Farid Berraşed
The political isolation of Smolensk began in the 11th century when an independent dynasty led by Rostislav Mstislavich was established here in the 1120s. Despite the elevation of Smolensk land into a separate state-principality, which reached its greatest extent under Rostislav Mstislavich (1125–59), the ethnocultural connection between the Smolensk residents and the inhabitants of neighboring principalities was not severed.
In the late 9th to 10th centuries, the Slavicized Baltic community of Krievа, among which Slavic colonists settled, began to be called “Kryvichs.” The Baltic-Slavic area of the Kryvichs encompassed not only Smolensk but also the neighboring Polotsk land[1].
Gradually incorporating Orsha, Kopyl, Krichev, Mstsislav, Proposhask, Toropets, Roslavl, and Dorogobuzh into their principality, the Smolensk princes began to control Vitebsk and the Bryansk region in the 1280s-1290s. However, from the mid-13th century, the Smolensk principality lost these territories, barely maneuvering between Lithuania and the Moscow prince. Under Prince Ivan Alexandrovich (1313–58), Smolensk firmly came under the influence of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL).
Throughout the 14th to 17th centuries, the history of Smolensk was closely linked to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, within which these territories were located from 1405 to 1514. Almost a hundred years later, in 1611, after a 21-month siege by King Sigismund III Vasa, Smolensk was annexed to the federation of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania – the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Within this state formation, Smolensk Region remained until 1654, when, as a result of the bloodiest war known in Polish historiography as the “Bloody Deluge,” it finally became part of Russia.
The Pious Grand Duke Rostislav of Smolensk
During its long stay within the GDL, Smolensk acquired an extraordinary role as a defensive fortress on the eastern edge of the state. It is precisely Smolensk that the statesmen of the Grand Duchy called “the Key of Lithuania,” when the state border lay only 350 km from Moscow[2].
In the political thought of the GDL and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 16th-17th centuries, Smolensk and the Smolensk Voivodeship were considered their ancestral land, seized by the violence of the Moscow Tsardom. At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, the “Smolensk myth” of the times of Liberum veto was modernized by Belarusian intellectuals through its synthesis with elements of the “Western Russian” narrative aimed against Polish dominance in the Northwestern region. This fact would become decisive for the maturation of Belarusian national heroism, the Smolensk epic, and ultimately, the genesis of the Belarusian movement in the Smolensk region.
A typical medieval “Lithuanian” view of Smolensk is vividly reflected in the first Polish-language encomium written in 1628 by the Belarusian nobleman Jan Kunowski. In the poem “Smoleńska zacność,” there is no attention paid to the pre-Lithuanian period of the existence of the Smolensk principality; however, the courage of the residents of Smolensk in the common battle for Lithuania and the Crown of Poland at Grunwald is spectacularly described. The author believes that the annexation of the city to the Moscow state in 1514 occurred due to the betrayal of Mikhail Glinsky, and the grand construction works to strengthen the fortress ordered by Boris Godunov were interpreted as a desire to hold onto foreign land.
In turn, the siege of Smolensk by Sigismund III was understood by the poet as historical justice – the realization of a policy to return lost lands[3].
The view of the nobility on Smolensk and its role for the country is excellently reflected in such a well-known literary monument as “A Letter to Abukhovich,” written by Cyprian Kamuniak in 1655. Composed in the form of a friendly letter, the work shames Philip Abukhovich, the Smolensk voivode, who in the work thinks more about profit and Moscow sable – stylized thirty silver coins – than about his duties as a patriot and subject. Outraged by the loss of Smolensk, the author sends curses directed at Abukhovich, “who, upon fleeing from Smolensk, needed 300 carts to transport just one bed,” and criticizes those guilty of the city’s surrender.
It is evident that Smolensk Region was perceived by Cyprian Kamuniak’s contemporaries as something inherently Lithuanian, and the Smolensk residents were considered just as representatives of the political “Lithuanian people” as the nobility of other lands in the eastern part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
After the loss of Smolensk in 1654, the former Smolensk voivode Philip Abukhovich faced persecution, and in 1658, the Sejm adopted a corresponding decree accusing him of surrendering Smolensk to the Moscow army[4].
In “The Speech of Mieleshka, the Castellan of Smolensk, at the Sejm in Warsaw in 1589,” another anonymous work dated no later than 1632[5], a representative of the Smolensk nobility expresses Lithuanian patriotism, lamenting that “…from their graces the lords of the Poles, our old Smolensk bows perish…” and harshly exposes the dominance of Poles and Polish culture in his homeland. For him, the political ideal is Sigismund I the Old, who “did not like Germans as dogs and did not like Poles with their cunning, but lovingly favored Lithuania and our Rus’.”
The Banner of the Grand State Regiment 1654
After the annexation of Smolensk and the voivodeship to Russia, the Moscow throne was forced to consider the exceptional importance of these territories for its western neighbor, as well as the ethnocultural peculiarities of the captured lands.
In the territory of the former Smolensk voivodeship, much attention was paid to preserving the class privileges of the local nobility, which in Russian historiography is called “Polish.” It was precisely the nobility that acted in the Commonwealth as a political nation, and in local conditions, it determined the policy of the official government towards the annexed territories. Being a closed class corporation, the Smolensk nobility was the element that separated Smolensk Region from other regions of European Russia. The memory of the “golden royal liberties,” the affinity for the Polish language, local Ruthenian-Polish culture, and Roman Catholicism was preserved among the local population for several centuries.
This led to the fact that Russian authorities, as well as a whole series of authors as early as the mid-19th century, viewed Smolensk Region from the perspective of “us-them,” as “Polish,” “Little Russian,” or even “captured” land.
Within the estate of local nobles, Roman Catholics undoubtedly predominated, but the national composition of this service layer had quite a motley origin. The main mass of the local nobility consisted of representatives of local “Russian” families, of either Catholic or Orthodox faith. Having found itself within the Moscow state in 1654, in 90% of cases, local nobles could not prove their affiliation to Polish families[6].
The new authority immediately took measures to win over the closed and hostile noble corporation to its side. Loyal representatives of the local nobility were guaranteed economic benefits and certain property guarantees.
In 1654, Alexei Mikhailovich issued a decree according to which childless widows of the local nobility, if they married Russian officials, retained the estates previously granted to them. The children of fallen nobles were granted the right to receive allotments from their fathers’ estates.
Additionally, according to a corresponding personal decree, landless Smolensk nobles, whose parents were besieged in 1654 and after the capitulation entered service in the Moscow Tsardom, had the right, upon finding the estates belonging to the deceased, to request that the estates be transferred to them.
Those landless nobles whose parents fled to Lithuania were informed that the allocation of allotments in the overpopulated Smolensk Region was not possible.
In 1682, after the death of Moscow Tsar Fyodor Alexeyevich, two monarchs, Ivan and Peter Alexeyevich, came to power, who again made concessions to the Smolensk residents. In the first year of their reign, the duumvirate confirmed all previously granted privileges by both Polish kings and Russian tsars. In particular, the estates received were transferred into full ownership of officials with the possibility of their transfer, pledge, and sale.
Later, the government made further concessions in favor of the Smolensk nobility: a law was issued according to which only individuals registered to the Smolensk nobility and the reiters of the Smolensk noble regiment had the right to receive “pomestia” in Roslavl, Smolensk, Dorogobuzh, and Belsky districts. The path to acquiring land in the mentioned districts was effectively closed to people of “Moscow ranks.”
In June 1688, another personal decree was issued according to which Smolensk nobles, during their service, were granted a monetary allowance from the treasury. The same decree confirmed their rights to own estates and manors.
Smolensk nobleman of the second half of the 17th century (reconstruction)
After the death of Peter I, Empress Catherine Alexeyevna, remembering the specific border policy, supplemented the privileges of the nobility by allowing them to sell handicrafts in Russian cities or sell them to Russian merchants. In a second decree addressed to the children of local nobility, the latter were granted the right to serve both in the army and in the Smolensk regiment, which did not have the status of a regular army.
In total, six charters that secured privileges for the Smolensk nobility were issued from 1654 to 1694. The main instrument of policy in the annexed lands – economic – was fully utilized: the local nobility was secured their hereditary “manors,” and, according to the golden rule divide et impera, the lands of loyal feudal lords of the Commonwealth were transferred to the swearing nobility as “pomestia.”
By the decree of December 30, 1701, the Smolensk nobility received unprecedented property rights for the Moscow state, thirteen years earlier than Russian nobility. Both the old “royal” estates and “dachas” from the Moscow decree (“pomest’ya”) were secured to the nobility as full private property – manors.
The Smolensk nobility was perceived by the central authorities as a separate social and national group for almost two centuries. In 1762, it was precisely the Smolensk nobility that was mentioned separately in the “Manifesto on the Freedom of Nobility,” while Petersburg continued to apply the policy of the whip and gingerbread towards the Poles.
Despite numerous economic measures and the expansion of property rights for the nobility, the Moscow government well understood that the “Polish element” still looked hopefully to the west. The threat of “Lithuanian separatism” was not so far-fetched, as the existence of a fairly numerous Roslavl, Belsky, and Smolensk nobility, who professed Catholicism and continued to maintain contacts with the Commonwealth through the nearby border, could seriously destabilize the situation due to the renewal of military actions.
The nobility perceived the economic measures of the Russian throne as half-measures, as the Moscow economic contribution was much less attractive compared to the freedom granted by the privileges of the Grand Duke of Lithuania. Therefore, in the famous chancellery presented to Catherine II in 1762 by a delegation from the Smolensk nobility, they begged for the abolition of unpopular state taxes and duties, which, they claimed, had led the local nobility to “…extreme poverty and distress.” After receiving a decisive refusal from the empress, the Smolensk nobility tried to obtain permission to build taverns and not pay taxes, except for the poll tax, during the work of the commission preparing the project of the new “Ulozhenie,” but again without success[7].
Going for certain concessions in the economic sphere, which played the role of gingerbread, Petersburg remembered the lesson of 1632-1634, and therefore used religious life as a whip.
In 1728, 74 years after the annexation of Smolensk to Russia, all Smolensk nobles, at least formally, were considered Orthodox. By that time, there were no churches left in Smolensk Region. However, as subsequent events show, the struggle for the minds of the co-religionists was not stopped by the Commonwealth. The acceptance of Orthodoxy by the majority of the nobility was rather practical and forced in nature, as the practice of sending children to study in the order schools of the Commonwealth practically meant the return of members of noble families to Catholicism.
In 1728, a loud case regarding the conversion of 30 Smolensk nobles to the “Latin” faith was considered in the Senate. This process well reflects the ethno-religious situation that existed in Smolensk and the province in the 18th century. The accused, who came from the wealthiest Smolensk families, such as the Patiomkins, Drutsk-Sakolinsky, Vanlyarliarsk, and others, testified that they had been baptized into Catholicism in childhood while studying in Jesuit colleges in Mstsislav, Orsha, and Vitebsk. Noblewomen who were also accused of departing from state Orthodoxy confessed that they had become Catholics at a very early age, having been raised by relatives, aristocrats from Lithuania.
Prince Grigory Patiomkin
Returning home after their studies, the Smolensk residents continued to profess Catholicism while simultaneously attending Orthodox churches, justifying this with the permission of their Jesuit brothers. Some of them, even without hiding their hostility towards Orthodox hierarchs, never went to church confession, contenting themselves with underground mysteries according to the Roman Catholic rite.
The latter, by the decree of the Supreme Secret Council, were sentenced to lifelong exile in Siberia with the confiscation of real estate. Those nobles who continued to perform Orthodox rites after returning from abroad were punished with significant monetary fines and placed under the personal supervision of the Smolensk archbishop.
Immediately after the judicial investigation, the Supreme Secret Council ordered the Smolensk archbishop to ensure that “…the Smolensk nobility maintained the faith of the Greek confession in piety and properly and that no scandal arose from it”[8].
The communication of the Smolensk nobility with the borderlands of the Commonwealth was complicated, as those wishing to travel to Lithuania for business had to swear on the cross in fidelity to the Orthodox faith, and moreover, find several guarantors. The nobility was also prohibited from educating their children abroad, justifying this decree with a sufficient number of appropriate institutions in Kyiv and Moscow. The desire to completely isolate “separatists” from Polish influences also led to a ban on hiring people of the Catholic faith as private tutors, marrying daughters to Catholics or Uniates, and taking Catholic women from Lithuania or Ukraine as wives.
Particular attention was paid to the activities of priests, both Catholic and Uniate clergy, as potential agitators and instigators of unrest. At the border, officers closely monitored attempts by Catholic priests to illegally cross into Russian territory. Moreover, when Catholic priests arrived in Smolensk for private matters, the border guard was obliged to inform the governor and archbishop about the foreigner, obliging the guest to resolve their affairs and leave the country within the allotted time. A corresponding subscription was taken from the priests, ordering them under threat of punishment not to perform priestly functions, not to dress in secular attire, and not to entice local residents to Catholicism.
In turn, the government ordered the administration to “…take tales from all Smolensk nobles under severe torture,” so that they had no contacts with Catholic priests and “did not let them into their homes, did not go to them for confession, and did not listen to any slanders from them”[9].
The measures of the Russian government to neutralize Lithuanian-Polish influences had specific goals. The matter was not only about protecting Orthodoxy as the only state religion but also about striving to safeguard the newly acquired territories from revolts. This aspiration took into account that in the Smolensk province, the “Polish party” largely ruled as the only bearer of feudal land ownership. Therefore, Moscow made numerous concessions to the local nobility up to the abolition of mandatory military service in the mid-18th century.
Such a policy is reflected in the creation of separate bodies for the governance of the nobility and the entire Smolensk province: the Order of the Smolensk Principality in Moscow, initially subordinate to the Streltsy Order, and later to the Diplomatic Order.
In the 18th century, the higher leadership of the Smolensk nobility was transferred to the Senate, and from the 1740s, to the Smolensk provincial chancellery, as a local judicial and administrative instance concerning the nobility. Nevertheless, the Smolensk nobility continued to be regarded as a separate national and estate group.
In 1764, Catherine II, in her “most secret instruction” to Prince Alexander Vyazemsky, who had been appointed Attorney General, placed the Smolensk province in the same row as Finland, Little Russia, and Livonia. Attorney General Vyazemsky, who took office in February 1764, was offered to conduct a balanced and far-sighted policy with the aim of “…these provinces, including Smolensk… to bring them to the easiest ways to ensure they Russified and ceased to look like wolves to the forest”[10].
Despite political maneuvers, repressions, and the fact that the last Polish rule lasted in Smolensk Region for just over 40 years, the Smolensk nobility did not abandon its customs and “Lithuanian” patriotism throughout the 18th century.
Major General Lev Nikolaevich Engelhardt
According to the memoirs of Lev Engelhardt, the Smolensk nobles, for a century after the capture of Smolensk, preferred Polish books, although during Anna Ioannovna’s reign, Polish books were banned in Smolensk, and possession of them was punished with whipping and exile to Siberia. Despite the ban on marriages with Catholic women, the locals still did not take wives from “despised Russia,” preferring marriages within their own circle. In 1700, Smolensk nobles departing for “the sovereign’s service” in Veliky Novgorod adhered to Polish and Catholic names, although they professed “Greek faith”[11].
In 1724, the Smolensk provincial chancellery reported in response to a request from the Chamber of Colleagues that the Smolensk nobility, along with its children and subjects, wore “clothes of Polish manner,” even showing them at the capital’s review in 1721.
Even at the end of the 18th century, the local dialect was widely used in the daily life of the nobility: “…they speak with a strong Polish accent,…, write mostly in Latin script, and wear the national Polish costume, in which they also appear for military service”[12].
With an unreliable rear, the Russian administration was also concerned because the Commonwealth, after the conclusion of the Andrusovo truce in 1667, did not recognize the transfer of the Smolensk voivodeship to Moscow until the end.
Accordingly, in the Commonwealth, Smolensk district positions continued to formally exist, and exiled Smolensk nobles gathered at district sejmiks in Vilnius. Some of the Smolensk exiles, who were not destined to become “sworn nobles,” resettled to their estates in enemy-occupied territory, while others sought land from the state fund or enlisted in the army. By the end of the 18th century, a system of state support for Smolensk refugees existed in the Commonwealth, including funds received as compensation for lost lands. After the return of the Velizh, Sebezh, and Nevel volosts to the Commonwealth at the end of the 17th century, exiles who had not received assistance at that time actively resettled there.
In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, until the end of the 18th century, Smolensk Uniate bishops continued to be appointed, symbolically maintaining the Smolensk Greek-Catholic diocese. The Roman Catholic clergy, selected during the war of the Smolensk voivodeship, also until 1783 united into an incomplete administrative-territorial unit – the Smolensk Roman Catholic diocese – which after 1667 covered only the Nevel, Sebezh, and Velizh parishes. Smolensk bishops lived in Vilnius, receiving, according to the Sejm’s decision of 1776, 20 thousand zlotys a year, while the diocesan staff were trained at the Kraslaw Jesuit seminary.
The royal court and the higher hierarchs of Lithuania and Poland closely monitored the policy of the Russian administration in the lost eastern lands. A diplomatic crisis that arose between the Kremlin and Wawel in 1693 eloquently testifies to this. Reacting to the consistent encroachment on the Orthodox community of the GDL, the Russian resident demanded that the Polish government send universals with a strict prohibition against converting Orthodox believers to Uniatism in all “Russian” districts. The response was: “Neither the king in the Moscow state, nor the tsars in the Polish state should look into and interfere in the arrangements there; the entire Smolensk nobility has been forced and has become Rus’: and we do not speak about this because in both states the Christian faith is one, and every sovereign is free in his own state”[13].
Thus, regarding the privileged population of the former Smolensk voivodeship, separate property and legal rights continued to operate for a long time, thereby preserving the ethnic and social status quo on the Russian-Belarusian border.
The merging of the Smolensk nobility with the Russian nobility accelerated after the disbandment of the Smolensk noble regiment in 1764. Having ceased to exist as a separate military corporation and having received the right to serve in the army or guard on general terms, the Smolensk nobility underwent assimilation.
However, even in the early 20th century, a significant number of nobility was recorded in the Smolensk village, which, having lost its estate distinctiveness after the disbandment of the regiment and the subsequent assault on the landowners in 1783, still did not dissolve among the surrounding peasantry.
According to the First General Census of the Population of 1897, a fairly high number of “Poles” among the descendants of nobles was recorded in Smolensk Province: 2,251 out of a total of 16,898 people[14].
The “Polish” character of the region: the presence of a significant and stable layer of nobility in Smolensk Province, the preservation of features of the former voivodeship of the Commonwealth, and the cultural heritage of local residents, led to the fact that in the 18th-19th centuries, it became the norm for the Russian establishment to associate Smolensk Region with the Northwestern provinces, which became part of Russia 118 years later.
Nobleman and Writer Vasily Vanlyarliarsky
As L. Gorizontov rightly notes, Smolensk and the province played a special role in the Polish-Russian ideological confrontation, and the prospect of repolonization had a basis[15].
For these reasons, Smolensk Region does not figure in the Russian scientific discourse of the 18th-19th centuries as unequivocally “Inner Russia,” therefore, according to Gorizontov, it is quite possible to consider it the first line of the geopolitical frontier Russia-Poland, the most peripheral zone of confrontation between the two national-state cores.
Bordering the “second echelon” of the geopolitical frontier – the lands that passed to Russia in 1772 – Smolensk Region became a testing ground for characteristic political strategies, bearing defensive and offensive character, and appearing in the form of political projects and ideological constructions[16].
Smolensk Region is a land that “…constantly experienced the influences of Lithuania and Poland, and through them the influence of the more distant West”[17]. This view of Smolensk Region, which clearly differed ethnographically from the old Great Russian provinces, required interpretations from the perspective of state ideology.
While everything was clear with political history – “Vitaut deceived and seized Smolensk”[18] – the ethnic appearance of this territory was not so unequivocal. Having taken Smolensk by arms, it was necessary to secure it in the then-imperial intellectual space. To transform the former “Polish province,” the lands of which had been privatized by the statesmen and thinkers of Lithuania and Poland several centuries earlier, into an “inherently Russian” land – this task lay before the House of Romanov.
This became especially relevant after the suppression of the uprising of 1863, the echoes of which reached Smolensk, specially flooded with Russian troops to prevent a possible breakthrough of the insurgents from Horok.
“Our society hardly recalled until the current events that there are still whole millions of Russians living behind… Smolensk, but living in material and spiritual poverty, oppressed and morally humiliated by a hostile element, abandoned without guidance and support by their native brothers,” wrote the famous Russian nationalist and statesman F.P. Yelenyev, voicing a sharp turn in Polish policy[19].
As a result, in the works of researchers of the 19th century, the thesis about the incoming “Polish element,” representing “assimilated Russians” or those who settled in Smolensk Region since the conquests of Sigismund II by Lithuanians and Poles[20].
Smolensk Peasant Women in the 19th Century
Contrasting the Smolensk nobility as “foreign,” the local peasantry, Russian intellectuals effectively proposed a regional adaptation of the “Western Russian” intellectual tradition.
Ethnographic and linguistic features of the vast majority of the rural population, which were previously regarded as a “Polish-Lithuanian-Russian” mixture, began to be interpreted as Belarusian.
Belarusian Smolensk Region – such a conditional name was proposed to define the former “Polish” part of Smolensk Province – in no way contradicted the “Russian cause,” and, on the contrary, explained local peculiarities in accordance with the theory of the trinity of the Russian people.
While earlier, in the 18th century, Smolensk residents were often called “Polish bone,” and Smolensk Province, where the nobility still dominated, was interpreted as a land taken from Poland, now the Russian elite constructs a kind of myth of the “Belarusian-ness” of the former Polish voivodeship.
Specific political measures, sometimes very curious and dubious, also assist in the ideological war. The desire to show the integration of the territories acquired after the first partition of the Commonwealth in 1772 led to the creation of the Belarusian General Governorship. Thus, the authorities equated the newly acquired Vitebsk and Mogilev regions with the “Belarusian” Smolensk Province, reviving within the empire the medieval Lithuanian-Moscow border.
The Russian elite pays close attention to the study of traditional household culture, rituals, dialects of local peasants, as well as Smolensk antiquities. This led to the creation of quite a substantial printed and cartographic heritage[21].
M. Dounar-Zapolsky noted on this matter: “Smolensk Province is completely unjustly considered by many to belong to the central provinces, while it, due to the arrangement of the surface, geographical location, soil and economic condition, and especially due to its population, undoubtedly belongs to the group of provinces of the Northwestern region. This is recognized by such eminent experts on Russia as Semyonov and others.”
In the mid- to late 19th century, official Russian statistics, not noticing the heresy in the division of the “Russian tribe” within one province, emphasized the presence of separate Great Russian and Belarusian districts. According to the “Ninth Revision,” the data of which pertain to 1851, the districts of Smolensk Province were divided by ethnic characteristics as follows:
| Great Russian | Belarusian |
| Vyazemsky | Smolensky |
| Yukhnovsky | Roslavlsky |
| Yelninsky | Dorogobuzhsky |
| Sychevsky | Belsky |
| Gzhatsky | Dukhovshchinsky |
| Porechsky | |
| Krasninsky |
The same data is provided by Y. Solovyov: “Smolensk Province is ethnographically divided into two uneven parts. The first includes the northeastern corner of the province, that is, the districts: Vyazemsky, Yukhnovsky, Gzhatsky, Sychevsky, and Belsky, with a population of Great Russians. All other districts, therefore, the larger part of the total area of the province, are inhabited by residents of the Belarusian tribe”[22].
The author of the essay “Belarusian Smolensk Region with Neighbors” S. Maksimau pointed to the geographical demarcation of both Slavic peoples along the watershed ridge “…where the rivers begin in one direction in the Dnieper through the Desna and Sozh.” The watershed was a “meeting point” of Great Russian Poles and Smolensk Belarusians of Roslavl, Yelnin, and Smolensk districts.
For S. Maksimau, Smolensk served as “the root Belarusian city, the main capital of the Kryvichs – Smolensk”[23].
The Great Russian population of Smolensk Region is now opposed not only by Polish nobility, that is, “the remnants of ancient Polish and Lithuanian families,” but also by autochthonous Belarusians, who are distinctly marked: “…the peasant of the Roslavl district is sharply different from the peasants of the eastern part of the province in lifestyle, household utensils, food, in a word, in everything that concerns the national character, domestic life, and economy”[24].
Spiritual Writer, Schema Monk Zasima Verkhovsky - Native of Smolensk Region
According to the “First General Census of the Population of the Russian Empire in 1897,” the total number of residents of Smolensk Province who indicated Belarusian as their native language was 110,757 people, or 6.61% of the total population[25].
It was precisely the 1897 Census that the authorities intended to draw a thick line under the disputes surrounding the ethnic appearance of Smolensk Region, which had not subsided in scientific literature for a whole century.
“Belarusian Smolensk Region” in the conditions of rapid linguistic assimilation of the villagers and the absence of national consciousness among them appeared in the late 19th century as an unnecessary anachronism. Against the backdrop of the development of national movements in the Russian Empire, the Ministry of Internal Affairs decided not to create unnecessary obstacles for the unification of its European part.
However, even after the publication in 1904 of the materials of the “Census,” in the works of scholars, the southwestern Smolensk Region is interpreted as an ethnically Belarusian territory[26].
The replicated texts and statistical data describing the Belarusians of Smolensk Province ultimately created the necessary intellectual foundation for the national movement, which could be used for its own purposes.
Emerging in the early 20th century, Belarusian modern nationalism developed in the context of the typical “national construction” for Eastern Europe, where ethnographic and linguistic markers played a decisive role for the propaganda of awakening activists.
The dominant irredentism on the continent, which meant a revision of the established state and administrative borders of empires and their redrawing in accordance with ethnic boundaries, was characteristic of Belarusian nationalism as well.
The concept of the necessity of combining territorial-political borders with the borders of the ethnos lies at the foundation of any ethnocratic theory and practice[27].
Thus, almost simultaneously with the emergence of ideas about the autonomy of the “Belarusian Land” within Russia, Belarusian intellectuals delineated the vital space of the Belarusian people, which includes part of Smolensk Region, whose cultural, linguistic, social, and historical features had been successfully popularized for several decades.
The linguistic map becomes an argument for territorial aspirations and claims to neighbors, and, most importantly, an instrument for legitimizing part of the former Northwestern provinces as a separate country and state with the title Belarus[28].
Following Y. Karski, whose works became one of the last instances in territorial demarcation, Anton Lutkevich in 1910 determined the number of Belarusians living in Smolensk Region as 947,826 people[29]. In the near future, these data from 1903 would be replicated by the People’s Secretariat, the formal government of Belarus[30].
Episodes of Smolensk history also become the foundation for the all-Belarusian national idea: the language of Smolensk chronicles, the Old Belarusian lexicon of the treaty between Riga and Smolensk of 1229, the areas of Kryvich burial mounds, the heroic struggle of the GDL for the Dnieper stronghold, etc. – enter into the national epic of the Belarusians[31].
“Belarusian Smolensk Region,” which was once studied from “protective” positions to prevent “Polish intrigue”[32], became part of the new Belarusian project.
For this reason, the low-grade imitation of the Belarusian language – “Aeneid” by the Smolensk landowner V.P. Ravinetsky – becomes a monument of Belarusian literature[33], and the Belarusian territory alongside Vitebsk and Mogilev is referred to as Smolensk[34].
In 1919, Y. Kanchar in the article “Territory and Population of Belarus” asserts that “the Belarusian tribe” occupies Smolensk Province, even exaggerating the actual number of Belarusian districts, including the Great Russian Gzhatsky, Sychevsky, Belsky, Vyazemsky, and Yukhnovsky districts.
Associating the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with Belarus, activists of the Belarusian movement created a number of ideologems that were supposed to prove the ancient Belarusian nature of Smolensk Region.
In principle, they were reduced to the following theses: 1.) Smolensk is the city of Kryvichs; the Smolensk principality is one of the first forms of Belarusian statehood; 2.) Smolensk Region is an ancient center of Belarusian culture, the homeland of Belarusian saints Kliment Smolyatich and Avram Smolensky; 3.) the highest period of the city’s development – the “golden age” – is the time of being part of the GDL; 5.) the Treaty of Andrusovo of 1667 is a criminal act of violent separation of Smolensk from the metropolis; 6.) the population of the greater part of Smolensk Region are ethnic Belarusians[35].
Despite the fact that the Belarusian movement in Smolensk Region developed weaker than in the internal Belarusian provinces, the work of the Belarusian activists and the idea of the Belarusian nature of Smolensk Region found supporters.
At the First All-Belarusian Congress in December 1917, delegates elected from the Smolensk Province were present along with others. The main mass of these delegates, being mainly members of the Belarusian Regional Committee, advocated for cultural autonomy and the creation of a separate Belarusian region within Russia[36].
At the end of 1917, simultaneously with the All-Belarusian Congress, military personnel of Belarusian descent gathered in Smolensk for a congress of the military district. The participants of the congress submitted a declaration to the presidium of the congress and the Belarusian Central Military Committee, stating support for the autonomy of Belarus in union with the federative Russian republic, as well as expressing demands for the creation of a Belarusian army[37].
The district congress of Belarusian soldiers decided to establish in this “ancient Belarusian city” the First Smolensk Belarusian regiment by replenishing it with Belarusians from the 322nd Vitebsk company[38].
After a while, the first city-wide founding meeting of the Belarusian Party of Left SRs will take place in the provincial center, which managed to gather about 100 people[39].
On January 1, 1919, the establishment of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus was announced in Smolensk, which included the greater part of Smolensk Region.
We see that the Belarusian movement in the territory of Smolensk Region is not accidental. Local peculiarities, popularized as a result of many years of Russian-Polish ideological and political confrontation, as well as their use by “awakening” activists as mobilization mechanisms, became the main factor in the formation of the national consciousness of Smolensk Belarusians and the emergence of their national organizations.
Literature
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3 Dariusz Hemparek. Polish Poem of the 17th Century about the Glory of Smolensk // Studi Slavistici VI (2009): 229-249. P.233.
4 Archaeographic Collection of Documents Relating to the History of Northwestern Rus, vol. XIV, Vilna, 1904. P.40.
5 See: “News of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR,” 1955, No. 5, P. 65—76.
6 Smolensk Nobility. Vol. I. – Moscow: Russian Economic Society, 2006. P.8.
7 Archive of the Ministry of Justice. Senate Affairs. 3.290, l.291; decree of the Smolensk nobility. Collection, vol. XIV, P. 417.
8 Ibid. P.417.
9 Russian Antiquity, Volume 136. n.d., 1908. P. 603.
10 Collection of the Russian Historical Society. Vol. 7. St. Petersburg, 1871. P. 348.
11 See: List of Smolensk Nobility and Reiters and Their Exile by the Great Sovereign to Service. 1700 // Smolensk Nobility vol. 2: Lists of Nobility Stored in RGADA. Moscow 2006.
12 M. Bogoslovsky. Smolensk Nobility in the 18th Century // Journal of the Ministry of Public Education. Part CCLXXII, 1899, March. St. Petersburg, 1899.
13 S.M. Solovyov. History of Russia from Ancient Times. Vol. 14. Chapter 2. The Fall of Sophia. The Activity of Tsar Peter until the First Azov Campaign (part 36).
14 First General Census of the Population of the Russian Empire 1897. Published by the Central Statistical Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Edited by N.A. Troynitsky. XL. Smolensk Province. 1904. P.XIV.
15 Gorizontov L.E. Russian-Polish Confrontation of the 19th – Early 20th Centuries in Geopolitical Dimension // Japanese Slavic and East European Studies. Vol.24, 2003. P. 111.
16 Ibid. P. 113.
17 Kletnova E.N. Symbolism of Folk Decorations of Smolensk Region // Proceedings of Smolensk State Museums. Issue I. Published by State Museums and GUBONO. Smolensk, 1924. P. 111.
18 F. Nekiforov, V. Neverovich. Historical and Statistical Description of the City of Dorogobuzh and Its District // Smolensk Province Yearbook for 1860. Smolensk: Printing House of the Provincial Government. 1860. P. 78.
19 Yelenyev F. Polish Civilization and Its Influence on Western Rus. St. Petersburg, 1863. P. 82.
20 F. Nekiforov, V. Neverovich. Historical and Statistical Description of the City of Roslavl and Its District // Smolensk Province Yearbook for 1858. Smolensk: Printing House of the Provincial Government. 1858. P. 110.
21 Popov, I. Belarus and Belarusians / I. Popov. – 2nd ed. – Moscow: M.V. Klyukin, 1912; Agricultural Statistics of Smolensk Province. Compiled by Yakov Solovyov, head of the former Smolensk detachment for equating state peasants in monetary collections, based on information collected by this detachment. – Moscow, 1855; Materials for the Geography and Statistics of Russia, Collected by Officers of the General Staff. Smolensk Province / compiled by General Staff Captain M. Tsebrykov. – St. Petersburg: Printing House of the Department of the General Staff, 1862; M.N. Katkov Russian Language in the Western Region // Moscow News. 1869, August 9, No. 175. and others.
22 Agricultural Statistics of Smolensk Province. Compiled by Yakov Solovyov, head of the former Smolensk detachment for equating state peasants in monetary collections, based on information collected by this detachment. – Moscow, 1855.
23 Picturesque Russia / Edited by P.P. Semyonov. – Reprint. Reproduction of the 1882 edition, 2nd ed. – Minsk: Belarusian Encyclopedia, 1994. – P.442.
24 F. Nekiforov, V. Neverovich. Historical and Statistical Description of the City of Roslavl and Its District // Smolensk Province Yearbook for 1858. Smolensk: Printing House of the Provincial Government. 1858. P. 126.
25 First General Census of the Population of the Russian Empire 1897. XL Smolensk Province. St. Petersburg: Published by the Central Statistical Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Edited by N.A. Troynitsky, 1904. – P. XV.
26 Popov, I. Belarus and Belarusians / I. Popov. – 2nd ed. Moscow: M.V. Klyukin, 1912.; Karski E.F. “Belarusians. Vol. I. Introduction to the Study of Language and Folk Literature.” Warsaw, 1903.; Durnovo N.N., Ushakov D.N., Sokolov N.N. Outline of Russian Dialectology. Moscow, 1915.
27 Toshchenko Zh.T. Ethnocracy: History and Modernity. Sociological Essays. – Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2003. – P. 197.
28 See: Turuk F.F. Belarusian Movement. – n.p., 1994. – P.4
29 Anton Novina. Belarusians // Forms of National Movement in Modern States. Austria-Hungary. Russia. Germany. St. Petersburg, 1910. – P.385.
30 Lutkevich, A.I. Eastern Belarus. Minsk: Publication of the People’s Secretariat of International Affairs. Minsk, 1918. – P. 4.
31 Bogdanovich, M.A. Belarusian Revival. Minsk: University, 1994. – P.9.
32 In the mid-1880s, K.P. Pobedonostsev was concerned about reports to the tsar about the planned colonization of Smolensk Province by Poles and the associated danger. See: Pobedonostsev K.P. The Great Lie of Our Time. Moscow, 1993. P. 507.
33 Turuk, F.F. Belarusian Movement. P. 9.
34 Varonka Ya. Belarusian Movement from 1917 to 1920. Minsk: Belarusian Cooperative Publishing Society “Revival,” 1991. P. 5
35 In its completed form, this concept is presented in the book: Siadura, U.I. Smolensk Region – the Eternal Land of the Belarusian People. New York: Belarusian Publishing Society, 1963. – 44 p.
36 D. Mikhalyuk. The Revolution of 1917 in Russia and the Belarusian National Movement // Revolutionary Russia of 1917 and the Polish Question: New Perspectives. Moscow: Institute of History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2009. – P. 114.
37 Ibid. – P.115.
38 Belarusian Council. 1917. No. 7. – P.2.
39 Haretzky, R. Haretzky Brothers. – Minsk: Medisont, 2008. – P. 36.