In the 1920s and 1930s, a significant portion of the population in the Smolensk Governorate, and later in the Western Oblast of the RSFSR, belonged to the Belarusian-speaking minority. National processes were taking place in the Belarusian-Russian ethnocontact zone, which reflected in the ethnic self-identification of the local Belarusian population. Changes in elements of traditional everyday culture, as well as linguistic assimilation, which involved the lack of prestige of Belarusian dialects and the gradual loss of Belarusian linguistic components by peasants, affected broad circles of the rural community [1, p.186].
However, despite the general trend, there were exceptions. For example, when the first consolidation of the BSSR took place in 1924, villagers who were registered in the RSFSR but considered themselves Belarusians sent petitions to the Belarusian Central Executive Committee requesting the inclusion of their villages into Belarus. Residents of the villages of Velyki Rai, Maly Rai, and Sviridovka of the Bakhotskaya volost wrote: “…Gathered on this date (March 30, 1924) for a general meeting and discussing the issue of joining us to Great Russia, we decided: given that we have always belonged to the nation of Belarusians, as our ancestors, fathers, and grandfathers were… Learning that our villages are being transferred to Smolensk County, hence to Great Russia, national feelings awakened in us – a thirst to join our native land, where we were born and wish to die, defending our national rights” [2, fol. 398].
The presence of large masses of the Belarusian-speaking minority in Smolensk, although largely with an undefined self-awareness, forced local Soviet authorities responsible for education and cultural work to react in some way. This was done very reluctantly, considering the overall devastation and the traditional view of Belarusians as a branch of the “Russian tribe.”
Thus, in 1921-1922, national work in Smolensk was conducted weakly, “because no Belarusian departments were organized throughout the territory of this region.” According to the Belarusian People’s Commissariat of Education, only choirs, circles, and amateur theater troupes operated in the region [3, p.19].
In light of this, in 1921, at the initiative of the BSSR government, a Belarusian section was established within the Smolensk Provincial Department of Public Education, consisting of three members and two candidates. It operated in the province with interruptions in 1922-23 and 1925-27, directly subordinated to the Belarusian Central Bureau under the People’s Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR and the Soviet of People’s Commissars at the Smolensk Provincial Department of Public Education, engaged in organizing national schools, clubs, and other cultural and educational institutions for the Belarusian population in the Smolensk Governorate.
Thus, in 1923, the magazine “Kryvic,” edited by V. Lastouski, reported: at the end of August and the beginning of September, an exhibition of the Belarusian movement – those books and magazines that were collected with great difficulty by the Belarusian Provincial Section – took place at the Smolensk Provincial Central Library. The exhibition provided Smolensk residents with much interesting information, as most of them were unaware that Belarusians had their own books. “After the exhibition, many expressed a desire to read something Belarusian, especially noticeable among the youth” [4, p.51].
However, the key issue for the Belarusian minority became primarily the question of school education in their native language. In July 1923, an interdepartmental meeting was convened in Smolensk, where the problem of Belarusization of the province as a whole and Belarusian schooling in particular was discussed. Participants expressed a desire to create Belarusian schooling in the province, but with the consent of the local population.
Belarusization of schools actually began in the 1926-1927 academic year, and already a year later, there were 36 first-level Belarusian schools in the province, and 4 higher-level ones. In 1929, a Belarusian department was opened at the Sobolevo-Vorobyov Pedagogical Technical School, and the issue of organizing a pedagogical department in the Rudnyanskaya Belarusian nine-year school was also resolved. In 1932, 143 individuals studied in the last school, preschool, and preparatory departments. The Belarusian department also operated at the Klintsy Soviet Party School and the Smolensk Pedagogical Rabfak [5, p.70; 84].
The actual situation of Belarusian-language education was not easy. Very often, teachers in Belarusian schools lacked pedagogical education and, moreover, did not possess the literary Belarusian language. A weak material and technical base, lack of funds, and frequent protests from peasants against Belarusian schools negatively affected national enlightenment in the region.
Therefore, in 1934, a crackdown on Belarusian schools began, and just before the start of classes, “…due to the fact that a number of Belarusian schools…actually operate in the Russian language, due to the lack of a base for their rooting, and considering the demands of the population,” some schools in the Nevelsky, Rudnyansky, and Gardzeevsky districts were transferred to the Russian language [5, p.85].
The last Belarusian schools in Smolensk were closed in 1938, marking the end of Belarusian schooling in this territorial unit of Russia.
The local history movement was another form of Belarusian cultural and educational work in Smolensk. On March 19, 1926, at the initiative of a small group of interested individuals, the Statute of the Smolensk Society of Local History was approved.
The young society, which initially had neither funds nor its own premises, began active work among students, school youth, teachers, and enthusiasts. By 1927, the society had branches operating in Vyazma, Sychevka, and Dorogobuzh, and initiative groups were formed to create branches of the organization in Yelnya and Roslavl [6, p.110]. The society maintained correspondence with the Central Bureau of Local History of the RSFSR, regularly sent its letters to the newspaper “Our Land,” actively collaborated with the Institute of Belarusian Culture and the Central Bureau of Local History under it, the methodological bureau of the Gubana, and other institutions.
The scientific research activities of the organization were manifested in the following fields: natural sciences, economics, history, archaeology, and ethnography. For example, the famous Belarusian archaeologist A.N. Lyavdanski, along with V. Tarasenko and G. Parfyonov, surveyed hillforts and burial mounds; in the field of ethnography and folklore, V. Dmitriev and A. Palashenkov worked fruitfully. In the natural sciences, A.V. Tsviatkov, V. Daugashov, V.V. Dabravolsky, and others collected materials on flora and fauna.
Members of the Society also supported the so-called Belarusian Student Society, which operated in Smolensk until approximately 1929.
The presence of a large Belarusian student population in Smolensk led to the establishment of the first national circles as early as 1922. The interest in the history and culture of Belarus served as the basis for the gathering of Smolensk youth.
The policy of “indigenization,” as well as the active position of the Belarusian section of the local Gubana, contributed to the registration of the Belarusian Society in 1924 [7, p. 11]. The youth organization immediately engaged in educational and scientific activities. To mitigate the educational detachment from the BSSR, the elected board of the society, together with the Belarusian section, began to provide students with Belarusian textbooks and manuals.
Initially, the society set the following goals: to maintain connections between members of the organization and Belarus, to serve the Belarusian student population culturally, and to assist in the Belarusization of the Smolensk region.
Cultural work was the main type of activity of the organization, revealing its national character. It involved the work of circles in Belarusian studies, string, dramatic, and choral groups, which united both students of the Smolensk State University and students of Smolensk technical schools. Smolensk students engaged in the dissemination of Belarusian periodicals, provided patronage assistance to Belarusian schools in the province, and contributed to improving the living conditions of Belarusian students, indicating the national orientation of the organization.
The unification of Smolensk students occurred both on the basis of place of birth and by national identity, which was not provided for in the society’s statute. Thus, in the 1926-27 academic year, students of the Smolensk State University – members of the Belarusian Student Society – were natives of the following parts of Belarus: Barysaw District – 3, Vitebsk District – 12, Gomel District – 6, Grodno Governorate – 5, Kalinin District – 15, Mogilev District – 4, Orsha District – 13, Smolensk Governorate – 6 individuals. Vilnius Governorate, Slutsk, Dubrovna, Horki, Minsk, and the Kuban-Chernigov region had one representative each [8, fol. 26].
In the Smolensk Society, in addition to Belarusians, Jews and representatives of other nationalities were accepted if they were natives of Belarus. Mainly, the society’s members were students who came from Eastern Belarus to study in Smolensk. The relatively widespread Belarusian self-awareness among the residents of Smolensk influenced the fact that a significant group of members of the society were natives of Smolensk Governorate, who were also accepted into the organization. A separate group of society members consisted of students from Western Belarus, who were predominantly political and social emigrants.
The cessation of the society’s activities occurred no earlier than the spring of 1929 and was most likely of a forced liquidation nature. The liquidation represented a reaction of local authorities to changes in the internal political course of the USSR regarding public organizations and the national question, and occurred as a result of the “purge” of Smolensk State University in the spring of 1929.
Around the same time, the Smolensk Society of Local History also began to disappear, its members would soon be repressed.
It is hardly reasonable to hope that the Belarusian cultural and educational movement continued to exist in Smolensk, even in a passive state after 1931, as the intensified pressure and a new wave of arrests practically eliminated such chances. In 1931, the pages of the Vilnius “Belarusian Source” published a “protest of the Belarusian National Committee in Vilnius regarding the persecution of the Belarusian people by the communist authorities in Eastern Belarus.” Representatives of the BNC claimed that “…such persecution of workers in the field of Belarusian culture occurs not only in Minsk, … but also in… Smolensk.”
The Belarusian movement in the Smolensk region, initiated in the early 1920s and embodied in the activities of the Belarusian section, the Smolensk Society of Local History, the Belarusian Student Society, and the school education system, was curtailed during the 1930s as a result of the new internal policy of the Soviet country.
Literature
- Rastorguev, P. A. Dialects in the Smolensk Region / P. A. Rastorguev. – Moscow: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1960. – 207 p.
- National Archive of the Republic of Belarus (NARB). – F. 6. Materials on the consolidation and regionalization of the BSSR. – Inventory 1 – Case 346.
- Belarusian Cultural Work in the East // Bulletin of the People’s Commissariat of Education of the SSRB. – Minsk: State Publishing House of Belarus, 1921 – 1922, No. 1 (3) – 3/4 (5/6).
- Belarusian Cultural Movement in Smolensk Region // Kryvic = Kryvic: monthly of literature, culture, and public life / Ed. V. Lastouski. No. 4, 1923.
- Korsak, A.V. National Minorities of Smolensk Governorate and Western Oblast in the First Two Decades of Soviet Power: dissertation for the degree of candidate of historical sciences: 07.00.02; 07.00.03; 22.09.2000; 29.11.2000 / Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus. – Minsk, 2000.
- Year of Work of the Smolensk Society of Local History // Our Land. No. 6-7 (21-22), 1921.
- Vasileuski, Yu. Fiery Youth over the Wide Dnieper… // Chyrvonaia Zmena. – 1994. – November 1.
- National Archive of the Republic of Belarus (NARB). – F. 268. Central Bureau of Trade Unions. – Inventory 1 – Case 61.
F.Berrashed