image of the coat of arms, made in accordance with the canons of European heraldry. However, some coats of arms may bear a motto. Is this so in in this case? Let us imagine the available runes in the form of a string of the most suitable Slavic (Russian) runes found in other Slavic runic texts (Fig. 2).

The inscription shown in Fig. 2, reads as follows: “S-VA-E PE-CA-TA K-N-E-Z M-I-N-D-O-G Z-TA-V-I”, which in modern Russian means : “PRINCE MINDOG PLACES HIS SEAL.”

As follows from some medieval chronicle sources, the name of this prince was pronounced as Mindovg, but the “V” rune in the name is clearly not present on this inscription. How could such a discrepancy arise? In this version of reading the name of the prince, all runic signs are used as letters. But in the same inscription, some of the characters are syllabic runes. Therefore, the fourth (double) sign of the name can be read as the syllabic rune “BEFORE”, and the vowel rune “I” after it, as the sound “U”. Then the whole name sounds like "MINDOUG". In Belarus, even now, instead of the sound “v”, they pronounce the short sound “u” and even added the following letter, “u short”: ў. For example, the word “everything” is written and pronounced as “ўсё”. That is, writing the name “MINDOUG” in Russian runes is equivalent to writing this name in Cyrillic as “MINDOVG”, and in modern Belarusian language as “MINDOUG”.

...The use of the rune “ЦЪ” instead of the rune “ЧЪ” in the word “seal” speaks of a “clicking” pronunciation, giving the sound “tsch”, which could be written down by ear by any of these runes.

IN last word In the inscription, the first sound was apparently pronounced voiced, that is, as “zs”, which explains the use of the “ЗЪ” rune in this word.

...The two separate signs on both sides of the lower part of the Christian crown in the image apparently relate to religious symbolism. Thus, in Fig. 1 shows the personal seal of Prince Mindaugas, made entirely of ancient Slavic runic signs, some of which are used as syllabic runes, and some of the signs are used as letters. There are no borrowings from Germanic runes, Latin script or Cyrillic in this inscription.”

COMMENTS

So far, I completely agree with the researcher from Yekaterinburg. The meaning of the inscription is quite logical for printing. Moreover, what is significant is that it is written, as it seems, in the Belarusian language - with a short “u”, with clicking and other realities of the Belarusian language. We will return to this fact later.

But further reasoning by O. L. Sokol-Kutylovsky seems completely erroneous. He continues:

“The Slavs of this new Russian-Lithuanian or Lithuanian-Russian principality that arose in the 13th century (not to be confused with modern Lithuania), some of whom were previously residents of Kievan Rus, and some may have come from East Prussia (Porussia), spoke their own (Russian) language and wrote in Cyrillic. But, as follows from the inscription on this seal, they did not forget their ancient Slavic writing. Further, for many hundreds of years, entering into a confederation with the Catholic Kingdom of Poland, which used the Latin alphabet, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania still retained the Russian language, and the Cyrillic alphabet was used in internal office work, despite the fact that some part of the population was forced to switch to the Catholic religion

It would seem that reading this inscription did not add any new information: the inscription only confirms that the seal belonged to Prince Mindovg. However, the use of Old Russian (Old Slavic) runic writing in the inscription on the personal seal clearly speaks of the Slavic roots of this prince. Moreover, in the 13th century, such an inscription emphasizes the prince’s belonging to the pre-Christian tradition, regardless of his forced collaboration with one or another branch of Christianity. That is, with a high degree of confidence we can say that Prince Mindovg was a Slavic prince.”

Alas, all this is nonsense inspired by the great powers Russian myths. These myths were cultivated in the USSR by ideologists of the CPSU, but in reality there was never any “Ancient Rus'” and no “Old Russian people” on the territory of ancient Belarus. To illustrate, I will cite the opinions of two modern Belarusian historians.

Doctor of Historical Sciences Zakhar Shibeka in “Essay on the History of Belarus. 1795–2002":

“Under the Brezhnev regime, the historical concept of justification of the tsarist and Bolshevik regimes in Belarus was finally formed (the school of L. Abetsedarsky). A myth, created by the ideologists of tsarism, was imposed on the Belarusian people about the existence of a common ancient Russian state (Kievan Rus) and some ancient Russian nationality, the common ancestor of three fraternal Slavic peoples. In accordance with this myth, Belarusians and Ukrainians received the status of “younger brothers of the Russian brother” and were deprived of the right to the ancient period of their history (IX–XIII centuries).

When in the mid-60s, literary critic Nikolai Plashkevich and philosopher Nikolai Aleksyutovich stated in the press that the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is the heritage of the Belarusians, their speech was sharply condemned at party meetings and in newspapers. Abetsedarsky and company proclaimed the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) as a “Russian-Lithuanian state”, as a result of which the Belarusians lost along with it the richest pages of their medieval history (XIII-XVI centuries). The imperial school deliberately did not pay attention to the autonomy of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania within the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was portrayed not as a union of two peoples, but as an exclusively Polish state. At the same time, a myth was created about how Belarusians and Ukrainians strove from “Polish captivity” to the rule of the Russian Tsar.

The history of the Belarusian state, according to Abetsedarsky, began in 1919. It turned out that it was the Bolsheviks who created both Belarus and Belarusians. For such a good deed, Belarusians should have been forever grateful to the Communist Party.”

Doctor of Historical Sciences Valentin Mazets in his work “National Policy of Communists in the BSSR (1945–1985)”:

“Since September 1961, the course “History of the BSSR” was introduced in secondary schools of the BSSR. [Before 1961, there was no subject with the study of the history of Belarus in the education of the BSSR at all. - Approx. V.R.] He was studied according to textbook, which was written by the Belarusian author, Professor L. S. Abetsedarsky.

The main conceptual provisions formulated in it largely predetermined the direction and content of historiographic approaches to the consideration of key moments in the history of Belarus, which dominated the Belarusian historical science until the late 80s - early 90s. XX century. [These approaches have been preserved in what has now been removed with the help of Russian historians"and the historical and documentary series "Chronicle of Times" shown on TV of the Republic of Belarus in 2008, where the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania-Belarus is presented exclusively in the prism of the state and national interests of today's Russia, but not of Belarus. - Approx. V.R.] It was from this textbook that for 30 years all schoolchildren in Belarus became acquainted with the history of their Fatherland. Therefore, he had a decisive influence on the formation of the views of the current ruling elite of the country on the historical past of our country and our people.

Abetsedarsky’s textbook revived a myth formulated during the reign of the Russian autocracy by representatives of “Western Russianism.” This refers to the fundamentally incorrect position about the existence in the 9th–13th centuries of a common homeland of the Belarusian, Ukrainian and Russian ethnic groups - ancient Rus'. This myth has long been refuted by science (archaeology, genetics, anthropology, linguistics, history), but still lives in the minds of many generations of people who graduated from school in 1962–1991.

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was characterized in the manual as a state of Lithuanian feudal lords. In this regard, the title of one of Abetsedarsky’s pamphlets, published in 1970, is characteristic: “Did there exist a Belarusian state in the past?” Of course, the author gave a purely negative answer to this rhetorical question.

Abetsedarsky and his students argued that “the desire of the population of Belarus for reunification with the fraternal Russian people”, starting from the 15th century, was expressed in the form of a “popular movement for reunification with the Russian state” (as they called the Principality of Moscow, which was one of the uluses of the Golden Horde, and in 1480 it became independent). The aggressive war of the Muscovite kingdom against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1654-67), during which the population of the Belarusian lands decreased by 53.5% over 18 years (from 2 million 900 thousand to 1 million 350 thousand people), was called by the authors of the manual “ the struggle of the Belarusian people for reunification with Russia.”

Three sections of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at the end of the 18th century (in 1772, 1793, 1795) are presented in the manual as “the reunification of Belarus with Russia.” The beginning of Belarusian statehood, according to the concept of L. Abetsedarsky, is associated not with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and not with the BPR, but with the proclamation of the BSSR in 1919.

As stated in the corresponding volumes of the “Encyclopedia of the History of Belarus” (1993) and the encyclopedia “The Grand Duchy of Lithuania” (2006), Abetsedarsky, his supporters and followers assessed most of the facts and events of national history from the standpoint of vulgar sociology. However, any attempts to deviate from the conceptual provisions they set out were harshly suppressed.

For example, after the publication in the journal “Polymya” (No. 5 for 1966) of an article by candidate of philosophical sciences Nikolai Aleksyutovich “Where is the objective truth?”, in which the author argued that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania “in its ethnic composition, in its territory and culture was mainly Belarusian,” the authorities organized a widespread propaganda campaign aimed at condemning this and similar statements.”

As we see, in his article O.L. Sokol-Kutylovsky operates with false propositions that have long been refuted by the entire historical science of Belarus.

Belarusians have never been any such “Rus” and have always been only Lithuania. The full name of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (that is, Litvins-Belarusians), Russian (that is, Rusyns-Ukrainians) and Zhemoit (that is, Zhemoits and Aukshtaits, the current Republic of Lietuva). Yes, the Rusyn-Ukrainians of the Kiev region, Galicia, Volyn spoke their Russian language (Ukrainian) in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but the Lithuanian-Belarusians of the territory of modern Belarus did not speak Russian at all - but their LITHUANIAN (Litvinian) language. It contains 25% Prussian vocabulary, it clacks and clacks, it’s not just not Russian - but it’s not even Slavic language, and Balto-Slavic.

I am surprised why the author calls the Belarusian language “Russian” when he himself draws attention to its characteristics. The most amazing thing is that the language of the Poles of Krakow (which was pure Slavic until later mixed with the psheka language of the Masurians of Mazova - the Western Balts) - was practically no different at all from the Rusyn language of the Galicians or Kievites, but the author does not consider it “Russian”. Why? This is very strange: in fact, the twin of the Rusyn language is not considered “Russian” by the author, but the Balto-Slavic language of the Litvins-Belarusians is suddenly “Russian”... Clearly, the ideological position of tsarism can be traced here - to consider the Litvins-Belarusians supposedly “Russians” - without the slightest scientific basis for this. Like, an axiom: Rus' was here.

Not for many hundreds of years, but for two centuries - the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth existed from 1569 to 1794 - 225 years. Is this “many hundreds of years”? And we didn’t have any Russian language. In office work, the Ukrainian (Rusyn) language was indeed used, since it was also the language of religion - the Russian Orthodox Church of Kyiv. Which has absolutely nothing to do with the Finno-Slavic language of Muscovy (now Russia), whose language today it was erroneously and completely unscientifically invented to call the “Russian language”. And the local population of Lithuania-Belarus always spoke their Balto-Slavic language - and not Russian or Slavic, which even after the monstrous Russification is still preserved in the current Belarusian language. So where did the author get the idea that our population spoke “Russian”? That is, specifically - in Ukrainian. Belarusians have never spoken Ukrainian - just as they have never spoken the language of Muscovy-Russia. Nonsense.

What does “was forced to convert to the Catholic religion” mean? All Catholics in Lithuania-Belarus are either former pagans or former Protestants. At the beginning of the 19th century, another part of the Uniates converted to Catholicism due to the repressions of tsarism - but this was already under the Russian occupation. The author has some caricatured ideas about the history of Belarusians.

He writes: “However, the use of Old Russian (Old Slavic) runic writing in the inscription on the personal seal clearly speaks of the Slavic roots of this prince.”

This is not an ancient Russian runic letter - there is nothing remotely “Russian” in it. And this runic letter can be called ancient Slavic only with great reservations. This is a letter from the WESTERN BALTICS, and therefore discussions about the Slavic roots of Mindaugas are, of course, erroneous. Moreover, there is no logical connection between the language of the inscription on the seal and the nationality of the prince: for example, Dmitry Donskoy, on his coins minted after the Battle of Kulikovo, wrote on one side in Arabic: “Coin of King Tokhtamysh, may his days be long.” This does not mean that the Moscow prince was an Arab.

What is important about the inscription on the Mindovg seal is not that it is made in runes (which O.L. Sokol-Kutylovsky for some reason considers a “monopoly” of the Muscovites or, at best, the Slavs). And the important thing is that it is made in a language that appears to be the Belarusian language. According to the logic of the researcher, it turns out that Mindovg was a Belarusian. And since Belarusians in Russia are considered to be “Slavs”, and even supposedly involved in Rus' and Russia, then let’s indulge in fantasies...

In fact, this decoding of the runic inscription should be interpreted differently.

THE AGE OF MINDOVG

Just as O. L. Sokol-Kutylovsky speculatively calls the language of Mindovg’s press “Russian” or “Slavic” - in the same way, many Belarusian researchers would make a similar speculative conclusion that, they say, this is the Belarusian language. This means that Mindovg was a Belarusian.

However, Mindovg’s press language is not Russian, not Slavic, or even Belarusian.

As for the Russian language, in relation to the era of the X-XIII centuries, today it means at least TWO different languages. One is the language of Carpathian Rus' (which lay on the territory of modern Hungary with its capital in Kev), from which it passed to Galicia and Volyn, and from them to Kyiv. This is a South Slavic dialect with Balkan dialect differences. The second is the language of Polabian Rus', which the colonists of Rurik (Obodrits) brought with them to Ladoga. As the permanent leader of the Novgorod expedition, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Valentin Yanin, recently said in the journal Science and Life, this language was very different from the language of Kyiv and in fact was no different from the language of the Poles. In fact, this “Russian language” of Rurik was simply the language of all the Slavs of Laba, Odra and Vistula, therefore it is unscientific to call it “RUSSIAN LANGUAGE” - it is simply a Slavic language, completely and in every way identical to the Lyash language.

Neither in the Lyash-Russian language of Rurik's Polabian Rus' (and then also in the Novgorod Rus' he created), nor in the Balkan-Slavic language of Kyiv, there were any traces of Balticism, although such are obvious in the language of the inscription on the seal of Mindovg. So why on earth should this language be classified as “Russian” or “Slavic”?

Now about the Belarusian language. During the time of Mindaugas, of course, no “Belarusians” lived here. (The very name “Belarusians” was invented and introduced here by tsarism only in 1840.) There was still no ethnic community at all on the territory of Belarus - there were different tribes that later formed it in their merger. Therefore, there was no Belarusian language as such (the result of a merger of tribes). So far there were only the languages of these tribes themselves.

There were no Slavs on the territory of Belarus (except for small colonies of Poles from the first half of the 7th century in Western Belarus). To the south of Prussia (Porussia - as the Rusyns of Polabian Rus called it) there was Mazova Mazurov, in the Grodno, Brest and Minsk regions - the Great Yatva of the Yatvingians (the capital of Dorogichin, since 1945, for the first time in history, transferred from us to Poland with Bialystok), in the north of Belarus - the principality Dainova of the Dainova people (capital of Lida). All are Western Balts, like the Prussians themselves. These principalities were briefly conquered by Kievan Rus as a result of bloody wars (but from this, of course, they did not become any “Rus”, just as they did not become “Slavic” - because it is simply stupid to assume such a thing).

In 1230, the Prussian king Ringold, father of Mindvog, under the pressure of German-Polish expansion, begins to look for the “promised land” for the exodus from Prussia of his Prussian people, and the peoples of the Slavs and Balts of Polabia and Pomerania, who had previously taken refuge in Prussia and now served the Prussian king . He attacks the Kyiv vassal principalities of Western Belarus and defeats the Kyiv occupiers of the region. As V.U. Lastovsky writes, the battle took place on the right bank of the Neman, near the village of Mogilno. The Ukrainian princes David Lutsky and Dmitry Drutsky with their Ukrainian (Rusyn) squads were defeated and killed. At the same time, the people in Polotsk rebelled, and Ringold easily annexed it to his new possessions. By 1221, there are references in German chronicles to the fact that the Polabians (apparently Lutvins of Liutva from Menzlin) migrated somewhere to the Neman. Apparently, they took part in this campaign of Ringold and settled in the area of Novogrodek (now Novogrudok), where they founded the new Lyutva-Lithuania number 2. This people of the Lutichians (also Western Balts) were civilizationally head and shoulders above the local Yatvingians, Mazurs, Dainovichi, Krivichi - because and became the heart of the new state, from them it received a new name - Lyutva or Lithuania.

And finally, the last component of the Belarusian ethnic group is the Krivichi of Kriv, the inhabitants of Eastern Belarus. They, as historians unanimously believe, are also not Slavs, but a Baltic-speaking tribe, which was to some extent Slavicized by the Obodrites and other Varangian Slavs, since they lay on the way “from the Varangians to the Greeks.”

It’s interesting that in another article “The Oldest Lithuanian Flag” - whose is it?” O. L. Sokol-Kutylovsky writes:

“Another parallel can be traced between Prussia and Belarus. The title (or sacred name) of the high priests of the Prussian religious center, Romuva, - Krive - coincides with the name of the Slavic tribe of Krivichi. Moreover, this word - krievs - still means "Russian" in Latvian. Historically reliable information about Romuva is scanty. At the head of this sacred organization was the high priest, Krive-Krivaitis, who was actually the head of state before the arrival of the Teutonic Order in Prussia. Peter of Dusburg, an order priest and chronicler of the early 14th century, who in 1326 wrote the “Chronicle of the Prussian Land” glorifying the deeds of the Teutons, testified to the power of the High Priest Romuva: “...Krive, whom the Prussians revered as the pope, for as the lord pope rules the universal church of Christians, so, according to his will or command, not only the above-mentioned pagans were ruled, but also the Lithuanians and other peoples of the Livonian land. Such was his power that not only he himself or any of his relatives, but even a messenger with his staff or another distinctive sign, passing through the borders of the above-mentioned pagans, was held in great esteem by kings, nobles and common people.” According to T. Narbut, the power of the high priest Krive-Kriveite covered “the entire land of Lithuania, Prussia, Lithuania, Samogitia, Kuronia, Zemgale, Livonia, Latgale and even the lands of the Krivichi Russes (Creviczensivim Russorum).”

Let me note again that the Krivichi were never any “Russians”, just as they were not a “Slavic tribe”. Krivichi are Balts by language, genes, anthropology, and culture. Including according to the pagan faith - they worshiped the serpent Zhivoit; the Slavs never had this Baltic cult.

This entire region is a single community of Western Balts, which is also shown by the consonance of self-names: Mazova, Jatva, Dainova, Lithuania, Kriva (the toponym Warsaw, the capital of Mazova, can also be included here). Everything is in “-va”, which is the “calling card” of the Western Balts. This (together with Prussia) is a completely special cultural and ethnic enclave in Europe, which is fundamentally different from its neighbors - both the Slavs and the Eastern Balts (Zhemoit, Aukštait, Latvians). Moreover, Prussia was the pagan religious leader in it - that’s why it later conquered it with such ease, creating the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

And here we come to the main question: what language was the inscription on the Mindovg seal written in?

PRINT LANGUAGE

The seal obviously dates back to 1255–1260, already at the end of the reign of Mindaugas. He became King of Prussia with the death of his father Ringold in 1242. In 1252 he accepted Catholicism when he was crowned King of Lithuania by the Pope, and in 1255 he received permission from him to crown his son Voyshelk (Vasil) as the Russian King - as the ruler of the Galician-Volyn Kingdom of Rus', which became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania when the Mindovg clan became related to the Galician-Volyn clan Russian kings. The emergence of the Kingdom of Rus' and the Russian Kings (which was the authority of only the Pope) is explained by the fact that the prince-kings of Galicia and Volyn promised the pope the transition of the region to the Catholic faith (this promise was never kept). Mindovg wanted to place Voyshelk-Vasil on the throne in Polotsk (then a purely Orthodox city, where the condition of reign was the mandatory acceptance by the prince Orthodox faith). Hence such a strange set of symbols in the seal: the Polotsk Orthodox coat of arms “Pahonia” with the cross of Euphrosyne of Polotsk on the horseman’s shield, the papal crown of the kingdom above it (either like the Kingdom of Lithuania, or like the Kingdom of Rus'), plus a runic inscription in the language... Which?

In the 13th century, the languages of the Prussians, Mazurs, Krivichi, Yavtyags, Dainovichs and Lutich-Litvins were almost no different from each other. These tribes not only understood each other perfectly, but were also clearly aware of THEIR LANGUAGE community, which distinguished them from the neighboring Slavs, Eastern Balts and Finns.

All these languages, in principle, have those features of Balticism that are in the language of the press of Mindovg - and which O. L. Sokol-Kutylovsky found “Belarusian”. I found it only for the reason that these languages have disappeared today - or have sunk into oblivion, like Prussian, or turned into the Belarusian language, or - like the language of the Masurian Mazovs - merged into the Polish language, rewarding it with pshekan.

Of course, there were some regional differences: the same Masurians pshekal, and we dzekal. But from a linguistic point of view, this is only a nuance, a local Western Baltic dialect related to us. In any case, the Masurian language is millions of times more related to the Belarusian language than the completely alien and dissimilar Ukrainian and Russian languages (like ancient Lyash), devoid of Balticism.

In the future, the fate of the Western Baltic languages of the region (archaic and the most ancient among the Indo-European languages) developed differently. The Prussian language underwent Germanization, and the surviving two or three German-Prussian phrasebooks from the 15th–16th centuries show not the pure Western Baltic language, but its mixture with the Germanic language. Which, however, can be explained by the biased position of the Germans who compiled these phrase books. The fact is that many modern linguists attribute about a quarter of the vocabulary of the current Belarusian language, as I believe, erroneously, to GERMAN vocabulary, when in fact it is ancient Western Baltic vocabulary. In the past, the Germans (as well as the Slavs later) were formed precisely from the Western Balts, so it is not surprising that there are layers of common vocabulary. But it is not “Germanic”, it is simply OLD ancient common Indo-European. Obviously, the authors of Prussian-German phrasebooks altered it in their own way, presenting it as “German,” hence the “German bias” in these phrasebooks.

Similarly, in their own way, the language of the Masurians and our language were subjected to Slavicization, where in exactly the same way the Slavs, finding similar layers in our ancient vocabulary, remade them in their own Slavic way. The Masurians merged with the Poles into a single ethnic group of Poles, while both sides lost their original language: the Poles lost the purest Slavic language of Krakow, completely identical to the language of the Obodrites of Rurik, and the Masurians of Warsaw lost many features of Balticism in the language, adopting Slavic grammar and changing Western Baltic vocabulary of your language into consonant Slavic words. In Lithuania-Belarus, the Kievan faith became a factor in the Slavicization of the language, through which religious books, education, and office work were carried out. Since 1795, the Russian Empire “connected”, which had already Muscovized our language for its great-power needs. In general, the adoption of Orthodoxy and Catholicism in Lithuania-Belarus meant the introduction of Slavicization from Kyiv and Krakow - inevitably, over the centuries, this was reflected in our language, which gradually began to resemble the Slavic language more and more.

So in what language is the inscription on the Mindovg seal written?

In principle, in relation to the middle of the 13th century, it can be simply called the WESTERN BALTIC language, by analogy with how historians and linguists use the term “Slavic language” in exactly the same way for this era. The printing language of Mindaugas was then common to the peoples of Prussia, Mazova and the territory of present-day Belarus.

The short “u” instead of the Slavic clear “v” was characteristic of all Western Balts. Tsokanye (and dzekanye) are linguistic features of the inhabitants of present-day Belarus (Yatvingians, Dainovichi, Krivichi). Did the Prussian language have this? Obviously yes.

O. L. Sokol-Kutylovsky deciphered the inscription on the seal: “S-VA-E PE-CA-TA K-N-E-Z M-I-N-D-O-G Z-TA-V-I” - “PRINCE MINDOG PLACES HIS SEAL.”

This absolutely corresponds to the vocabulary of the Prussian language, which contained all these words. They are not Slavic or “Russian” at all, but in a broad sense - Indo-European, narrowly - Western Baltic. It was this language that Mindovg himself spoke - and what I see as the main thing in this topic, O. L. Sokol-Kutylovsky completely ignored the question of Mindovg’s language. I didn’t bother to consider what language the Prussians spoke then. He hastened to call the language of Mindaugas “Russian” and “Slavic”, without bothering to think about what the language of the Prussians was like at that time. And then it was practically no different from the language of the population of present-day Belarus; when communicating with the Prussians, we did not need translators. Therefore, the Prussians migrated en masse to us, as to their relatives, both under Mindaugas and under Witen - in total, according to historians, about 100 thousand Prussians moved to Belarus.

* * *

The decoding of the inscription on the seal of Mindovg, made by O. L. Sokol-Kutylovsky, is, of course, an important discovery in the history of Belarus. After all, before this, the Zhemoits of the Republic of Lietuwa insisted that Mindovg was supposedly from Zhemoit, and the very seal of Mindovg cited by Lastovsky in his book was considered a “fake.”

The decoding showed that the inscription on the Mindovg seal was made in our language, and not in the language of the Zhemoits of the current Republic of Lietuwa. In this I agree with the conclusions of the author of the transcript: Mindovg had nothing to do with the Zhemoits and Aukshtaits, the eastern Balts, whose language he did not even understand. The history of Lithuania and the history of the creation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania have nothing to do with the Republic of Lietuva and its history (the history of Zhmudi or the principality of Samogitia, as it was called in Tsarist Russia from 1795 to 1917, and the Russian emperors were called “princes of Samogitia”). It also has nothing to do with Rus'. This is OUR history of the Western Balts - not the Eastern Balts, not the Slavs, not the Russians. That is, not the story of our neighbors. All this happened only and precisely here, only and precisely on our land, now the Republic of Belarus, and it has nothing to do with our neighbors and their historical and ideological concepts (trying to cling to Mindaugas in one way or another).

Mindovg was neither a Slav nor an Eastern Balt - he was a Western Balt, absolutely related to our ethnic group of present-day Belarus. When he created the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, he brought with him the famous army of the knights of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania - 30 thousand knights of the Slavs and Balts of Polabia and Pomerania - the Lutichians, the Obodrites, the Rusyns of the island of Rusin-Rügen, the Lusatian Sorbs and the Prussians of Porussia themselves. It was they who created the great state of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the Baltic to the Black Sea, easily smashing to smithereens the notorious Kievan Rus and the Tatars of the Horde, and in 1410 - the Teutonic Order. Today, Belarusians by blood and genes are descendants not only of local tribes, but also descendants of these migrants from Central Europe, who created their own state of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in our country as their “promised land”. Which was then called LITHUANIA.

FAKE?

Some believe that the seal cited by Lastovsky is a fake due to the fact that it depicts a baroque crown - which is supposedly inappropriate for the era. I won’t argue, since I’m not an expert in this matter. However, in addition to the crown on the seal, there are also runes (which have now been read). Only the highest specialist and connoisseur of antiquity can forge a runic inscription. So would such an expert falsifier really allow himself to be exposed for such a basic mistake? It's clear that ends meet here. This leads us to believe that everything is correct with the crown - and it is quite consistent with the styles of its era.

During Lastovsky's time, the runic inscription on the seal was unreadable. Lastovsky wrote briefly: “This seal is in private hands and belongs to a collection of rarities intended for the Belarusian science museum. No one could read the letters carved on this seal before.” And only now it was possible to decipher the inscription: “S-VA-E PE-CA-TA K-N-E-Z M-I-N-D-O-G Z-TA-V-I”, which means: “OUR OWN PRINCE MINDOG PLACES THE SEAL.”

The question arises - where did Lastovsky get the idea that this is the seal of EXACTLY Mindovg? If no one could read it, then - it turns out - some other information should have spoken about it: what this seal was on, its history itself... Alas, Lastovsky does not report anything.

And here’s the most important question: if this is a falsification, then why did anyone need to create it at all?

First of all, numerous “runic” fakes of the early 19th century come to mind, made by all sorts of great-power chauvinists of Tsarist Russia, such as the same “runic” “Veles Book” (we talked about this fake in detail in the article “Veles Book”: fake “ ancient manuscript", No. 5, 2008). The collection of A. I. Sulakadzev was a whole library of odious falsifications. For example, “Koldnik of the 5th century of the Danube Yalovets, written in Kiev.” It’s funny: the Slavs and Kyiv itself do not yet exist, Cyril and Methodius have not yet been born, the Bulgarians and Czechs for whom they created Slavic writing do not exist - but already a certain Dunanian in the 5th century boldly writes in Cyrillic. Or: “Magician, manuscript of the 6th century by Kolota Putisil, who lived in Russe Grad, in the oven.” That is, the Finns, back in the 6th century, had a Slavic language, Slavic writing, and a city called Rus. Or such books: “Potochnik of the 8th century, priest Sonceslaus”, “Traveler of the 4th century”. Again - Cyrillic before the birth of Cyril, Slavic books from the Sami “priest Sonceslaus” a century before the arrival of Rurik, and in general a Slavic book from the 4th century - when no Slavs yet existed. Or here is a certain manuscript “Perun and Veles broadcast in the Kyiv temples to the priests Moveslav, Drevoslav and others...”, dating back to the 5th–6th centuries. It is also written in Cyrillic - it doesn’t bother me. However, Sulakadzev also had some kind of book “written in runes.”

At the beginning of the 19th century, from the entire “collection” of Sulakadzev, only a small fragment from “Boyanov’s Hymn to Prince Mistislav” was published, written in runic, translated by G. R. Derzhavin (“Readings in the Conversation of Lovers of the Russian Word”, St. Petersburg, 1812. Book. 6. P. 5), as well as the so-called “Oracle of Novgorod” (ibid.).

Among Russian historians there were honest ones who rejected these falsifications. The famous Russian linguist A. Kh. Vostokov described the language of one “monument” from Sulakadzev’s collection as follows: “full of unprecedented words, incomprehensible abbreviations, nonsense so that it seems ancient.” When in 1823 the question arose about transferring the Sulakadzev collection to the Rumyantsev Library (now the Russian State Library, the former V.I. Lenin Library), Chancellor Rumyantsev suggested that A.Kh. Vostokov conduct an examination of the Sulakadzev archive. As a result, the entire Sulakadzev collection was rejected as a collection of fakes.

If Lastovsky reported about the Mindaugas seal in a book of 1910, then it could have been falsified precisely in the 19th century - and precisely by great-power science fiction writers Russian Empire who, to confirm their imperial myths, falsified HISTORY ITSELF. But this seal of Mindaugas does not fit into the framework of such tasks.

A) It in no way proves the myths proposed by the Russian great powers, since according to the language of the runic seal, Mindovg is not “Russian” or “Slavic” at all. This language is Prussian or LITVIN (since 1840 called Belarusian) with characteristic features BALTISM: short “u” instead of “v” in the name Mindvog (“MindoUg”), clattering and other Baltic features. It is clear that the “apologists of the Slavs” could not in any way give such language features to the seal of Mindaugas - if they wanted to present him as a “Russian” or “Slavic” prince. Moreover, in the 19th century in Russia they did not know at all about these Baltic features of the Belarusian language - and our language was considered “the Russian language spoiled by Polish influence,” although the Lyash language is the purest Slavic language.

B) The image of the crown on the seal is also not in favor of the “Russian prince”.

C) The six-pointed cross on the seal is shown indistinctly - in the matter of determining the lengths of its transverse ends, however, falsifiers would pay the main attention to this nuance - after all, it became important for the fight between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Its “inarticulateness” alone testifies to the authenticity of the seal, since in that era the Zhemoits, Aukshtaits and Litvin-Belarusians of Western Belarus were still pagans - they became Catholics only three centuries later. However, one can interpret it in such a way that any six-pointed cross is Orthodox, and any four-pointed cross is Catholic, so I don’t insist on this nuance.

D) If this seal was a product of the St. Petersburg school of falsifiers A.I. Sulakadzev and others, then it would have surfaced in St. Petersburg at the beginning of the 19th century. But there it was completely unknown, and was in the private hands of some nobles of Belarus, obviously descendants of magnate families. Apparently, it was preserved during the period of general persecution by tsarism of everything historical and national.

D) Some researchers from Lietuva suggested that this seal could have been falsified by some Belarusian historians - for it is very unloved by those in Lietuva that it refutes the myths accepted there since 1918 that, they say, Zhmud was Lithuania itself, and Mindovg was Zhmudin.

But this assumption is also untenable. The fact is that the national intelligentsia of Belarus, muzzled by tsarism, in the 19th century fought for the general right of their national identity - after all, we were forcibly and bloodily enrolled in the Russian ethnos.

From the point of view of the Lietuvis, the only essence of falsification here could only be the runic inscription itself - and DOUBLE. Firstly, the Zhemoits and Aukshtaits, before they adopted the Latin alphabet in the 15th–16th centuries, never had any runes, they had their own language of hieroglyphs, inscriptions in which we find, including in Northern Belarus today (about such finds of our readers we wrote in the newspaper). So the RUNIC on Mindovg’s seal already clearly indicates that neither Mindovg nor his seal had ANY RELATION TO Zhemoity and Aukstait of the current Republic of Lietuwa. And if so, then it has no right to be called “Letuva” (“Lithuania”), it has clung to someone else’s history.

Secondly, deciphering the runic inscription showed that it was made in the language of the Belarusians (Litvins), and not in the language of the Eastern Balts of Lietuva. This already definitively shows that Mindovg was not an eastern Balt (that is, Zhemoit, Aukštait or Latvian).

This, according to the Lietuvis, was the purpose of the falsification.

However, this assumption is shattered to smithereens by a whole host of facts. Of these, I will highlight three main ones. Firstly, the Republic of Lietuva appeared in 1918, and Lastovsky published this seal in 1910 - when no one could yet imagine that in the future Belarus and Lietuva would drag the historical heritage of Lithuania between themselves. Even in 1918, we felt like a single community, including the Lit-Bel SSR created by Lenin.

Secondly, Lastovsky did not use this seal in this book for some “disputes with the Lietuvis over the heritage of Lithuania” - he simply placed it. And at the same time, throughout the book he repeated the delusional myths of tsarism that the lands of Belarus were supposedly originally “Russian”, and everywhere he refers to the Zhemoits as “Lithuanians”, although they were never Lithuania. Therefore, here too it is not clear: why include falsification if you not only do not use it for its ideological purpose, but contradict it with your entire book?

Lastovsky was a victim of the propaganda of Western Russianism; he wrote the history of our region in a distorted form as supposedly “Russian” - so he not only did not need this falsification, but did not fit into his book at all. I think he would be extremely surprised to learn that on the Mindovg seal the inscription is made in the Belarusian language. However, he suggested that Mindaugas was from the family of Polotsk princes - but this does not apply to the press, he did not see it as an “argument” and yet everywhere he called Mindaugas and his father Ringold “Lithuanian princes”.

Thirdly, the history of Lastovsky itself is indicative (who was a member of the BPR government, and then one of the leaders of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, was repressed in 1938, rehabilitated under Gorbachev). In the 1910-1920s he was engaged political activity in Vilna and then in Kovno, was a convinced and ardent supporter of the statehood of Lietuva and saw in it the core for the “Lithuanian-Belarusian state”, considered it impossible to create statehood of Belarus outside the borders with Lietuva, plus, in the 1919-1920s, he persistently advocated transfer of Lietuva to the Vilna region (and even the Grodno region).

So this person could not possibly be involved in some kind of “anti-Letuvis” falsification of history. This contradicted his sincere sympathy for Lietuva and his ideas, in which he saw Lietuva as historical Lithuania - without the slightest doubt about it.

For the “falsification theory” there could only be this possibility: that during the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1569, some nobles or magnates forged a seal for their own needs as part of a dispute over some lands or something else. But this assumption is also shattered by the fact that there are runes on the seals. They, of course, cannot be an “addendum” to the disputes of nobles; on the contrary, they are “undesirable”, since no one knew the runes for a long time - and the attitude towards them in Christianity was as “filthy signs”. That is, pagan.

Of course, the main mystery in all is the history of this seal itself, where and how it came to the unknown keeper of rarities “intended for Belarusian museums.” Vaclav Ustinovich Lastovsky himself would have answered this question - but, alas, he was killed in the dungeons of the NKVD in 1938, taking this secret with him...

Collection of articles on the history of Belarus

PRINT OF MINDOVG

Rice. 1. Image of the seal of Prince Mindovg.

The strangeness of the seal lies not only in its runic inscription, but also in the combination of both the Orthodox cross on the shield of the “Pahonia” horseman and the Catholic crown. Doctor of Technical Sciences from Yekaterinburg Oleg Leonidovich Sokol-Kutylovsky was able to read the runic inscription on the seal. He gave the decoding in his article “Slavic runic inscription on the seal of Prince Mindovg” (Sokol-Kutylovsky O.L., Slavic runic inscription on the seal of Prince Mindovg // “Academy of Trinitarianism”, M., El No. 77-6567, pub. 14018 , 11/17/2006). I will give excerpts from this interesting publication.

If it were not for the existing runic inscriptions, one would think that in Fig. Figure 1 shows an image of the coat of arms, made in accordance with the canons of European heraldry. However, some coats of arms may bear a motto. Is this true in this case? Let us imagine the available runes in the form of a string of the most suitable Slavic (Russian) runes found in other Slavic runic texts (Fig. 2).

The inscription shown in Fig. 2, reads as follows: “S-VA-E PE-CA-TA K-N-E-Z M-I-N-D-O-G Z-TA-V-I”, which in modern Russian means : “PRINCE MINDOG PLACES HIS SEAL.”

In the last word of the inscription, the first sound was apparently pronounced voiced, that is, as “zs,” which explains the use of the “ZЪ” rune in this word.

HISTORICAL MEMORY AS A SUBJECT OF STUDY

Alexey LASTOVSKY

Specifics of historical memory in Belarus: between the Soviet past and national perspective

A particularly urgent need to rethink one’s history and search for a common perspective arises in states that are undergoing radical transformations in their sociocultural development. An example is the new states in Eastern Europe (including Belarus), where the collapse of the Soviet image of history required the revision and redefinition of the national historical narrative, the search for unifying ways of understanding their history.

In this work, an attempt will be made to understand those features of the historical memory of the inhabitants of Belarus that developed as a result of the long-term streamlining of the official image of history by the Soviet authorities and the rapid transformations of descriptions of the past already in the independent republic.

This paper will use the theoretical framework of memory studies common in modern social science, where historical memory is considered as ideas about the past that confirm for members of society their collective identity and symbolically denote their unity in time and space through the creation of a common history. Accordingly, we consider historical memory itself in close connection with the formation and reproduction of national identity.

At the same time, the existence of many interpretations and versions in the interdisciplinary space of memory research (strong evidence of which is the variety of terminology used - “collective memory”, “social memory”, “historical memory”).

memory", "cultural memory") suggests the need to clarify the chosen theoretical approach.

The most productive in this context seems to be the use of the general term “historical memory,” which refers to the entire set of ideas about the past. At the same time, for analytical purposes it is necessary to distinguish several levels of historical memory, determined by the discursive stratification of society.

First of all, it is worth noting the level of memory, which is formed by power discourse and represents a codified set of descriptions, ideas and images of the past. There is an obvious parallel here with Jan Assmann's concept of cultural memory as "a collective concept for all knowledge that determines behavior and experience in the interactive framework of society and which is transmitted through generations in repeated social practices and initiations"1. Cultural memory is characterized by a distance from everyday life. It has fixed points at which the past is folded into symbolic figures to which memories are attached. As Assmann writes, the memory of seminal events of the past is strengthened through cultural formations (texts, rituals, monuments) and institutional communication (repetition, practice, observance). IN modern society the most important institutions for the transmission of cultural memory are the institute

1 Assman Y. Cultural memory: Writing, memory of the past and political identity in the high cultures of antiquity. M., 2004. P. 44.

education (most often directly controlled by the state) and the media.

Another level of historical memory is formed as a result of the incorporation and assimilation of cultural memory in the mass consciousness; these are everyday ideas about the past, often fragmentary and contradictory. Here I.M.’s proposal looks quite rational. Savelyeva and A.V. Poletaev use the terminology of the French sociologist S. Moscovici and use the definition of “social ideas about the past” to categorize this level of historical memory1.

And finally, the third level in historical memory can again be associated with the approach of Jan Assmann, who introduced the distinction between communicative and cultural memory, associated “with the difference between everyday life and celebration, between the profane and the sacred, between the ephemeral and the well-founded, between the private and general"2. Everyday communication is characterized by a high degree of thematic instability, reciprocity of roles and disorganization. In such communication, each individual forms a memory that is socially mediated and connects the individual to the group. The most important characteristic of communicative memory is a limited time horizon, which constantly shifts over time. The two above-mentioned levels of historical memory refer to the perception of the past, mediated through institutional channels, and communicative memory refers to personal experience of the past. The most coherent and holistic are the narratives of the past, which are formed as individual biographies or as family legends.

It is worth noting that all these levels are separated only analytically; in social practice they are interconnected. For example, even a story about a personal traumatic experience Everyday life during the war cannot be completely differentiated from those ideas that circulate in cultural memory. This relationship must be taken into account when conducting relevant research.

1 Savelyeva I.M., Poletaev A.V. Everyday ideas about the past: theoretical approaches // Dialogues with time: Memory of the past in the context of history / Ed. L.P. Repina. M.: Krug, 2008.

2 Assman Y. Cultural memory. P. 61.

The study of each of the identified levels also involves the use of various methodological tools. Thus, the most appropriate methods for studying cultural memory, in our opinion, will be discourse analysis and content analysis, while social ideas about the past can well be studied using public opinion polls. For the study of communicative memory, the methodology of oral history has an undoubted advantage.

Let us clarify that in the framework of this article we will analyze primarily the second level of historical memory, i.e. social ideas about the past, based on the results of various public opinion polls. But at the same time, it is still necessary to take into account and describe the discursive space of knowledge about the past in Belarus.

Naturally, general ideas about the past can come from various sources. This may be oral memory passed down within a family from generation to generation, or communicative memory of various social groups. But when forming the historical memory of a people’s past, the leading role is still occupied by official institutions - the education system, the media, museums and archives, etc. Therefore, the discourse of historical memory is most often politicized, it is determined by the configuration of current political interests. Accordingly, change of course public policy leads to history being rewritten, and social ideas about the past undergoing transformation. Thus, the main task of the discourse of historical memory in Soviet period was the creation of a general history of the “Soviet people” with an emphasis on the class interests of lower social strata. After 1991, the young Belarusian state was faced with the problem of forming a national historical memory, which required radical changes in the education system3 and aroused keen interest in various issues of Belarusian history in the pages of the press. The content and meanings of the official discourse of memory have completely changed over the course of just a few years (1989-1991), but the collective consciousness does not lend itself to such easy breakage. In collective ideas about the past, both current ideologemes and fragments, remnants are layered

3 See: Lindner R. Historians and settlements. St. Petersburg, 2005. pp. 437-445. Ch. “School padruchniks: perspective and new censorship.”

former postulates that disappeared from the surface of public discourse, but remained in the consciousness of social groups.

Therefore, as a working hypothesis, we put forward the assumption that the historical memory of the inhabitants of Belarus does not act as a kind of homogeneous integrity, it has its own specifics, primarily among different age groups, which is due to the change in educational paradigms in Soviet and post-Soviet times.

The work is based on the materials of a special sociological study conducted by the sector of social and ethnic psychology of the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus in June 2008 (republican representative sample - 1147 respondents, questionnaire survey). To confirm these data, we will also refer to the results of the study “Perception of the population of the newly independent states of history and the post-Soviet periods”, conducted in April-May 2009 within the framework of the Eurasian Monitor project on the territory of the post-Soviet states (in Belarus, sociological laboratory "Novak"). The results of the study “National Identity of Belarusians: Who are we and what will we be like?”, carried out in the summer of 2009 by the Novak sociological laboratory in cooperation with the Belarusian Institute of Strategic Studies and the Budzma initiative, will also be used.

We will focus on the analysis of three indicators of historical memory:

1) the origins of Belarusian statehood;

2) highlighting key events in the history of Belarus (both causing pride and bitterness and shame);

3) assessment of the most important historical personalities1.

When processing responses to open-ended questions, each unique response option was considered as a category. The number of mentions of each category could differ significantly; the categories could be either unique, that is, mentioned once, or quite common, mentioned

1 In order to more thoroughly and fully identify the features and contradictions of historical memory among the inhabitants of Belarus, a list of various historical figures was used, respondents were asked to evaluate their contribution to the history of Belarus on a scale of “positive/contradictory/negative”. The survey also used figures of historical figures borrowed from a broader historical context (Russian or Soviet), but who had the most direct impact on the course of Belarusian history.

sya many times (for example, “Victory in the Second World War”). Categories that were similar in their semantic meaning were combined into common themes.

First of all, let us turn to the problem of the origins of Belarusian statehood. Each national state tries to establish itself in history, to present its origins as going far into the past, which increases the status of the significance of national identity. Accordingly, the history of any nation seems to go back to ancient times, while national history usually has its own “golden age” and an era of decline. Such constructions are subject to deconstruction by modern researchers of nationalism, who argue that modern nations are a phenomenon of the modern era; they appeared in Europe only during the period of the Great French Revolution2.

Accordingly, the Belarusian nation (precisely as a “modern” nation) arose only in the 19th century. But already the first attempts to write the history of Belarus at the end of this century traced the origins of Belarusian statehood to the era of the Principality of Polotsk. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the first nationalist historical narratives corresponded to the mythology of the “golden age” for the Belarusian people3. In March 1918, Belarusian nationalists attempted to create an independent state - the Belarusian People's Republic, however, was not crowned with success. Later in Soviet times The nationalist version of Belarusian history was revised (including “thanks” to repressions among historians), and the period of the Principality of Polotsk was inscribed in the context of the existence of Kievan Rus and the Old Russian people. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was considered as a state of Lithuanian feudal lords4. Particular importance was attached to the inclusion of Belarusian lands in the Russian Empire, but in fact in Soviet historical science it was argued that the full existence of the Belarusian nation

2 For more details, see: Smith E. Nationalism and Modernism: A Critical Review of Modern Theories of Nations and Nationalism. M., 2004.

3 For more details, see: Lindner R. Pastor and settlement. St. Petersburg, 2005.

4 The emergence of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was described as follows: “Lithuanian

princes, taking advantage of the difficult struggle of the Russian people with the Tatars

Mongols in the east and German aggressors in the west, became subject to

to restore the western lands of Rus' to their power... This was the end

the beginning of the creation of the Lithuanian state. His education determines

"was in the interests of the Lithuanian feudal lords, who wanted to strengthen their dominance over the Lithuanian peasantry and strengthen their power in the neighboring lands of Rus'." - See: History of the Belarusian SSR. Minsk: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, 1961. T. 1.

received only in the form of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic1.

Naturally, this concept of the development of Belarusian statehood was radically revised after the collapse Soviet Union. In historical science and then in the education system, views again prevailed that traced the origins of Belarusian statehood to the times of the Principality of Polotsk, and the “golden age” again became the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. But such a nationalist renaissance in teaching history in the second half of the 90s. as a result of the historical policy of the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, it was again replaced by the reactivation of Soviet historical mythologies, including the “BSSR as the first Belarusian state.”

As we have emphasized, such abrupt changes in the discourse of historical memory should have

naturally lead to “discord” in collective ideas. The question about the origins of Belarusian statehood, asked during the study, revealed a lack of unity of opinion in public consciousness about this question.

So, we see that there is no unanimity of opinion on this matter. The following significant points should be highlighted: (1) for a significant number of respondents it turned out to be difficult to answer this question; (2) opinions still prevail that trace the history of Belarus to the distant historical past (Principality of Polotsk, Grand Duchy of Lithuania).

Table 1

THE ORIGINS OF BELARUSIAN STATEHOOD ACCORDING TO THE OPINION OF RESIDENTS OF THE REPUBLIC OF BELARUS (as a percentage of the number of respondents in each study)

Initiator of the study Polotsk Principality10 ON BPR BSSR RB Difficult to answer

Institute of Sociology (June 2008) 29 22 9 10 6 24

“Novak” (summer 2009) 18 38 5 12 9 18

Picture 1

DISTRIBUTION OF ANSWERS TO THE QUESTION “FROM WHAT PERIOD, IN YOUR OPINION, THE HISTORY OF THE BELARUSIAN STATE BEGINS?” AMONG RESIDENTS OF BELARUS OF DIFFERENT AGE GROUPS (% of the number of respondents)

Up to 20 years old 20-29 years old Principality of Polotsk

30-39 years old 40-49 years old 50-59 years old Over 60 years old Countrywide

I ON N BNR □ BSSR □ Sh i

1 “Utvarenne BSSR chalk vyalkae pstarychnae znachenne. Uppershynu for shmatvyakovuyu pstory Belarusk people nabyu pile dziarzhaunasts.” -AbetzadarsKL.S., Baranava M.P., Paulava N.G. Pstoriya BSSR: Vucheb-ny dapamozhshk for vuchnyau syarednyi school. Minsk, 1961. P. 126.

10 It should be noted that in the study “National Identity of Belarusians: Who are we and what will we be like?” in a closed question, the first option was formulated somewhat differently: “Polotsk and Turov principality.”

In accordance with our hypothesis, among representatives of the older generation the views formed under the Soviet educational system, where the first Belarusian public education was considered the BSSR. Indeed, people over the age of 50 are more likely to give preference to the BSSR as the first Belarusian state (15%) than younger respondents (5%). But at the same time, representatives of older age groups also prefer to trace the genealogy of Belarusian statehood to the Principality of Polotsk or to the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Thus, in this matter, significant lines of rupture in views on historical memory between different age groups cannot be identified.

We will show ideas about the past of the inhabitants of Belarus by grouping them by historical periods. The following historical periods are distinguished: (1) modern history, the chronological framework of which is from the acquisition of independence by the Republic of Belarus until the present moment, more precisely, 2008; (2) history of the Soviet period and (3) history before the beginning of the twentieth century (i.e. history before the October Revolution of 1917). At the same time, this periodization has to be corrected by highlighting a separate topos of the Great Patriotic War, since the perception of this event is extremely important for the consciousness of the inhabitants of Belarus.

The Great Patriotic War. Many researchers have noted that the complex of ideas about the Great Patriotic War is the most significant for the formation of Belarusian national identity1. The centrality of this particular event for historical memory is inherent in many European countries. “Today, a reassessment of the past - the Second World War, occupation, collaboration and Resistance - is among the main topics of public discourse in all European societies”2. At the same time, this war is interpreted differently in different countries3.

1 See: Rudling P. “For a Heroic Belarus!”: The Great Patriotic War as Identity Marker in the Lukashenka and Soviet Belarusian Discourses // Sprawy Narodowosciowe (Nationalities Affairs). 2008. No. 32. P. 43-62; Marples D., Padgol U. Pal1tyka new memory at another rashkamounay dziarzhave // ARCHE. 2008. No. 11. P. 91-100.

2 Welzer H, Lenz K. Generation of grandfathers in Europe // Otechestvennye zapiski. 2008. No. 5. P. 12.

3 See: Trebst S. Can “1945” become a pan-European place of memory? // Domestic notes. 2008. No. 5. P. 23-32.

But even with such a common “obsession with war” among European countries, the Belarusian case looks special. The closest parallels in the memory of the Second World War exist with modern Russian society. For our countries, this war is still “domestic” and not “world”, it began in 1941, and not in 1939, and we celebrate the victory on May 9, and not on May 8, like in the rest of the world4.

A significant amount of continuity is easily noticeable between the image of war, which is articulated in the state discourse of modern Belarus, and the way the Great Patriotic War was used to legitimize communist power. “War, with its many real and mythical manifestations of heroism and sacrifice, provided wonderful material for the creation of patriotic symbols and examples of collective memory. Moreover, common struggle Soviet peoples made it possible, without ignoring, but rather on the contrary, focusing on local specifics, to create a model of common patriotism - a common Soviet identity. Thus, the myth of the Great Patriotic War, the basic basis of which was the ideologies about the moral and political unity of Soviet society, about the leadership role communist party, about the unity of the party and the people, the front and the rear, about fiery Soviet patriotism and mass heroism, about the friendship of peoples and the like, was called upon to play a special role in the unity of Soviet society”5.

The memory of the war continues to be actively reproduced in modern Belarusian society, where almost all possible channels of cultural policy are activated to broadcast it. Special attention The formation of patriotic education with the help of heroic examples from the times of the Great Patriotic War is given importance in the education system6. Media culture is also replete with materials referencing this event; it is especially worth mentioning the constant broadcasts of films about the war on television, some of which enjoy enduring mass popularity (for example, the series “Seventeen Moments of Spring”). Film studio "Bela-

4 Dubin B. “Bloody War” and “Great” Victory // Otechestvennye zapiski. 2004. No. 5. P. 68-84.

5 Grinevich V. Fractured memory: The Second World War in the historical consciousness of Ukrainian society // Untouched reserve. 2005. No. 40-41.

6 See: Smalyanchuk A. Shkolny padruchshk pstorp Belarus yak “month of memory / month of forgetting” pra Other Suvetnoy war // Homo Historicus. Gadavk antrapalapchnay pstorik 2008. P. 370-383.

Rusfilm” received the unofficial name “Partizanfilm” back in the Soviet period, and the theme of war still dominates in Belarusian film production. It is also worth noting that the most important public holidays in the Republic of Belarus - Independence Day and Victory Day - are directly related to the triumphant moments of the Great Patriotic War.

Therefore, it is completely unsurprising that, according to the results of a sociological study, the most significant event in the history of Belarus, which one can be proud of, is the victory in the Great Patriotic War.

At the same time, we can say that the Belarusian image of war differs from the Soviet one and has its own specifics, which began to take shape in the USSR. Firstly, there is a huge number of victims among the Belarusian people, who acquire the status of not only a heroic people, but also a martyr people, whose victory in the war was paid for at a tragic price (this is facilitated by the constant reproduction of the rhetorical figure about every fourth Belarusian who died during war). Secondly, the exceptional merit of the Belarusian people in the victory over fascism is emphasized, with the so-called “partisan myth” playing a special role. “The Soviet people as the winner of fascism” is gradually fading into the shadows, and this place of honor is occupied by the Belarusian people.

The Great Patriotic War appears in the minds of Belarusians as a tragic event (“Belarus took the first most terrible blow in the Great Patriotic War”), as a kind of terrible test that proves the right of the people not only to exist, but also to universal respect, and at the same time heroic . On the other hand, the Great Patriotic War also has negative sides - heavy losses, the disastrous start of the war, the period of occupation and the related problem of collaborationism, and the partisan movement itself in unofficial memory, broadcast mainly through family channels in the Belarusian village, is characterized by quite ambiguous1. These negative aspects were hotly discussed in the media in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but in Lately have practically disappeared from public discourse in Belarus.

1 See: Shatalava V. Price of the war: palscheisya and partisans in the memory of the population of the Belarusian village // Noto Historicus. Gadav1k antrapalapchnay pstorp. 2008. pp. 384-389.

Thus, the memory of the victory in the Great Patriotic War among the residents of Belarus is quite holistic and does not give rise to conflicting interpretations. In the mass consciousness, it seems to be a difficult test for the Belarusian people, who showed unprecedented heroism during this period, which can be regarded as an invaluable contribution to the victory over fascism. These social ideas about the past are fully consistent with the image of war that functions in state discourse: “Tell me, what is the greatest asset of our people, for which we simply need to bow at their feet? This is a victory over fascism... We put millions of people on the altar of victory in that war. And the most freedom-loving and honest people were the Belarusian people. Yes, we had facts of betrayal. But these were isolated facts. Our people fought honestly and proudly."2

It is worth noting that in this case the connection between the past and the present is updated. Victory in war is the property of the people, which we can and should be proud of today. This contributes to the development of a stable positive emotional connection with the national community, whose contribution to history is so heroic. The simplicity and consistency of this image only contribute to its more successful consolidation in the mass consciousness. We can agree that the historical memory of the Great Patriotic War is key to the formation of the Belarusian national identity, the most stable and articulated complex in the ideas about the past of the inhabitants of Belarus. At the same time, the emphasis of some authors on the continuity of the Soviet myth about the war does not allow us to see that in modern Belarus the memory of the war is filled with a different content: the strengthening of national identity is facilitated by the concentration of rhetoric on the role of the Belarusian people in the victory over fascism.

Modern history. The most diverse and rich in ideas about the past of the inhabitants of Belarus is the topos formed by events modern history.

It contains several important topics that make the country’s residents proud (see Table 2).

2 Lukashenko A.G. The historical choice of Belarus: Lecture of the President of the Republic of Belarus in the Belarusian state university, Minsk, March 14, 2003. Minsk, 2003. pp. 35-36.

table 2

TOPICS IN THE MODERN HISTORY OF BELARUS THAT CAUSE PRIDE IN THE RESIDENTS OF THE COUNTRY

Achieving independence 70 2 O O

Construction of new

structures 34 76

Sports achievements 49 70

Victories at Eurovision 20 56

Festivals 12 52

Economic

well-being 50 51

Presidential rule

A.G. Lukashenko 23 34

Independence Day 4 32

Cultural achievements 18 19

Holidays 13 18

Scientific and technical

achievements 10 10

*The table shows data on topics where the number of answers exceeds 10.

Some of them receive a pronounced positive interpretation:

1) achievement of independence, which, according to residents of Belarus, is second in importance in the history of the country only to victory in the war;

2) construction of new structures, among which respondents note the construction of the National Library and ice palaces. There are also negative reactions to large-scale construction projects (“construction of palaces and sports facilities when the population lives in poverty,” “pompousness in construction”), but they are less common (only 4 responses);

3) sporting achievements, with particular emphasis on the victories of the hockey team (“victory of the Belarusians over the Swedes in hockey”, “4th place at the World Hockey Championship”) and the victory of Yulia Nesterenko at Olympic Games(“Belarusian runner who won the Olympics”, “Nesterenko’s victory over American hegemony”). Note that in modern world sporting achievements have long become a symbol of national pride, contributing to the unity of society and strengthening national identity1;

4) victories of Belarusian artists at the international music competition “Eurovision”, primarily the victory of Ksenia Sitnik

1 Cm.: Sport and National Identity in the Post-War World / Ed by A. Smith,

D. Porter, L.; N.Y.: Routledge, 2004.

at a children's competition and the successful performance of Dmitry Koldun. Let us note that in this case, the recognition of Belarusian culture on an international scale is important, which again contributes to the development of a positive emotional connection with the national community. On the other hand, the unsuccessful performances of our artists cause bitterness and shame;

5) various festivals, among which the “Slavic Bazaar” festival in Vitebsk stands out.

But some areas of modern Belarusian life cause conflicting reactions among the country’s residents:

1) socio-economic life of modern Belarus. Residents of the country note both the growth in production and associate it directly with their well-being. It is worth noting that sometimes the living standards of Belarusians look very modest. But among the answers there are quite a lot of negative assessments economic development, and complaints about high level prices It should be taken into account that the survey was conducted even before the consequences of the global financial crisis affected Belarus;

2) political life, which also causes many conflicting interpretations. The results of the presidential and parliamentary elections cause pride among some of the population, while another part of the population considers these results to be events that cause bitterness and shame. Disagreement with the repressive and harsh measures of the authorities towards opposition forces (dispersal of demonstrations, arrests, etc.) is also often mentioned.

Certain topics are practically present only among events that cause negative feelings. First of all this foreign policy. Among the answers there are often indications of the complexity of relations both with the West (“non-recognition by Western countries”, “Belarus is considered an undemocratic state”, “conflicts with the USA”, “we will never join the EU”, “absence of Belarus in the European Union”), and with Russia (“the impossibility of a union between Russia and Belarus”, “troubles with Russia over gas”, “oil conflicts with Russia”). Also, one of the clearly negative events in modern history for residents of Belarus was the abolition of benefits2.

2 In Belarus, a social reform was carried out in 2007, sharply reducing the number of categories of citizens of the country who could use benefits; in particular, pensioners and students were deprived of benefits.

The list of historical personalities also included the figure of Alexander Lukashenko as the most prominent personality in the history of Belarus in the modern period. Unlike other figures from this list, the presence of the current President of the Republic of Belarus among the listed persons causes certain methodological difficulties. Alexander Lukashenko is the most significant person in current political life, therefore, it seems very difficult to separate the assessment of his role in the history of Belarus from the assessment of the policies pursued by him at this stage. However, the given formulation of the question and inclusion in the context of other historical figures allow us to some extent count on obtaining an assessment of the role of Alexander Lukashenko in the history of Belarus. It is predominantly positive in nature.

Figure 2

ASSESSMENT OF THE ROLE OF ALEXANDER LUKASHENKO IN THE HISTORY OF BELARUS (in% of the number of respondents)

However, this assessment is quite differentiated. The highest positive assessment The role of Alexander Lukashenko in the history of Belarus is given by residents of the country over 60 years old - 6%; at the same time, the positive assessment is less pronounced among respondents aged 20 to 29 years - 47%.

Thus, if the complex of ideas about the Great Patriotic War in the minds of the inhabitants of Belarus is homogeneous and stable, characterized by a stable set of metaphors and expressions, then modern history gives rise to a wealth of interpretations. Some topics from current history (the establishment of independence, sporting achievements, the construction of new buildings, victories at Eurovision) cause the least controversial perception in the mass consciousness and can be considered as contributing to the consolidation and cohesion of the Belarusian nation. At the same time, assessments of socio-economic and political

developments of the Republic of Belarus are contradictory and can hardly serve as some kind of unifying principle.

History of the Soviet period. Research data from the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus indicates that in terms of developing a positive image of the past, the Soviet period is marked by the predominance of an accentuated and expressed memory of the victory in the Great Patriotic War, in the shadow of which other events of this period become insignificant.

The October Revolution was mentioned only once, and this despite the fact that in the Soviet Union the revolutionary myth was one of the most important foundations of all-Soviet identity. Although in the current Republic of Belarus November 7 is a public holiday, the meaning and origin of this holiday has already been practically retouched1. It is noteworthy that this the process is underway much more intense than in Russia. If in 1989 October Revolution considered the main events of the century by 62% of Russians (2nd place after the victory in the war), then in 2003 - 40% (4th place)2.

Only a few historical events from the Soviet past, in addition to the Great Patriotic War, were mentioned by respondents as causing a feeling of pride (see Table 3).

Table 3

TOPICS IN THE SOVIET HISTORY OF BELARUS THAT CAUSE PRIDE IN THE RESIDENTS OF THE COUNTRY

Victory in the Great Patriotic War 89,567

Reconstruction after the war 10 12

Participation in space exploration 10 11

Participation in the creation of the UN 6 6

Life within the USSR 5 5

Union of Western Belarus with the BSSR 5 5

Education BSSR 2 4

1 According to the Eurasian Monitor, the coming to power of Lenin and the Bolshevik Party in 1917 is assessed positively by 31% of respondents surveyed in Belarus, controversially by 26%, negatively by 25%, and did not give an answer by 17%.

2 See: Dubin B. Memory, war, memory of war // Otechestvennye zapiski. 2008. No. 4. P. 6-21.

It is curious that all these events are directly related to the place of Belarus in Soviet history. Even when space exploration is mentioned, the emphasis is not on Gagarin’s pioneering flight, but on the participation of Belarusians in space programs (“Belarusian cosmonauts”, “cosmonauts Klimuk and Kovalenok”, “space flights of Belarusians”). The general category “life within the USSR” is mentioned only 5 times (while some respondents refer specifically to the period “when Masherov was the head”1, which again points specifically to the Belarusian context). This indicates that the history of 1917-1991. in the mass consciousness of Belarusians is perceived rather not as the past of the Soviet people, but rather as the past of the Belarusian people in the Soviet state.

At the same time, the collapse of the Soviet Union is still painfully perceived by part of the population of Belarus, especially representatives of the older generation, who give the most severe negative assessment of the activities of Mikhail Gorbachev and Stanislav Shushkevich. Among the negative events in the history of Belarus are the “collapse of the USSR”, “the signing of the Belovezhsky Treaty”, “the agreement in Viskuly” (although in fairness it should be noted that these same events are also mentioned

and among those events that make the residents of Belarus proud)2.

The assessment of the role of the most important historical figures of the Soviet period is also ambiguous (see Table 4).

As we see, only the assessment of Masherov’s role is unconditionally positive. But his role is assessed most positively by residents of Belarus over 40 years of age, who saw Masherov at the head of the Belarusian government (see Table 5). For them, a positive assessment of this historical figure reaches 80%, but for the younger generation (under 20 years old) this figure is no longer so significant, the level of positive assessment drops almost twofold (to 38%), but more than a third of representatives of this generation (36 %) are not ready to assess the role of this historical figure.

Thus, even a positive perception of the figure of Pyotr Masherov is not a unifying factor for social ideas about the past of the inhabitants of Belarus, since it is primarily characteristic of older generations and leads to a generational gap in historical memory.

At the same time, in the Soviet period there are several pain points for social ideas about the past of the inhabitants of Belarus (see Table 6):

Table 4

ASSESSMENT OF THE ROLE IN THE HISTORY OF BELARUS OF VARIOUS POLITICAL FIGURES OF THE SOVIET PERIOD (in % of the number of respondents)

Figures Survey* Positive Controversial Negative Difficult to answer

Lenin IS 18 32 25 25

EM 39 2 CO 3 2 9

Stalin IS 8 27 44 21

Masherov** IS 68 7 3 22

Gorbachev IS 11 34 31 24

*The lines marked IS contain research data from the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus in June 2008, while those marked EM contain data from the Eurasian Monitor in April-May 2009.

**Unfortunately, in the materials of the Eurasian Monitor study, posted in the public domain, there is only a generalized assessment of Pyotr Masherov, however, also confirming that the country’s population perceives him absolutely positively.

1 During the war, Pyotr Masherov was one of the leaders of the partisan movement; in the 1970s. he was the leader of the Belarusian Communist Party, enjoyed quite a lot of independence and public recognition. Under Lukashenko, Masherov became one _________________________________

one of the most promoted historical figures, since he sent as 2 According to the Eurasian Monitor, the collapse of the Soviet Union

to the positive experience of the Soviet past, and to “independently and positively assessed by 16% of respondents, contradictory - 13%,

of the policy being pursued. negative - 59%.

Table 5

ASSESSMENT OF PETER MASHEROV’S ROLE IN THE HISTORY OF BELARUS AMONG DIFFERENT AGE GROUPS OF BELARUS RESIDENTS (in % of the number of respondents)

Assessment of the role of Pyotr Masherov in the history of Belarus Age groups Total

under 20 years old 20-29 years old 30-39 years old 40-49 years old 50-59 years old over 60 years old

Positive 38 56 64 80 79 74 68

Contradictory 18 12 7 4 4 5 7

Negative 8 5 2 2 3 3 3

Don't know 36 27 27 14 14 18 22

Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

1) accident on Chernobyl nuclear power plant, this event is at the top of the “black list” of events that cause feelings of bitterness and shame (“accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant”, “explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant”, “bitterness: Chernobyl”, “for the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant”, “little information about radioactive contamination” , “resettlement of people from the contaminated zone”, “Chernobyl disaster”);

2) the war in Afghanistan; (“Afghan war”, “war in Afghanistan”, “participation of Belarusians in the war in Afghanistan”);

3) Stalinist repressions (“repressions of 1917-1953”, “repressions of Stalin’s time”, “repressions, murders”, “Kurapaty”);

4) collectivization (“years of collectivization”, “collectivization of the 30s”, “collectivization and its consequences”, “dekulakization”).

Table 6

TOPICS IN THE SOVIET HISTORY OF BELARUS THAT CAUSE BITTERNESS AND SHAME IN THE RESIDENTS OF THE COUNTRY

Topics in the historical memory of residents of Belarus Number of categories Number of answers

Chernobyl disaster 17,184

Collapse of the USSR 17 93

Great Patriotic War 17 50

Stalin's repressions 19 34

Collectivization 5 16

USSR period 10 11

Afghan war 5 9

Thus, the Soviet period in Belarusian historical memory is perceived far from unambiguously. As we have already noted, the positive image of the Soviet past is formed mainly due to the predominance of the memory of the victory in the Great Patriotic War, while other events of the Soviet period are perceived contradictory. It is worth noting that even the fact that Stalin led the country

Noah during the war did not save the activities of this historical figure from a pronounced negative assessment by the residents of Belarus. The older generation of Belarusians retain nostalgic memories of Masherov’s reign, but for the younger generation this period of the past is already losing significance. Thus, the memory of the Soviet past (with the exception of the memory of the victory in the Great Patriotic War) can hardly act as a consolidating factor for strengthening the Belarusian national identity, since it gives rise to contradictory interpretations and serious differences in assessments among the residents of Belarus.

History before the beginning of the twentieth century. The history of the country of the pre-Soviet period is most poorly represented in the mass consciousness of the inhabitants of Belarus.

True, the distant past of the Belarusian people does not cause any negative reactions. From this period, only four events were mentioned as those in the history of Belarus that cause bitterness and shame: the Union of Lublin (which led to the limitation of the independence of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the creation of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth), the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the suppression of the uprising led by Kastus Kalinowski, as well as a single mention of the Livonian War.

Much more frequent are mentions of events from Belarusian history that cause pride (see Table 7), where the largest number of categories relate to the activities of educators (“the creation of the first book by Francis Skaryna,” “the publication of the first book in Eastern Europe,” “enlighteners: E . Polotskaya, K. Turovsky" - 26 categories in total) and the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania ("creation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania", "being part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania", "the flourishing of culture during the Grand Duchy of Lithuania" - 13 categories). Also mentioned are the period of existence of the Principality of Polotsk, the Battle of Nemiga, the Battle of Grunwald, the Battle of

Orsha, the constitution of 1791, the war of 1812, the uprisings of Kosciuszko and Kalinowski, the release of “Our Niva”, the First World War.

Table 7

TOPICS IN THE PRE-SOVIET HISTORY OF BELARUS THAT CAUSE PRIDE IN THE RESIDENTS OF THE COUNTRY

Topics in the historical memory of residents of Belarus Number of categories Number of answers*

Activities of educators 27 32

ON period 13 23

Battle of Grunwald 1410 10 17

Uprising under the leadership of K. Kalinovsky 5 12

Creation of BNR 4 8

Battle of Orsha 1514 4 5

*The table shows data on topics where the number of answers exceeds 5.

It is worth noting that some events, in particular the War of 1812 and the First World War, from a historical point of view, can hardly relate to the achievements of Belarusian national history. The mention of these events demonstrates that in the historical memory of the inhabitants of Belarus there are still ideas about the inclusion of the history of our country in a wider historical and cultural area with Russia (the origins of these ideas may persist as a form of remnants of Soviet education, but may also be formed due to current powerful information impact on Belarus of the Russian cultural field).

Finally, let us turn to assessing the role of those figures who can be classified as national heroes. The leader of the liberation uprising of 1863-1864 is assessed most positively in this series. Kastus Kalinowski, which may be due to the fact that in the Soviet period the leader of the uprising was viewed in a positive light because of his radical democratic views. Along with Francis Skaryna, this is one of the key figures in Belarusian history. On the other hand, Kastus Kalinovsky is much less known to the residents of Belarus than the pioneer printer from Polotsk. A little more than half of those surveyed (52%) assess his role in the history of Belarus positively, while a third of respondents (31%) find it difficult to give any assessment.

Nevertheless, his role is assessed most positively by the younger generation (60%),

and among representatives of the older generation, the positive assessment drops to 47%.

The most positive assessments were received by the activities of historical figures who were engaged in cultural and educational activities. The population of Belarus most positively perceives the contribution to the history of our country of such outstanding educators as Francis Skaryna (85%) and Euphrosyne of Polotsk (84%). Moreover, their perception is almost completely devoid of negative connotations; they actually unite all residents of Belarus, since all socio-demographic groups are invariably positive in their assessment of the role of these historical figures.

Polotsk Prince Vseslav the Magician and Lithuanian Prince Vitovt make up a pair of historical figures whose role in the history of Belarus is assessed almost equally by the population of the country. As age increases, the positive assessment of their role in the history of the country decreases (in the case of Vytautas - from 54 to 24%, in the case of Vseslav the Magician - from 49 to 28%) and the proportion of those who found it difficult to evaluate their works increases (in the case of Vytautas - from 27 to 59 %, in the case of Vseslav the Magician - from 30 to 61%). It should be noted that these historical characters were virtually absent from Soviet textbooks on the history of the BSSR; they appeared there only in the late 1980s, when the wave of national revival had already begun to rise, so such trends are quite understandable.

At the same time, it seems important to us that the figures of national history do not cause any rejection or rejection among the older generation.

Despite the weak updating of ideas about the past of Belarus in the pre-Soviet period, it is this historical period that has the greatest potential for strengthening national identity. Distance in the past for the representation of historical events has undeniable advantages: here the possible contradiction between cultural and communicative memory (or, in other words, between official and unofficial memory) is removed, which gives greater freedom to create a positive image of past events. Poor knowledge of the residents of Belarus about the history of their country before the beginning of the twentieth century. can be interpreted as a “blank slate”, which may well be filled with constructed memory, and this is the advantage of antiquity over modern history, which inevitably

will give rise to conflicting interpretations. This potential is beginning to be used both in the field of education and in the media (for example, historical publications in the newspaper “Belarus Segodnya”, cycles of historical programs on state television channels), but the possibilities of historical memory in this case, as evidenced by survey data, have not yet been used fully.

In this regard, it is worth noting once again that among all the historical figures who influenced the course of the history of Belarus, it was the enlighteners of the Middle Ages, Francis Skorina and Euphrosyne of Polotsk, who received an unambiguously positive assessment. Consequently, the emphasis on the activities of famous educators can serve as a unifying factor contributing to the consistency of the historical memory of Belarusians1.

Thus, an analysis of the degree of conflict/coherence of the main topoi in the historical memory of the inhabitants of Belarus allows us to come to the following conclusions.

A certain differentiation has been recorded in social ideas about the past of the population of Belarus, which is based mainly on the change of generations. However, such differences naturally follow from the above-described change in educational paradigms. Older generations perceive the Soviet period of Belarusian history much more positively, while the pre-Soviet past is practically unknown for them (with the exception of the activities of the enlighteners), although it does not cause any negative reactions. The younger generation is very aware of various events and personalities of Belarusian history. Although this gap, in our opinion, is not so significant, it is difficult to talk about a “conflict of generations”, since there are unifying themes that are perceived equally by different generations.

The most important historical myth constituting the modern Belarusian na-

national identity is memory

about the victory in the Great Patriotic War, the consistency and simplicity of this memory only contributes to the consistency of ideas about the past.

The topos of modern history is the most rich and diverse in the Belarusian historical memory, but this comes at the cost of inconsistency of assessments and interpretations. Certain themes of modern history (the establishment of independence, sporting achievements, the construction of structures intended to serve in the fields of culture and sports, victories at the Eurovision music competition) can be regarded as contributing to the consolidation of mass consciousness, but the interpretation of the socio-economic and political development of the Republic of Belarus is not homogeneous.

The memory of the Soviet period in the history of Belarus is marked by the predominance of the memory of the war, pushing other events out of the people's memory. At the same time, the negative (or contradictory) assessment by residents of Belarus of the political leaders of this period, with the exception of Pyotr Masherov, indicates that Soviet history cannot act as a unifying factor for a holistic historical memory.

The topos of social ideas about the history of Belarus before the beginning of the twentieth century has the greatest potential for strengthening the Belarusian national identity; it has two important characteristics: (1) lack of completeness (which allows you to introduce the necessary content into it without any problems) and (2) positive-neutral perception in the mass consciousness. The consolidating role of the assessment of the enlighteners Francysk Skaryna and Euphrosyne of Polotsk indicates that pre-Soviet Belarusian history can be quite effectively used to form a common understanding of the past and present of the Belarusian nation.

1 It is no coincidence that, according to the study “National Identity of Belarusians: Who are we and what will we be?”, when choosing the “Name of Belarus”, Francysk Skorina is clearly in the lead (25%), in second place is Petr Masherov - 13%, while other figures are much less less representative.

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Collection of articles on the history of Belarus download fb2. Vadim Rostov - a collection of articles on the history of Belarus Pages of the past articles on the history of Belarus

Collection of articles on the history of Belarus

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