Belarusian Smolensk Region

Russians of the Belarusian-Russian-Ukrainian Borderland in the 1920s-1930s: A Sociocultural Perspective

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Starovoitov Mikhail Ivanovich — doctoral candidate at the Department of Modern and Contemporary History of Belarus, Belarusian State University, Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor

The study of national-cultural processes acquired particular relevance after the dissolution of the USSR. Beyond the borders of the Russian Federation, in the territory of neighboring states, there were 25 million Russians. The well-known researcher V. M. Kabuzan noted that such a massive diaspora, comparable in size to the populations of many countries, appeared for the first time in the history of civilizations [1, p. 7]. Russians faced complex problems of relations with titular ethnic groups. The origins of these relations, which manifested from the 1990s onward, should be sought both in the crisis state of politics and the economy, and in the historical past. It was precisely in the 1920s-1930s that fundamental changes occurred in the socio-economic, confessional, and cultural life of the ethnic groups living in the region. The general infrastructure of national-cultural interaction and relationships within the borderland region was quite vivid and effective.

The growing interest in regional issues should be recognized as objective, linked to the establishment of the very definition of “region” (as well as “borderland,” “periphery”) primarily in the sense of a sociocultural phenomenon [2, p. 112]. We consider the borderland as a region whose ethnocultural boundaries are not rigidly aligned with state boundaries. In terms of territorial-administrative relations, the Belarusian-Russian-Ukrainian borderland (hereinafter BRUB) can include the following administrative units: a) the pre-1917 governorates — Vitebsk, Minsk, Mogilev, Oryol, Pskov, Smolensk, Volyn, Kyiv, and Chernihiv; b) the oblasts created as a result of USSR regionalization — Vitebsk, Gomel, Mogilev, Polesie, Oryol, Smolensk, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, and Chernihiv, whose formation was completed in 1937-1938. This borderland formed as a result of the stable coexistence, mutual conditionality, and mutual influence of historically established ethnocultural massifs and functions regardless of state-political and economic demarcation. Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians lived and continue to live as “titular ethnic groups” in it. At the same time, during this period they were classified as national minorities (though not indisputably) if they lived outside their ethnic territories.

We use the method of I. D. Kovalchenko and L. I. Borodkin, whereby districts and governorates were assigned to different systemic levels for the study of phenomena and processes [3, pp. 62-63]. Based on the 1926 census materials, the borderland territory was also examined by larger units (the BSSR as a whole, the Western District of the RSFSR, and the Polesie sub-district of the Ukrainian SSR). The participation of Russians in the ethno-sociocultural processes of the Belarusian and Ukrainian oblasts of the BRUB should be correlated with the influence of the Russian language, under whose influence the self-consciousness of the Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples was being formed. Speaking about the fact that strengthening the national self-consciousness of Belarusians is relevant even today, O. A. Yanovsky writes: “…correctness in studying and comprehending the historical past shared with the Russian and Ukrainian peoples has in this case no small significance” [4, p. 229].

The study of the life activity of Russia’s population in the 20th century is connected with difficulties caused by frequent changes in territory, administrative divisions, and boundaries of numerous regions [5, p. 4]. They also occurred in the BRUB. Demographer L. L. Rybakovsky calls this one of the reasons for the lack of reliable data on the movement of the Russian people before the 1959 population census [6, p. 45]. In the monograph “Russians,” there is also no complete data on the Russian population even for the European part of the USSR and RSFSR for the period under study [7, pp. 124-130], not to mention the region under investigation. When comparing data, the basis used was large administrative units and the methodology for accounting for sectoral employment, literacy, and education of the population as adopted in the 1926 and 1939 censuses.

With the annexation of Vitebsk and part of Gomel governorates to the BSSR, the number of Russians in the republic increased and amounted to 383,806 people in 1926. There were 20,000 fewer women than men. In these governorates, the number and proportion of Russians were the highest. The majority of ethnic Russians lived in rural areas — 251,020 people (64.5% of their total number), in cities — 132,203 people (35.5%). By degree of urbanization (according to A. Kappeler — the share of urban dwellers of a specific ethnic group relative to its total number) [8, p. 294], Russians in the BSSR were in third place (34.4%) after Jews and Tatars [9, pp. 9-12]. This explains the high proportion of Russians among their nationality working as laborers (8.7% men and 4.0% women) and employees (7.1% and 6.3%). These indicators exceeded the republic’s averages and were higher than those of Belarusians. The proportion of Russian household heads with families in agriculture was approximately 1.5 times lower, although more than half of Russian men and about 80% of women were employed in this sector. Analysis of the age-sex structure of the employed revealed the reason for the large difference in numbers between Russian men and women living in the BSSR. Of Russian men, 25.7% were on military service, and among the 58,905 military personnel of the BSSR, they constituted 62.3%. Belarusians comprised only 23.0%, with the remainder being Ukrainians and partly Jews [10, pp. 2-3].

The large number of Russians was not always taken into account by the Belarusization that began in the 1920s. Thus, the predominance of Russian and Russian-speaking military among servicemen in the BSSR, and the poor knowledge of the Belarusian language by the titular ethnic group, led to excesses during Belarusization in the units of the Western Military District (from October 1926 — the Belarusian Military District, whose Revolutionary Military Council and headquarters were located in Smolensk). Ill-considered actions led to the Prosecutor of the USSR Supreme Court P. A. Krasikov informing the Presidium of the USSR CEC in September 1929 that the resolution of the 9th All-Belarusian Congress of Soviets on the Belarusization of the 16th Corps contradicted the USSR Government’s directives on the indigenization of RKKA military units [11]. The problem of introducing the Russian language in the army remained complex until the mid-1930s. At the VKP(b) Central Committee plenum on October 12, 1937, I. V. Stalin explained the necessity of introducing Russian in all schools as a mandatory subject because “…all citizens of the USSR can more or less communicate in it…,” linking this primarily to universal military service, when the army should be “an army of the Union, and not of individual oblasts or republics” [12, p. 299].

In the BSSR and Ukrainian SSR, work with the Russian population was conducted poorly or not at all. Thus, the chairman of the National Commission of the BSSR CEC, A. I. Khatskevich, explained the belated work with Russians by the fact that in the republic they were not regarded as a national minority [13, p. 221]. Evidently, such a problem existed in Ukraine as well, because on January 19, 1927, it became the subject of discussion at a meeting of representatives of national minorities of the Ukrainian SSR. A resolution on work among the Russian population in Ukraine was adopted there. The material was sent on January 27, 1927 to M. I. Kalinin, and it was stated: “The Russian question is acquiring very great significance in Ukraine. This question, unfortunately, has not received a concrete resolution from the highest governing bodies…, which can be concluded from the composition of delegates present at the meeting: among 80 delegates, 8 Russians were present, and this despite the fact that Russians in the Ukrainian SSR represent a very large group…” [14, p. 464]. The meeting resolution noted that “…on the territory of Ukraine, the population of Russian nationality numbers a total of (sic — M. S.) 2,529,092 inhabitants…” [14, p. 465]. To clarify, according to the 1926 census, 2,677,200 Russians lived in the Ukrainian SSR [15, p. 74]. It was noted that this constituted 30.3% coverage of the entire Russian population of the Ukrainian SSR and 90% in rural areas. It was planned in the 1926/27 budget year to bring the number of Russian national soviets to 351, creating a number of Russian districts: Chuguyev, Alekseevka, Starovedovo, Putivl [14, p. 465]. However, in the late 1930s, all national soviets in the union republics, including those in the BRUB, were liquidated.

The proportion of Russians was quite high in the Ukrainian districts of the BRUB. In the Volyn, Glukhov, Kyiv, Korosten, and Chernihiv border districts with the BSSR and RSFSR, 315,050 Russians lived in 1926, of whom 130,429 were in the Glukhov district and 125,514 in the city of Kyiv (81.2% of all Russians in these districts). Excluding Kyiv, the degree of urbanization of Russians in this part of the BRUB averaged 32.6%, with 80% in the Chernihiv district, 63.3% in the Volyn district, and 21.7% in the Glukhov district [16, pp. 76-87; 17, pp. 27-28].

Analysis of the 1926 census data by social groups showed that Russians in the representative Volyn district worked as laborers — 11.4%, employees — 12.5%, helping family members — 22.8%, and military personnel — 27.2%. While among helping family members the majority were women, in the other three groups the absolute majority were men [18, pp. 154, 158, 160, 161; 19, pp. 126, 128, 141]. The high proportion of Russians among military personnel in the BRUB in the 1920s is noted in the border zone districts.

According to the 1926 census, the share of literate people among the Russian population of the BRUB was as follows: for the BSSR as a whole, among men it was 63.10%, women — 33.91% (both sexes 49.26%), in the city respectively — 80.44% and 58.38% (71.39%), in rural areas — 52.18% and 23.53% (37.63%); in the western region (Bryansk and Smolensk governorates) of the RSFSR respectively — 54.08% and 24.62 (38.62), 73.07 and 58.44 (65.63), 51.78 and 20.82 (35.47); in the Polesie sub-district of the Ukrainian SSR — 63.08% and 37.31% (59.68%), 72.51% and 56.95% (64.54%), 58.00% and 26.95% (41.95%). The difference in literacy levels between Russian men and women is obvious, both overall and among urban and especially rural residents. Based on the same 1926 census, a trend was identified: the literacy level was significantly lower among Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians living within their ethnic territories (about 90% of them lived in rural areas) than among those living in neighboring border territories of the BRUB, where a significant portion of them lived in cities. The biggest difference was among Belarusians (from 17 to 31%) [20, pp. 15, 16, 25, 28-29, 34-35, 256] and Russians (from 10 to 21%) [21, pp. 16-17, 40-41], and the smallest among Ukrainians (4-8%) [22, pp. 77-78, 189]. In our view, this indicates the degree of motivation in eliminating illiteracy [23].

The 1939 census established that the number of Russians in the BSSR decreased over the 12-year period by 19,101 people and amounted to 364,705. Russians were equally divided between urban settlements and villages, with 234,002 (64.2%) men and 130,703 (35.8%) women [24, sheet 12]. The number of men is explained by the large influx of workers and military personnel from neighboring Russian oblasts into the republic. Due to the secrecy of the 1939 census data on military personnel, there is reason to believe that they were recorded under the “unclassified” category. The basis for this is the significant predominance of Russian, Ukrainian, and Tatar males among those unclassified by sectors of the national economy in the Belarusian oblasts, and of Russians and Tatars in the Ukrainian oblasts. Meanwhile, in the Russian oblasts, Ukrainians, Tatars, and Belarusians were shown as unclassified to a greater extent. Based on this, it can be considered that almost 70% of Russian men counted in the BSSR were in military service, 19% in factory and handicraft industry, construction and transport, 6.4% in state institutions, and 3.5% in education, science and culture. About 78% of Russian rural women were employed in the agrarian sector, and almost 46% of urban women in the industrial sector [25, sheets 2, 13]. Obviously, one should abandon the stereotype that Russians in the BSSR and Ukrainian SSR were mainly officials (Table 1. All tables in the article were compiled and calculated by the author).

Table 1

Russians in sectors of the national economy of the Belarusian oblasts of the BRUB in 1939 *

* Compiled from data: RGAE. F. 1562. Op. 336. D. 913, Sheets 1-242.

The 1939 census recorded 85,656 Russians in the Zhytomyr Oblast, of whom men comprised 73.4%, women — 26.6% (in cities men and women were equal, while in rural areas — 85% and 15%). In Kyiv Oblast respectively — 251,028 people (men — 62.4% and women — 37.6%), in cities — 48.0% and 52.0%, and in rural areas — 90.6% and 9.4%. In Chernihiv Oblast there were 80.6% Russian men and 19.4% women. In the indicated oblasts, about 70% of Russians lived in rural areas. The data on the national composition of the urban and rural population employed in sectors of the national economy of Zhytomyr Oblast (calculations for Kyiv and Chernihiv are underway) generally confirm the ratio of Russian employment, as in the Belarusian oblasts. In the industrial sector, among Russian men there were 19.5%, in military service — 66.2%, in agriculture and forestry — 7.8%, in state institutions — 3.2%. Russian women in Zhytomyr villages were 73% employed in agriculture [25, sheets 2, 13]. In the Russian oblasts of the BRUB, the absolute majority of Russians (with a significant predominance of women) were employed in agriculture. One cannot but agree with the assessment of the position of women in the period under study, expressed by I. R. Chikalova: “Universal disenfranchisement for women was exacerbated by the deployment of the mechanism of double exploitation of cheap female labor in the national economy and unpaid labor in servicing the family…” [26, p. 54].

In 1926-1939, in connection with industrialization and urbanization, the urban population in the BRUB increased by more than 1.5 times. As in the 1920s, so at the end of the 1930s, the urban population of the region remained multi-ethnic (a population is considered such if national minorities constitute more than 5% of its inhabitants) [27, p. 21]. The proportion of Russians was very high in the Belarusian oblasts of the BRUB (Table 2).

Table 2

* Compiled from data: RGAE. F. 1562. Op. 336. D. 375, Sheets 6, 45; D. 376, Sheets 6, 43; D. 358, Sheets 6, 45; D. 299, Sheets 6, 42; D. 361, Sheets 6, 46; D. 379, Sheets 6, 48; D. 317, Sheets 6, 40; D. 380, Sheets 6, 40; D. 325, Sheets 8, 44; D. 373, Sheets 6, 41.

The majority of the population of both cities and districts of both the Belarusian and Ukrainian governorates of the borderland were literate precisely due to knowledge of the Russian language. The aspiration to receive education in Russian was persistent, although in the context of implementing national policy, the Bolsheviks attached great importance to Belarusization and Ukrainization. A special role in this process was assigned to the national language. In practice, it proved difficult to ensure the full functioning of the Belarusian and Ukrainian languages in all spheres of life of the republics. Among employees, workers, and peasants, the stereotype persisted that quality education could only be obtained in the Russian language.

The forced pace of development of all levels of education led to a significant increase in literacy among both the Russian population and other nationalities. The tendency was maintained whereby literacy and education indicators were much higher among Russians living in the BRUB outside their ethnic territories (Table 3).

Table 3

Literacy level and education of Russians in the BRUB in 1939 (in %) *

* Compiled from data: RGAE. F. 1562. Op. 336. D. 375, Sheets 8, 9, 10; D. 336, Sheets 8, 9, 10; D. 358, Sheets 8, 9, 10; D. 361, Sheets 7, 8, 9; D. 378, Sheets 8, 9, 10; D. 317, Sheet 6; D. 380, Sheets 8, 9, 10; D. 325, Sheets 9, 10, 11; D. 373, Sheets 8, 9.

Schools lacked qualified staff proficient in the Belarusian language, and the material base was weak. Student achievement in Russian schools was higher than in Belarusian ones. For example, in 1939 in the city of Rechitsa, in three Belarusian secondary schools it averaged 74.2%, while in two Russian schools — 83.4% [28, sheet 218]. From the early 1930s, the role of the Russian language was purposefully enhanced. Through it, the multi-ethnic population of the republics was introduced to the ideological system and to the assimilation of new Soviet cultural norms and social roles. The city remained Russian-speaking, especially in the Gomel and Kyiv oblasts, which will be shown below.

At the 10th Party Congress in March 1921, Stalin said that thanks to the influx of the rural population over 40 years, Riga had become a Latvian city and “the same will happen with Belarus” [29, p. 213]. In the BSSR this did not happen, as Russian-speaking population predominated in Belarusian cities. The “township urbanization” carried out in the BSSR (the transformation of most townships into cities and urban settlements) appears to be that Belarusian specificity which, for well-known reasons, did not make the city Belarusian during the period under review. The Russian language itself nearly fell victim to leftist excesses of the People’s Commissariat of Education and A. V. Lunacharsky, when a subcommission for the Latinization of Russian script created at the Glavnauka of the People’s Commissariat declared the Russian alphabet the script of “…autocratic oppression, missionary propaganda, Great Russian national chauvinism, and forced Russification” [30, sheet 42]. However, the conditions of the 1930s required a fundamental change in the attitude toward the role of the Russian language in society. Thus, on April 20, 1938, the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR and the Central Committee of the CP(b)U adopted a resolution “On the Mandatory Study of the Russian Language in Non-Russian Schools of Ukraine,” justifying this by strengthening fraternal ties and unity of the Ukrainian, Russian, and other peoples of the USSR; the need to improve scientific and technical knowledge of Ukrainian cadres; and providing the necessary conditions for all citizens of the Ukrainian SSR to serve in the ranks of the RKKA and Navy [31, pp. 358-359]. On the proposal of the CC CP(b)B, on July 27, 1938, the Politburo of the VKP(b) CC adopted a resolution that “the state languages of the Belarusian SSR shall be the Belarusian and Russian languages” and permitted amendments to the relevant articles of the BSSR Constitution [32, sheet 3]. At the session of the BSSR Supreme Soviet (July 25-28, 1938), Article 25 of the Constitution, which had required the publication of laws in Belarusian, Russian, Polish, and Jewish languages, was amended, and Belarusian and Russian became the state languages [33, sheet 24 reverse].

Table 4

Number and proportion of Russians and population with Russian as their native language in 1939 (in %) *

* Compiled from data: RGAE. F. 1562. Op. 336. D. 375. Sheets 8, 9, 10; D. 336. Sheets 8, 9, 10; D. 358.

Sheets 8, 9, 10; D. 361. Sheets 7, 8, 9; D. 378. Sheets 8, 9, 10; D. 317. Sheet 6; D. 38b. Sheets 8, 9, 10; D. 325. Sheets 9, 10, 11; D. 373. Sheets 8, 9.

From Table 4 it is evident that Russian-speaking enclaves (a term introduced by L. I. Semennikova) [34, p. 519] occupied a significantly greater share among the population of the BRUB, especially in the Belarusian and Ukrainian oblasts of the region, than the Russian population itself. Among the entire population of the Belarusian border oblasts, the Russian-speaking enclave numbered 619,756 people (14.5%), and among the Ukrainian oblasts — 965,913 people (13.73%). This contributed to the spread and traditional preservation of the Russian spoken language in the urban environment: only 45.7% of the titular ethnic group living in BSSR cities named Belarusian as their native language. By oblast, these indicators were: 36.0% in Gomel Oblast, 43.5% in Vitebsk, 47.9% in Minsk, 50.4% in Mogilev, and 57.2% in Polesie. In Kyiv Oblast, 49.4% of urban Ukrainians named Ukrainian as their native language, in Zhytomyr — 57.6%, in Chernihiv — 69.5%. Thus, the majority of the population of Belarusian cities spoke Russian and received education in this language both in the BSSR and especially beyond its borders.

By the end of the 1930s, notes A. I. Vdovin, ideas about the Russian language as the language of international culture were being established, however ”…Russian culture in itself meant little if it did not become Soviet” [35, p. 101].

Thus, by the end of the 1930s, half of the Russians in the BSSR lived in cities, which was connected with the large influx of workers and specialists. Despite some decrease in their numbers, in terms of numbers and share in the republic’s population they were in third place after Belarusians and Jews. In the Ukrainian oblasts of the BRUB, the absolute majority of Russians lived in rural areas. There was approximately equal distribution of Russians by occupations in the Belarusian and Ukrainian oblasts of the BRUB. Russians made their contribution to the development of the economy and culture of the borderland region.

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