Belarusians of Western Smolensk Region | Belarusian Smolensk Region

Sviatoslav Kochanenkov

When writing this cycle of works, one cannot avoid the question of the national identity of the inhabitants of our villages, although this circumstance has no practical significance, and the work is not of a scientific nature.

There are several theories about the origin of the Belarusian ethnos. One of them is the origin of the people from the tribes of Krivichs who settled the Dnieper and Dvina regions. If this is the case, then the inhabitants of Smolensk, Vitebsk, Polotsk, and other populated areas are descendants of this people. And since later the residents living in the above-mentioned territory identified themselves as Belarusians, they are indeed our ancestors. Therefore, the inhabitants of the greater part of Smolensk region are Belarusians.

Capricious history complicated the national question. In the early Middle Ages, Smolensk region formed into a separate principality. The western neighbors of this same tribe entered the Polotsk principality. Then Smolensk, Vitebsk, and Polotsk became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. However, this does not mean that the inhabitants changed their nationality. The principality, which included these territories, was called Russo-Lithuanian, and it was predominantly Orthodox.

At that time, Smolensk land found itself in a favorable geographical position. A trade route “from the Varangians to the Greeks” ran through the territory of the principality. A historical source from that time has even survived, namely the “Trade Treaty between Smolensk and Riga of 1229.” The treaty regulated relations not only between Smolensk and German cities but also between Vitebsk and Polotsk. The text of the treaty is written in Old Belarusian. After all, we are a single tribe. Linguists find much in common between the language in which the treaty was written and modern Belarusian. Given the high level of international relations of the principalities, one can confidently assert that there were many documents that would now be invaluable sources for studying the history of the Dnieper and Dvina lands. However, history has been quite cruel. In this regard, the Grand Novgorod was luckier. Its history is studied in all school programs. Smolensk could not have lacked valuable historical monuments. But alas…

Years went by. The Smolensk land, having existed for the time allotted to it by history as part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and having lost nothing from this, fell under the influence of Muscovy. This happened because the Muscovite princes, and later tsars, valued Smolensk as an important strategic point. The first thing the Moscow rulers did was to begin the “Russification” of the conquered territory. Thus, Smolensk found itself cut off from the unified economic and political space of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Nevertheless, the common people remained, for a long time, in their culture, customs, and language the same. They did not become Muscovites. About the present time, it seems, one cannot say the same.

Of course, history cannot be turned back, and we cannot currently identify ourselves otherwise than as we are at this moment. Centuries passed before the same ethnos, having absorbed the influence of different cultures and developing under different political conditions, as if split into two nationalities – Smolensk Russians and Eastern Belarusians. Part of the nationality fell into the bosom of the Russian Empire. At the same time, the population living in the western part of the Muscovite state was Russified, so to speak. Orthodoxy was the cement that bound, albeit despotically, the like-minded Muscovy and the west of Smolensk. The other part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – by that time the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – the western part, absorbed the influence of Polish culture and Catholic faith, continued to remain outside of Russia.

After the conquests, during the reign of Empress Catherine II, one can begin to discuss such a nationality as Belarusians. The tsarist government, recognizing Little Russians (Ukrainians), for a time refused to recognize Belarusians.

The well-known researcher of Belarusian ethnicity, Academician Karsky, counted 14 provinces within which this people was spread. Among these provinces was Smolensk, especially its western districts: Porechye and Krasninsky.

The author is only aware of later statistical and research works concerning the Belarusian question in Smolensk region. According to the data from the “Agricultural Statistics of Smolensk Province” (compiled by Yakov Solovyov, Moscow, 1855), as of 1853, in Porechye district lived: male peasants – 38,994 souls, female – 40,674. In total – 79,618 people, whom the compiler considered to be of Belarusian nationality. The statistics of that period contain uncertainty regarding the national question.

Other information. According to the “List of Settlements. Smolensk Province,” published by the Central Statistical Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as of 1859, in Porechye district lived 68,995 Belarusians and only 2,202 Great Russians. The mix of Belarusians and Great Russians – 11,713 people.

In the statistical report of the government of the Russian Empire for 1859, the province was divided into two approximately equal parts. The Great Russian districts included Vyazemsky, Yukhnovsky, Gzhatsky, Sychevsky, and Belsky with a population of 519,335 souls, or 46% of the total number. The Belarusian included Smolensky, Krasninsky, Dukhovshchinsky, Dorogobuzhsky, Yelninsky, Roslavlsky, and Porechye districts with a population of 602,499 people, or 54% of the total number. It was noted that in the Belarusian districts, the higher class of residents consisted of Great Russians.

Porechye district, where our ancestors lived, had a total population of 84,023 people, of which 55,949 souls were state peasants.

As we can see, there are some discrepancies in quantitative terms. But this can be explained, firstly, by the fact that the residents themselves did not attach great importance to nationality during the censuses, and secondly, the data from the 1855 directory did not account for the “mix of Great Russians and Belarusians.” And in general, what is a mix? One involuntarily comes to the thought that the tsarist government began to purposefully Russify the western part of Smolensk.

In the 1897 census, the residents of Porechye district almost unanimously identified their native language as Great Russian. On this basis, the compilers of the directory, a fragment of which is presented below, quite naturally concluded that the population was of Great Russian nationality. Belarusians accounted for about one percent. Where did they go in the forty years that passed? I would suggest that in this case, the human factor played a role, i.e., the work of the census takers. As comrade Stalin once said: “It does not matter how they vote – it matters how they count.” Being almost entirely illiterate, the peasants may not have fully understood what nationality meant. Not that they did not understand at all. They distinguished, for example, Poles (pans), Germans, Jews, etc. All their fellow villagers looked alike. What nationality is there when everyone speaks the same language without exception? For a peasant, what difference does it make whether he communicates in Great Russian or not? When recording the same Poles or Latvians, officials indicated their native language as “Polish” or “Latvian,” although they also spoke the same dialect, in this case – Belarusian. Why such selectivity? The vague explanation by the compilers of the directory below, that over forty years the Belarusian dialect turned into Great Russian, therefore, Belarusians turned into Great Russians, seems unconvincing.

Only the most literate residents of our area could consciously identify themselves as representatives of the Belarusian nationality: some county officials, priests, police officers, doctors, that is, the one percent of the population indicated in the directory. The fact that the residents of the neighboring Krasninsky district resisted the authorities’ policy and continued to consider themselves Belarusians is commendable. My compatriots faltered, but maybe not.

Whether the census takers acted consciously, by order, or on their own initiative, in essence, does not matter.

Data from the 1897 Census of the Russian Empire

Smolensk Province. N. Troynitsky interpreted the census data in 1904 as follows:


Area		Male
Name of the district	Versts	Men	Women	Both sexes
Porechye district – total	5096.8	64028	67908	131936
Porechye district – town of Porechye	2740	2948	5688
Population of the district
Great Russian		62033	66002	128035
Belarusian		666	749	1415

Researcher Ivan Ivanovich Orlovsky in his work “Brief Geography of Smolensk Province,” published in Smolensk in 1907, clearly stated that the Smolensk region could be called Belarusian, as about 1,000,000 Belarusians lived there out of a total population of 1,525,279 according to the census.

Later, the Bolsheviks, ardent internationalists, let us recall V. Mayakovsky:

We live,

compressed

by an iron oath.

For it -

on the cross,

and with a bullet you scratch:

this -

to live in a world

without Russians,

and without Latvians,

as a single

human community

– continued the policy of the tsarist government and achieved that the residents of Smolensk region do not even think about their roots today. However, there is no need for this. This question has no practical significance, except perhaps for scientific-historical purposes. If one delves into the ethnographic problem, then it would also be necessary to sort out the Great Russians, what kind of nation are they? There are also unsuccessful disputes among scholarly ethnographers on this issue. The common saying that if you scratch any Russian well enough, you will find a Tatar underneath, explains nothing.

Why did the Belarusian village of Hvozdovichi (Gvozdovichi) become the village of Gvozdyevitsy when it transitioned to the Muscovite kingdom? I think this happened within the framework of the same state policy aimed at eradicating the memory of the population about the presence of Smolensk region in another state. The name of my native village Hvozdovichi would remind of the Lithuanian-Belarusian roots of the settlement. According to the Moscow authorities, who declared themselves the gatherers of the lands of the disintegrated Kievan Rus, Smolensk region has always been Russian, in the sense of Muscovite territory. At the same time, it was not taken into account that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, to which the western part of Smolensk land belonged, and where the Belarusian ethnos began to form, had no relation to Moscow and had no particular desire to merge into its composition. In the court of history, the victors are rarely condemned. What happened, happened. And, in general, in the dispute of states for territories, those sides where authoritarian and aggressive political regimes are in power usually win – democracies, accordingly, lose. Although for the simple peasants of that time, did it matter much – to be under Moscow or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth?

The author of the “Agricultural Statistical Directory,” Y. Solovyov, paints a bleak picture of the life of our ancestors, simultaneously showing the superiority of Great Russians. There was a difference in clothing between Great Russians and Belarusians. ”…The Great Russian,” writes Y. Solovyov, “wears kaftans made of colored cloth, dyed shirts, black hats: either high Moscow ones in Gzhatsky district or low Tver ones. Almost everywhere boots, at least for state peasants. Women wear blue sarafans, colorful aprons, kokoshniks, and girls – headscarves, in any case, colorful.

In contrast, among Belarusians, everywhere and in everything, the color white prevails. White shirts, kaftans made of undyed cloth, white dried kaftans, caps instead of hats, mostly bast shoes instead of boots. Women wear instead of sarafans a special cut of zipun, almost always made of white undyed canvas, white woolen skirts. On their heads, white headscarves. On holidays, with red patterned ends, which reach halfway down the back.”

But what should be kept in mind here. Cultural traditions in different districts of Smolensk province were different. One should not forget about the degree of sedentariness of the population. For centuries, villages lived in isolation, in their own world. Even peasants from neighboring volosts might not see each other throughout their lives. Hence the peculiarities in clothing, customs, and spoken language. Thus, for example, within the same Porechye district, there were their own differences. We, for instance, never said “pcolka” (bee), “tsort” (devil), “kotsyerg” (poker). In the north and even in the area of the district center, that was the only way to speak. Representatives of the General Staff of Barclay de Tolly’s army, retreating through Porechye during the 1812 war, found such speech quite amusing. And now, claim that the Porechye people spoke in Great Russian dialect. To pass all this off as backwardness in development is also incorrect.

I do not think the author’s views are objective. A.N. Engelhardt in “Letters from the Village” without any statistics showed that the population of both ethnic groups lived equally poorly. Perhaps the situation was different in the Moscow region, and most likely it was different. But that is Moscow region for you.

In the villages of central and western Smolensk region, all peasants lived this way, including Great Russians. And where in Smolensk region are the fertile black soils to yield rich harvests of grain crops? The land is equally poor everywhere. The common crafts served only to meet the needs of the population. A natural exchange occurred. Crafts did not bring money to the population. It was difficult to accumulate funds for paying taxes. Why could the population in our locality become prosperous?

Yakov Solovyov notes that the geographical position of the Belarusian districts hinders the spread of crafts among them. Belarusian peasants rarely went out to earn money alone. Crafts included work on the construction of highways and railroads, timber rafting, transportation, and carpentry. In agriculture, the main crops were hemp and rye. For their own needs, flax cultivation and gardening were developed.

The peasant population of the district, due to its status (the majority were state peasants), was also freer in choosing their place of residence. In search of a better lot, which meant searching for better lands, with the support of the government, villagers moved to other provinces. From 1847 to 1857, 2,859 people moved to Yekaterinoslav, Saratov, and especially to Tobolsk provinces. The farmers chose their places wisely, it must be said. In the listed provinces, the soils, unlike our lands, are much more fertile. In Tobolsk province – fertile black soils. As the Siberians themselves like to say: “We never knew bast shoes.” Perhaps this is indeed the case.

Even in the 1950s, the western part of Smolensk region spoke entirely in the Smolensk dialect of the Belarusian language. The author of these lines remembers this time very well, having spoken in this dialect himself. And what a beautiful spoken language it was. However, the word “bulyba” (potato) was unknown to us. We would say, for example: ”…Did you eat enough potatoes?” – “Yes, a little.” When in the 1950s battery radios began to appear in the villages, for example, in our house, the receiver was tuned to the Minsk wave, but not Moscow’s. Belarusian speech was more understandable to us. However, when the announcer said “darahi syabry” (dear friends), it sounded somewhat unusual for the villagers. We would have said: “darahi druzya” (dear friends). Even now, in remote villages, peasants speak in the Belarusian dialect almost the same as the inhabitants of the neighboring Vitebsk region of the Republic of Belarus.

From the work of Ivan Ivanovich Orlovsky “Brief Geography of Smolensk Province,” published in Smolensk in 1907 (the text is presented in modern transcription):

“The language of Smolensk Belarusians is purer than that of Mogilev and Vitebsk; namely, it has almost no borrowings from the Polish language, which is corrupted by Latin and Germanisms. A distinctive feature of Belarusian speech is primarily akanye: unstressed o and e are pronounced as a and ya (kaho, yaho), or even y and i (kigda, mine and myane). Then, in and l before consonants and at the end of words, it is pronounced as a short u (use, vouk (wolf), byu (was)). The hard sign is unknown to Belarusians g and is pronounced softly, like the Latin h (goose, Boh). The sound d and s before soft words is pronounced softly (d’vyer, s’yet’it, s’yepina). In the western districts, dzekan’ye is developed (the sounds d and t are pronounced as dz and ts: dzuka, tsikha); and on the border with Tver province, tsokan’ye (pcolka – bee). The sound ch is pronounced hard (chshay – tea). Soft consonants before soft vowels are usually doubled (vyaselya, syanni – today), etc.

For a sample of the Smolensk (Porechye) dialect, we present a small story from Dobrovolsky’s collection about how “Pyatrok” became a healer with the help of a forest spirit.

“Kasiyu Pyatrok hay on the aborak (near the forest); he began to warm it with sleep. He sees – either in a dream or in reality – a little boy lying, all bare, all in flowers.

He felt very sorry for that child, and he covered him with his jacket. After that, it seems in a dream, or in reality – a beautiful, enchanting girl appears to him; with her hair down – and says:

What will you give me, Pyatrok, for covering my child: do you want wealth, power, or knowledge?
I do not want power, nor wealth; but can I not receive knowledge?

The beautiful girl liked this.

Well, good, Pyatrok! I will do this for you: you will know many secrets of nature, and you will give much healing to people and cattle.

From that time on, our Pyatrok became a healer, and the beautiful girl did not forget him and often visited him, and he consulted with her and explained much – about what – that is their business, and we do not know. His wife herself told me:

I lie with Pyatrok, and the beautiful girl approaches Pyatrok, with her hair down, all in white – and I lie neither alive nor dead, pressed against… What, my dear kumynka?: that is – it frightens me, and I do not want to think about their conversations like others do with their tales. Oh, cunning, very cunning!…

So modestly she would come to him, as she arrived. So it went with them…

Once Pyatrok stopped a passenger (passenger train) on the railroad. Did you hear that?! A drunk man shouts: – I will stop and stop!

And indeed: the passenger – tsup! – and stopped. Then he from the city, where they took him, arrived after two months through the mud…”

It is amazing how relatively recently, the villages of western Smolensk spoke exactly as I. Orlovsky conveyed.

And here is another view of Belarusians, expressed by another author:

”…Standing on the border of two hostile powers, the inhabitants of Smolensk region suffered much from the misfortunes of war. Transitioning to both Rus and Poland, the Smolensk people, both by their position and by historical fate, involuntarily adopted elements of neighboring peoples. And it is not for nothing that we notice duality of character in the current inhabitants of Smolensk province. The residents of the districts separated from Poland, Yukhnovsky, Gzhatsky, Sychevsky, Belsky, and (partly) Vyazemsky bear the traits of Great Russians. They are active, cheerful, fresh, well-fed, prosperous, and tidy. Resourcefulness, activity, care for their household, and ingenuity in finding means of livelihood are distinctive features of the residents of these districts.

In other districts, the Belarusian element predominates. The inhabitants of those districts are Little Russians, baggy; their economy is meager; their clothing is unkempt. In some places, especially those neighboring Belarus, some peasants do not even have floors in their houses, and many eat bread made from unthreshed rye. Their language is not purely Great Russian, but some mixture with Belarusian and Polish. The sharp hardness of the Polish language and the full sound of the Russian speech merge, and, mixing together, create some special dialect, unfamiliar to the ear. In the Smolensk dialect, there are purely Polish words, and Little Russian sounds, and features of Belarusian pronunciation, and Great Russian speech with incorrect stresses and word changes.

The present male peasant dress of the inhabitants of Smolensk and other districts adjacent to Belarus: a kaftan made of white cloth and a felt white woolen cap in the shape of a truncated cone; and female dress: a white namestka or headscarf; lacing without sleeves, andarak (skirt, which is tied with a belt…)

This excerpt from P. Shestakov’s work “Geography of Smolensk Province,” published in 1857. As we can see, the attitudes of the two authors, Shestakov and Orlovsky, towards the history of the western part of Smolensk region have significant differences. Perhaps this is related to the transformation of public opinion – after all, between the writing of the works, 50 years passed. Perhaps the works express the subjective attitudes of the authors towards the Belarusian population of Smolensk province.

Sources used in the work

I. Silinich, D. Anuchin, P. Semenov. A cycle of lectures delivered at Moscow University in 1918 on the course of Belarusian history. Internet resources.
I. Orlovsky. Brief Geography of Smolensk Province. Published by the Smolensk Statistical Committee. Smolensk. 1907.
Smolensk Antiquity. Issue three. Part I. Edited by N. Red’kov. Published by the Smolensk Archive Commission. Smolensk. 1914.
M.K. Lyubavsky. An Outline of the History of the Lithuanian-Russian State up to and including the Union of Lublin. 2nd edition. Moscow. 1915.
Y. Solovyov. Agricultural Statistics of Smolensk Province. Moscow. 1855.
P. Shestakov. Geography of Smolensk Province. Moscow. 1857.
N. Troynitsky. Data from the 1897 Census of the Russian Empire. Smolensk Province. Moscow. 1904.
List of Settlements. Smolensk Province. Published by the Central Statistical Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs as of 1859. St. Petersburg. 1863.
A. Engelhardt. Letters from the Village. Algorithm. Moscow. 2010.
E.F. Karsky. Ethnographic Map of the Belarusian Tribe, compiled in 1903. Internet publication.

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About the author:

Kachanenkau Sviatoslav Savelyevich. Born in the village of Gvozdyevitsy, Kasplyansky district, Smolensk region in January 1947 in the family of a village teacher.

Studied at Gvozdyevitskaya Primary School. Graduated from Zarubin Seven-Year School. From 1963 to 1967 worked at the Grozny Petrochemical Plant. From 1967 to 1969 served in the army. From 1970 to 1975 studied at North Ossetian State University and Sverdlovsk Law Institute. From 1978 to 1999 worked as a lawyer in Surgut Legal Consultation of Tyumen region, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug. Retired. Author of a series of works “Essays on the History of Native Places. Life in a Smolensk Village,” which can be freely downloaded from the author. Currently working on the issue of Belarusian dialects of western Smolensk region.