The History of Book Culture in the Belarusian-Polish-Russian-Ukrainian Borderlands in the Expeditionary Research of Moscow Scholars from the 1970s to the 2000s

Y.A. Labyntsev, L.L. Shchavinskaya (Moscow)

Starting from the 1970s, a group of Moscow scholars has been conducting ongoing expeditionary research into the rich book and literary culture of the local population, predominantly Belarusian, living in the vast territories of Podlachia, Western and Eastern Polesia [1]. This is one of the most interesting historical-geographical parts of Europe and, perhaps, the most archaic today, making it particularly attractive to researchers in the humanities from all specialties in the field of global Slavia. At the same time, it is a centuries-old space of active interaction between Eastern Slavic and Western Slavic cultures, primarily Belarusian, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, and in the northernmost part of Podlachia, also Lithuanian.

The Podlachia-Polesia region is an outstanding cultural borderland, distinctly marked on the scale of the European continent. This continent is dotted with thousands of real and virtual borders, each with different natures, properties, and significance. Among the most important are ethnocultural borders, especially those that divide our continent into its main civilizational components—East and West, which have long been perceived as a particular geopolitical opposition. Eastern Europe is traditionally associated with Orthodoxy, while the West is linked to Catholicism and Protestantism. To some extent, this circumstance has influenced the nomenclature division of the Slavs, although a portion of Eastern Slavs professes Catholicism and Greek Catholicism, while a small part of Western Slavs adheres to Orthodoxy. Nevertheless, the outlines of the general border between Western and Eastern Slavs, especially Catholics and Orthodox, have been historically delineated quite accurately, primarily in the part that is most deeply thrust toward the west of Europe—this is the border of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Rus’, and Samogitia. Its border with the Kingdom of Poland. These lands have long been referred to as Podlachia, which is now part of Poland. The ancestors of modern Belarusians penetrated here quite early, and the overall Eastern Slavic colonization of these lands led to the gradual emergence of several major Orthodox cultural centers, among which in the early Middle Ages, particularly stood out the city of Drohichyn, and in the late period—the Supraśl Annunciation Monastery, one of the main ancient book repositories of Slavic Europe, which preserved such a world-renowned relic of Slavic culture as the Supraśl Manuscript of the 11th century.

It is worth recalling that recently Polish archaeologists discovered near the southwestern border of Podlachia in Podebłocie mysterious tablets with fragments of inscriptions (writing), possibly indicating the penetration of Christian “Eastern rite” here as early as the 9th century, that is, a century before the so-called baptism of Poland according to the Latin rite in 966. The find in Podebłocie may have been related to the influence of the Cyril and Methodius mission, one of the traces of which may be this oldest monument of writing on the territory of modern Poland. Historically, Podlachia has been closely linked with Volhynia and Polesia, primarily its western part, at times forming an administrative whole with it, not to mention the centuries-old constant cultural unity. The ancestors of modern Podlachian Belarusians left them a rich cultural heritage, which has significance not only for the Slavs but also for the world. One of the most important parts of this heritage is literature and book culture, whose centuries-old life is connected with practically all corners of large Europe, especially with the peoples of the Balkan states, the countries of central and eastern Europe, the Baltic states, and of course with Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova.

Today, Belarusian issues are beginning to be studied more actively in various countries. However, when it comes to the literary process, these studies almost exclusively concern the past century, partly several decades of the 19th century. Earlier periods are represented in a highly selective manner—only at the level of individual works and authors. And that’s it. There are many reasons for this selectivity, but the main one is the enormous difficulties with the source base. Simply put, the unfamiliarity with the works of this literature, their obscurity, and lack of discovery. This oblivion can hardly be justified, as a vast number of Western Belarusian book and literary monuments have been preserved since ancient times, which can be a source of pride not only for Belarusians but for all Eastern Slavs, even the Slavic world as a whole.

Our first attempts to collect such materials were made more than thirty years ago and were then carried out with varying intensity throughout the subsequent time. To date, we have managed to gather a significant archive of copies of various sources, allowing us to answer many questions of historical, cultural, literary, and other humanitarian themes related to this part of Europe, the interaction of its main cultural traditions since the Middle Ages. Our focus has included not only book and literary monuments but also other very diverse testimonies of cultural life—practically the entire possible arsenal of sources, the classificatory characteristics of which sometimes represent a kind of typological innovation, as they have never or almost never been utilized by researchers. For example, many paleotypical testimonies.

When it comes to the book and literary monuments themselves, the originals created during the period in question have been preserved since the 15th century. Local literary creativity becomes particularly noticeable from the second half of the 15th century, and then it acquires very vivid features, transforming into a phenomenon of not only Belarusian but also Eastern European scale. The result of our archeographic and literary reconstruction has been the discovery of a vast number of works of many types and genres in several languages used by local Belarusian writers and bookmen in their work. What we have managed to collect and reconstruct is perhaps one of the most representative source bases of the European regional book and literary tradition throughout its history, tracing back to antiquity. For us, the general and specific book and literary context of this tradition, with which it turned out to be closely connected, was also extraordinarily important. Hence our interest in the literary and book culture of these lands in general. The enormous factual material often allowed for various generalizations, sometimes to a certain extent even attempting formalization in specific research areas, which ultimately gave us the right to use various quantitative methods for analysis, often employing specialized computer programming, that is, computer analysis of various levels [2].

The latest information technologies and mathematical methods have allowed us to group part of the material we have accumulated in such a way that it has formed a sort of database, “living,” so to speak, its own special life, presenting in this way a set of special qualities, the parameters of which can only be visible when using non-traditional research techniques. Alongside this, these databases provide an extraordinary amount for studying the history of various languages in these lands, and in the case of subsequent creation of full-text databases, especially information systems, they will allow for the broadest linguistic search in automatic mode, including the preparation of special dictionaries.

A special theme of our research is the Western Belarusian literary environment of the 15th to the early 19th centuries. Based on our research, it is possible to restore not only individual events and moments in the life of this literary community but also to trace its entire fate in almost detail over the entire centuries-long period.

Already in the 15th century, local Orthodox writers, predominantly representatives of the monastic community, parish white clergy, townspeople, and nobility, closely linked by ethnocultural and confessional ties, laid a solid foundation for creating their own book and literary tradition, which later turned out to be represented by works from several of their own literary schools and directions. The hierarchy of the local literary community became increasingly complex, which became particularly noticeable in the second half of the 16th and 17th centuries. Proximity to the Western world, to Catholicism, quite early posed many fundamental questions for the local Orthodox, the answers to which almost always implied some initially not very obvious acknowledgment of their national uniqueness. Gradually, what could already be called the Belarusian national movement in the 19th century began to form, the roots of which are also found here [3].

Compared to other Belarusian literary areas, and indeed Eastern Slavic ones, the literature of the Belarusians of Podlachia from the 15th to the 20th centuries presents itself as border literature, characterized by a special sharpness and polemical edge. This literature is multifunctional, polyphonic, and multilingual. Its works were created in Church Slavonic, Old Belarusian, Polish, Latin, Russian, and other languages and their variants. Its authors very early addressed ideas that could probably be called proto-national. The first name in such a list can undoubtedly be that of a descendant of an ancient merchant family from the city of Bielsk, the first abbot of the Supraśl Annunciation Monastery—a remarkable bookman and writer, Father Pafnutiy Segenya. Undoubtedly, the most significant of his followers in the first half to mid-16th century and his direct successor was Father Sergey Kimbar, whose literary heritage not only significantly changes our understanding of the paths of development of Old Belarusian writing but also of Eastern Slavic writing as a whole.

The special richness and diversity of the literature of the Belarusians of Podlachia from the 15th to the 20th centuries is evidenced by the very lists of its works, numbering many thousands of large and small compositions of various prose and poetic genres. At the same time, we have accounted for the names of several hundred of their authors, representing all social groups of the then population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Rus’, and Samogitia. In the history of Belarusian culture, this was the most massive and consistent literary tradition, which never interrupted its development and ultimately nurtured what we now call the Slavic national revival of the 19th century and the Belarusian national revival [4].

The direct centuries-long contact with the West and its culture contributed to the emergence of a special color in all phenomena and events of local literary life, enriching the Slavic world and the Belarusian literary space with a multitude of different translations from several European languages, as well as numerous adaptations of Western European works. Here, the presence of other literary cultures has always been noticeable, primarily Jewish and partly Muslim. A very peculiar influence sometimes came from Baltic paganism. All this is evident in a significant number of examples, which we have not yet specifically studied.

The literature of the Belarusians of Podlachia from the 15th to the 20th centuries has always remained a special, at times quite closed, polylingual monolith, formed by the efforts of many generations of the most diverse authors, maintaining the broadest connections with various parts of Europe, including the outskirts of the continent, such as the Bulgarian or Serbian Balkans and the plains of Muscovy. Gradually, several large and small literary schools formed within the local literary community, and various literary centers emerged, some of which influenced not only the development of Belarusian culture but also Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian.

For various reasons, our Podlachian expeditionary research has turned out to be somewhat broader than that of Polesia, despite the fact that we are closely linked to Belarusian Polesia, and one of us is even a native of its eastern part. This last circumstance has significantly intensified our expeditionary practice in recent years, primarily related to the collection of materials characterizing the development and interaction of the cultures of the Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian peoples. Our expeditions, taking place in these areas, are primarily aimed at collecting works of folk book and literary culture that characterize the past and present of the Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian Orthodox ethnic groups, with the goal of creating a large source base for conducting fundamental research and preserving one of the richest parts of Eastern Slavic cultural heritage, which is still poorly studied. The materials collected during the expeditions, mainly diverse in their technical execution, copies of hundreds of various monuments of folk writing from the Belarusian-Russian-Ukrainian borderlands, create the basis of a source base for conducting a wide range of theoretical studies of the past and present of the folk literary culture of Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians. These materials testify to the existence of a common Eastern Slavic cultural tradition in the zone of centuries-long interaction of all three ethnic groups; they allow us to trace the development of Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian folk literature at the extreme borders of their geographical convergence. The diversity and multitude of collected texts (from ancient works to original compositions created in our time) confirm not only the existence of a sufficiently vibrant life of folk literatures in these territories up to the present day but also their further successful development and dissemination, including through the use of the latest means of communication, including electronic networks [5].

As an example of the extraordinary diversity of texts existing in the Belarusian folk environment, we would like to present small fragments concerning such a very complex and still little-studied process as “Belarusization” of the 1920s, which had a serious impact on all aspects of the national life of Belarusians and other peoples of Belarus, including their literature.

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“The most pressing task of the Communist Party and the Soviet Government in the field of national policy in the BSSR is the issue of Belarusization.

By Belarusization, in the broad sense of the word, it should be understood:

1). the development of Belarusian culture (schools, higher educational institutions in the Belarusian language, Belarusian literature, publishing Belarusian books, scientific research on the comprehensive study of Belarus, etc.);

2). the promotion of Belarusians to party, Soviet, professional, and public work;

3). the transition of the work of party, state, professional, cooperative apparatuses, and more frequently the Red Army to the Belarusian language.

In the resolution of the Plenary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Belarus (January 1925) on the issue of “Current Tasks of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Belarus in National Policy,” it is stated: “The main issue of Belarusization is the issue of the Belarusian language.” The proletariat of Belarus, without knowledge of the Belarusian language in governing the majority of the population of the BSSR—peasantry—and in approaching its apparatus of Soviet Power—would face significant difficulties. Therefore, the XII All-Belarusian Party Conference (March 1923) in its resolution on the national question decided: “The Communist Party, in full agreement with its program, in the field of the national question must take all measures to establish work in the Belarusian language, creating normal conditions for the development of Belarusian culture.”

The All-Belarusian Congress of Soviets (December 1920) and then the 2nd Session of the Central Executive Committee of the BSSR (February 1921) decided to take all measures to strengthen work in the language of the overwhelming majority of the working peasantry of Belarus—in the Belarusian language; to gradually transition all educational institutions where Belarusian children study to their native (Belarusian) language of instruction; to intensify work on the preparation of teachers who could teach in the Belarusian language; to open in Minsk and other cities a number of Belarusian courses for retraining teachers and pedagogical institutions that would prepare teachers for schools. According to these resolutions, in schools where Belarusian children study, the teaching of all subjects was to be transferred to the Belarusian language. In all educational institutions, regardless of the language of instruction in them, the mandatory teaching of the Belarusian language as a separate subject was introduced. The publication of textbooks, popular science, and political literature in the Belarusian language was recognized as a priority task. Funds were allocated for the publication of prizes for the authors of the best textbooks in the Belarusian language. To increase the number of Belarusian school workers, measures were taken to reassign these workers from those institutions where they were not employed in their specialty. A petition was submitted to the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic for the reassignment of teachers—natives of Belarus from the ranks of the Red Army. The People’s Commissariat of Education of Belarus petitioned the People’s Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR for the reassignment to Belarus of all teachers—natives of Belarus. Funds were allocated for the return of cultural workers who were returning to Belarus. Measures were taken to establish the State Belarusian University in Minsk. The Central Executive Committee of Belarus appealed to scholars, writers, teachers, and all cultural workers—natives of Belarus, with a special appeal, in which on behalf of the working people of Belarus, it called on these cultural workers to participate in the cultural construction of Soviet Belarus.

To strengthen the influence of the Communist Party over the masses and to solidify the alliance of workers with the peasantry, the Plenary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Belarus adopted the resolution: “The entire Communist Party (Bolsheviks) must speak in the Belarusian language.”

<…>

The highest scientific research institution that unites all scientific research work in the BSSR is the Institute of Belarusian Culture.

Before the October Revolution, there were neither higher educational institutions nor research institutions in Belarus. The Institute of Belarusian Culture is the child of the proletarian Revolution in Belarus.

At the same time as the question of organizing the Belarusian State University in Minsk, the question of organizing the Institute of Belarusian Culture was also raised. As early as February 1921, this question was discussed at the 2nd Session of the Central Executive Committee of the BSSR. The stenographic report of the People’s Commissariat of Education at this session speaks of the necessity of establishing two institutes at the Belarusian University: one for Belarusian culture and one for Jewish culture. However, the lack of highly qualified workers in Belarusian studies and the absence of the necessary equipment forced a temporary abandonment of the idea of establishing these institutes.

However, there was an urgent need for Belarusian terminology, Belarusian textbooks, political-literary and other magazines. With all determination, the question of establishing a Scientific Research Institution under the People’s Commissariat of Education, which was to eventually develop into the Institute of Belarusian Culture, was raised.

Thus, the embryo of the Institute of Belarusian Culture was formed in 1921 with the establishment of the Scientific Terminological Commission at the Academic Center of the People’s Commissariat of Education, which had three sections: humanitarian, natural sciences, and mathematics. The task of the Scientific Terminological Commission initially included the development and publication of scientific terminology, at least for primary and secondary Belarusian schools. The Scientific Terminological Commission successfully accomplished this task. By 1922, scientific Belarusian terminology was published in the fields of humanitarian, natural sciences, and mathematics.

In 1922, the Scientific Terminological Commission, which had expanded its work, was reorganized into the Institute of Belarusian Culture with two sections: humanitarian and natural sciences. These sections, in turn, divided into several scientific research commissions (literary, for compiling dictionaries, terminological, etc.).

As a result of a special appeal from the Institute of Belarusian Culture to the working masses and the intelligentsia, urging them to participate in the identification of the characteristics of Belarus, which had until then been almost untouched by research work, a dense network of local history organizations quickly grew, which included many workers and peasants, predominantly rural intelligentsia, as well as student youth. A Central Bureau of Local History was established at the Institute of Belarusian Culture, which began publishing the journal “Our Land” to illuminate local history work.

Through this bureau, the closest connection with the working masses of Belarus was established. At present, local history organizations in Belarus include 9,000 members. The research materials collected by these organizations are sent to the Institute of Belarusian Culture for scientific processing.

Since 1924, the scientific research work of the Institute of Belarusian Culture has widely expanded and covered a number of areas of building Soviet Belarus. Hundreds of scientific party and Soviet managerial workers were involved in the work of the Institute of Belarusian Culture.

In the same year, 1924, the Council of People’s Commissars of the BSSR approved the statute of the Institute of Belarusian Culture. According to this statute, the tasks of the Institute of Belarusian Culture include planned research on Belarus and the unification of work in the fields of language, literature, ethnography, history, nature, economy, social and civic movements, and others. In 1920, the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of the BSSR, placing special importance on the work of the Institute of Belarusian Culture and taking into account that the scope of activity of Inbelkult and its influence on the broad masses of the population was continually expanding, decided to reorganize the Institute of Belarusian Culture into an independent institution, subordinated directly to the Council of People’s Commissars. <…>

In the 1926-27 academic year, the Institute of Belarusian Culture included 7 scientific sections and 8 permanent commissions, which currently comprise two large departments: the Humanitarian Department and the Natural Sciences Department, which are divided into commissions.

The Dictionary Commission has collected, with the help of local history organizations and private individuals, over 300,000 words of the living Belarusian language; it is preparing for publication a large academic dictionary of the Belarusian language; it has published a regional Belarusian dictionary for Vitebsk and prepared for print a similar dictionary for Kalinin and Chervyen.
The Main Terminological Commission has published scientific Belarusian terminology in the following disciplines: mathematics, geography, chemistry, anatomy, art, social studies, law, agriculture, and forestry.
The Literary Commission has prepared for academic publication a complete collection of works by some Belarusian writers and poets. The first volume of the works of M. Bahdanovich has already been published.
The Folklore-Dialectological Commission studies Belarusian folk tales and folk creativity. This commission has prepared for publication several volumes of folklore material.
The Social-Historical Section published historical studies on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Belarusian printing in 1925, and subsequently published the collection “Belarusian Archive” Vol. I, “Historical-Archaeological Collection,” and a number of other publications on the history and archaeology of Belarus.
The Commission for the Protection of Historical Monuments has taken into account these monuments in Belarus and is making a scientific description of them; this commission has organized a number of reserves.
The Ethnographic Commission has conducted several expeditions in Belarus, which collected valuable materials and collections, and also additionally surveyed the ethnographic boundaries of the settlement of Belarusians.
The Art Section, which includes the theater, music, and visual arts commissions, has been engaged in processing the repertoire for the Belarusian Theater, established a Belarusian theater museum, records folk songs, and provides instrumental arrangements (over 500 songs and melodies have been arranged).
The Natural Sciences Section, through special subsections and commissions, conducts research on the organic and inorganic nature of Belarus. The scientific expeditions conducted by the section over the past 3-4 years have made it possible to begin compiling geobotanical, geological, and soil maps of Belarus, revealing a number of deposits of coal, chalk, various types of clay, sand, phosphorites, and others. From the materials accumulated during the studies of the flora and fauna of Belarus, as well as materials from geological studies, a rich museum of the nature of Belarus has been organized, consisting of 3 departments: zoological, botanical, and soil.

The Meteorological Bureau of the section, which has a network of meteorological stations in Belarus, studies the climate of Belarus.

The Commission for the Study of Natural Productive Forces of the BSSR conducts planned research on the nature of Belarus with the aim of scientifically servicing the developing industry and agriculture of the Republic.
The Medical Section conducts research on specific diseases in Belarus (goiter, household syphilis (pseudopregnancy), etc.), studies the sanitary conditions of the Belarusian village, and others.
The Anthropological Commission conducts research work and identifies the anthropological features of the Belarusian population.
The Geographical Commission, based on materials collected by it and local history organizations, prepares a complete geographical description of Belarus.
The Agricultural Section, before the organization of the Scientific Research Institute named after Lenin in Belarus, conducted scientific research in the field of agriculture and forestry in Belarus.
The Bibliographic Commission compiles bibliographies in all fields of Belarusian studies.
The Military Commission has prepared and published military statutes in the Belarusian language, a Belarusian military dictionary, Belarusian songs for the Red Army, and a number of Belarusian textbooks and readers for the command and Red Army personnel.
The Commission for the Study of Western Belarus is engaged in collecting and scientifically studying materials on the socio-economic, everyday, and generally cultural life of the population (predominantly Belarusian) in Western Belarus. A large work on the study of the economic situation in Western Belarus is being prepared for publication. This work will soon be released into the world.

The Institute of Belarusian Culture includes 2 national departments: Jewish and Polish; in the upcoming budget year, departments for Lithuanian and Latvian will be opened. These national departments will conduct scientific research on the language, history, ethnography, and generally national culture of the Jewish, Polish, Lithuanian, and Latvian populations of Belarus. The Institute of Belarusian Culture has its branch at the Belarusian Agricultural Academy in Horki, the “Scientific Society for the Study of Belarus.” This society has already published three volumes of scientific works in the field of studying agriculture and forestry in the BSSR.

The Institute of Belarusian Culture houses a Scientific Organization of Labor (NOL) with a psychotechnical laboratory; it has a library that contains about 40,000 rare specialized books, a Nature Museum, an Acclimatization Garden in the Vitebsk region, a chemical laboratory, and a printing house equipped with special fonts. During its 5-year existence, the Institute of Belarusian Culture has published up to 70 volumes of scientific works that concern all aspects of life in Soviet Belarus. Just the list of institutions of the Institute of Belarusian Culture and a brief description of their activities testify to the colossal academic-type work that the Institute of Belarusian Culture is conducting for the revival and development of the national cultures of the population of Belarus.

In addition, the Institute of Belarusian Culture has established close ties and mutual exchange of books with all Academies of Sciences and other scientific institutions (universities, institutes, libraries, museums), both in the USSR and in Europe and America. The number of these scientific institutions with which the Institute of Belarusian Culture is connected currently reaches up to 750. The Institute of Belarusian Culture participates in scientific conferences and congresses in the USSR and abroad (Germany, America, Poland, and other countries) and convenes its own conferences and congresses (Conference on the Reform of Belarusian Spelling and Alphabet, conference of archaeologists, local historians, etc.) in which scientists and specialists from the USSR and Europe (Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Czechoslovakia, etc.) participate.

The extensive scientific research work currently being carried out by the Institute of Belarusian Culture in all areas of life in Soviet Belarus has raised before the Communist Party and the Soviet Government the question of reorganizing the Institute of Belarusian Culture into the Belarusian Academy of Sciences. The question of such reorganization was first raised in the middle of 1926. In the resolution on the report of the Government of Belarus on June 4, 1926, in the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR, the Union Central Executive Committee decided:

“Taking into account the difficulties of the national question in Belarus, which arise due to the diverse composition of its population, the Presidium of the Union Central Executive Committee notes that the Belarusian Government has managed to correctly resolve, in principle, the most important issues of national policy, giving reliable attention to the issues of Belarusian culture, ensuring its further development. At the same time, the Presidium of the Union Central Executive Committee particularly notes the great significance of the Institute of Belarusian Culture for this purpose, which in its further work should transform into the Belarusian Academy of Sciences.”

On July 10, 1926, based on the report of the Institute of Belarusian Culture, the Council of People’s Commissars of Belarus issued the following resolution: “To note the strengthening of the influence of the Institute of Belarusian Culture on all scientific and research work in the Republic and at the same time consider it necessary from the 1926-27 academic year to give the Institute of Belarusian Culture a direction towards its gradual transformation into the Belarusian Academy of Sciences.”

On July 21, 1927, the Council of People’s Commissars approved a new statute for the Institute of Belarusian Culture, which is analogous to the statutes of the All-Union and Ukrainian Academies of Sciences. According to the latest statute, the Institute of Belarusian Culture is the highest state institution in the BSSR and is directly subordinate to the Council of People’s Commissars of the BSSR.

In § 2 of the statute, it is stated: “The Institute of Belarusian Culture has the following tasks:

a). the dissemination and clarification of scientific disciplines that fall within its competence, enriching them with new discoveries and research methods;

b). planned research on Belarus from the standpoint of its natural productive forces, studying and promoting their use, studying the national economy, law, civil movement, language, literature, history, ethnography, and others;

c). unifying all scientific work conducted by scientific institutions of the BSSR and individual scholars in these areas;

d). adapting scientific theories and results of scientific research for practical application in the industrial and cultural-economic construction of the BSSR.”

Thus, thanks to the leadership of the Communist Party and the Soviet authorities in the field of national policy, the working people of Belarus in the field of cultural construction have achieved what they could not achieve over centuries of their historical existence.

In addition to several thousand primary, secondary, and higher schools in the native Belarusian language, the working masses of Belarus have the Institute of Belarusian Culture, which is on the verge of transforming into the Belarusian Academy of Sciences and is the highest scientific-research institution. <…>

Our achievements in the matter of Belarusization, despite the existing shortcomings in this work, could not fail to attract the attention of the working people beyond the borders. When the working people of all countries and nations follow our work—the construction of socialism—with deep interest, attention, and sympathy, the attention to our cultural work by the working people of Western Belarus, which, although separated from the BSSR by the Soviet-Polish border, is ethnographically the same part of Belarus as the BSSR, is quite understandable.

The Polish bourgeoisie has made every effort to present all our achievements in the field of cultural construction, including Belarusization, in a false light, aiming to diminish, obscure the importance and magnitude of our achievements in cultural construction before the working masses of Western Belarus.

However, even the hostile press, both Belarusian collaborationist-Polonophile or chauvinistic, as well as Polish reactionary, are sometimes forced to speak about our cultural work in the BSSR in ways they would very much prefer not to acknowledge.

Take, for example, the Vilnius newspaper “Kurjer Wileński,” which is a semi-official organ and undoubtedly stands above any suspicion regarding any “sympathy” for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

In one of the issues of this newspaper for October 1926, in an article dedicated to discussing the political situation in Western Belarus, a comparison is made with the situation in the BSSR.

The author of the article initially accuses the Soviet power of suppressing the bourgeoisie, but in the end is forced to acknowledge the cultural achievements in the BSSR.

The article states that “the Soviet government organized the Belarusian University, established the Institute of Belarusian Culture, founded several special schools and a whole network of lower schools. A number of former political enemies of communism today find application for their forces on the territory of Soviet Belarus. Even such a figure as Smolich, who at one time organized Belarusian legions on the Polish side, now holds a leading position in the field of creative cultural work. It must be acknowledged that the policy of the Soviet government is significantly more reasonable than the policy of Poland.”

This forced characterization of our cultural construction in contrast to the situation that exists in Western Belarus, which is under Polish rule, is very telling, especially considering that this characterization reflects the mood even of some bourgeois circles of the ruling Polish nation.

Now let us turn to the statements of hostile Belarusian figures, such as the leader of the Belarusian collaborationist party “Peasant Union,” deputy of the Sejm, Yaremych, or the leader of the Belarusian Christian democracy, deputy of the Sejm, priest A. Stankevich. These Belarusian leaders of the petty-bourgeois camp also cannot fail to recognize our achievements in cultural construction, particularly in Belarusization.

In an article about Belarus published in the journal “Natiо” (No. 1-2, 1927), which is published in Warsaw and unites the so-called democratic part of all national minorities in Poland, deputy Yaremych states:

“Primary, secondary, and higher schools in Soviet Belarus are mostly Belarusianized. There, Belarusian science and art are developing.”

This situation in the BSSR Yaremych further equates with the situation in Poland, where Belarusians have not a single Belarusian government primary school, not to mention higher-type schools.

The Belarusian deputy in the Sejm, priest A. Stankevich, an undeniable and unappealable enemy of the dictatorship of the proletariat, characterized our cultural achievements in his speech in the Sejm, excerpts from which were published in the Vilnius Belarusian newspaper—the organ of Belarusian Christian democracy “Belarusian Source” (issue of 21/X.1926):

“Although I do not praise many things about Soviet policy, I relate to it critically, I must acknowledge with some caution that in the cultural field of the Belarusian people there have been great successes. I say this to sober you up. The fact remains that there the life of the Belarusian people has moved from a standstill, that Belarusian schools in Soviet Belarus number in the thousands. I can show you entire piles of Soviet Belarusian publications.

You can finally go there yourself and see, or ask those who have been there. In general, I am surprised that you do not want to see black as black and white as white.”

In the Belarusian Vilnius newspaper “Nasha Sprava,” the organ of the radical Belarusian party “Belarusian Peasant-Worker Community,” in the introductory article under the headline “Farewell,” alongside the characterization of the oppression and pressure of workers and peasants in Western Belarus by the Polish government, it is said about Soviet Belarus:

“And further to the east beyond the border, where the power of workers and peasants already exists, Belarusian cultural creative work is boiling! Over 4,000 primary Belarusian schools, several dozen secondary (technical schools) have already been supplemented this year by the fourth Belarusian higher school—the Agricultural Academy in Horki.

Following Minsk, the second State Belarusian Theater opened in Vitebsk. Hundreds of new Belarusian books have been published. The Institute of Belarusian Culture is making significant strides towards transforming into the Belarusian Academy of Sciences. And the scientific congress, which united representatives of all Belarusian directions from all countries where Belarusians live (except Western Belarus due to obstacles from the Polish government), showed what great strides the Belarusian people have made in building their native culture.”

From the provided excerpts from the foreign Belarusian and even Polish press, we see that our cultural construction, and especially Belarusization, has found a very strong response in Western Belarus.

Not only hostile Belarusian political groups of a Polonophile or chauvinistic direction but even the Polish bourgeois public is forced to acknowledge, contrary to their own desires, our successes, as the facts speak for themselves and no criticism can destroy them. Indeed, the positive assessment of our achievements in cultural construction by these bourgeois Polish and also “yellow” Belarusian groups, which reflect the opinion of a very small part of the Belarusian intelligentsia, is always made with numerous caveats.

These caveats are a series of artificial, manipulated, so-called side circumstances that seem to discredit the positive results we have achieved in our cultural work.

The radical part of the Belarusian population of Western Belarus, namely the working and peasant masses, assess our achievements on the cultural front without any tricks, as they are in reality, bringing into this assessment only the bitterness of the awareness that not all Belarusians have these achievements and can benefit from them.”