In Volume 2 of the encyclopedia Ukraine – A Concise Encyclopedia (prepared by Schevchenko Scientific Society, University of Toronto Press, Volume 2, 1971), published in Toronto in 1971, there is a softened map from 1930, created by V. Kubiovich and M. Kulytsky, in English, which shows that approximately half of the modern Brest region with the cities of Brest and Pinsk, as well as the southeastern and southwestern parts of the modern Gomel region with the cities of Stary Dub and Turov, are attached to Ukraine.
This volume also contains a map of the settlement of the Ukrainian population, which indicates that in the southern half of the Brest region, almost 100% of the population are Ukrainians. The areas around Mazyr are marked with 75%, 90%, and 100% Ukrainian population. However, no sources are provided on which such percentages of the Ukrainian population are based – notes the author of the publication Ukrainian Claims to Belarus I. Kasyak (in: “Belarusian Thought”, No. 34, New York – South River 1989, pp. 32-37), who, relying on various population censuses, provides numerical data on the nationality of the residents of Gomel and Brest regions, from which it follows that Ukrainians have no ethnographic basis to claim the annexation of large parts of the Brest and Gomel regions to Ukraine.
In the publication Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, issued in Minsk in 1927, it is stated that in the Gomel district in 1897, there were 74.1% Belarusians, 14.4% Jews, 10.2% Great Russians and Ukrainians, and 1% Poles. In 1917, among the rural population, there were 94.6% Belarusians, 1% Jews, 1.2% Great Russians and Ukrainians, and 1.8% Poles. In 1923, among the urban population, the proportions were as follows: 44.6% were Belarusians, 42.1% Jews, 10.3% Great Russians and Ukrainians, and 1.8% Poles.
At that time, Brest region was within the Polish state. As reported by the Główny Urząd Statystyczny Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej in the publication Drugi powszechny spis ludności z dn. 9.XІІ.1931 r., województwo poleskie (Warsaw 1938), based on the mother tongue, Polish was spoken by 164,106 residents, Ukrainian by 54,047, Belarusian by 75,338, Russian by 16,198, local dialect by 707,088, Jewish by 96,514, and Hebrew by 16,452 residents. The author of the article published in the pages of “Belarusian Thought” considers that the locals are Belarusians, and therefore the total number of Belarusians should be counted as 782,426 individuals. From this data, it follows that the number of Ukrainians in relation to Belarusians was: in the Gomel region – 8%, and in the Brest region – 6.9%.
I. Kasyak also refers to later population censuses. Thus, in the publication Итоги всесоюзной переписи населения 1959 года. Белорусская СССР (Moscow 1963), it is reported that in the Gomel region there were 1,361,841 people: 1,181,096 Belarusians, 89,720 Russians, 45,007 Jews, 33,317 Ukrainians, and 7,172 Poles. In the Brest district, there were 1,190,729 individuals, including: 1,024,618 Belarusians, 87,920 Russians, 42,085 Poles, 25,649 Ukrainians, 6,012 Jews, and 707 Tatars. According to this census, the number of Ukrainians in relation to Belarusians was: in the Brest region – 2.5%, and in the Gomel region – 2.82%.
Similar figures appear in the publication Итоги переписи населения 1970 года (Volume IV, Moscow 1973). The population of Gomel region was 1,533,304 individuals, including: 1,294,046 Belarusians, 137,410 Russians, 46,483 Ukrainians, 43,312 Jews, and 4,841 Poles. The population of Brest region was 1,294,550 individuals, including: 1,114,706 Belarusians, 106,047 Russians, 32,491 Poles, 31,626 Ukrainians, 5,015 Jews, and 847 Tatars. According to this census, the number of Ukrainians in relation to Belarusians was: in Brest region – 2.84%, and in Gomel region – 3.59%.
The Belarusian emigration journal “News from Belarus” drew attention to the study by V.V. Anichenko titled Belarusian-Ukrainian Written and Language Connections (Minsk 1969), in which the author synthesized the literary norms of the Old Belarusian language with the facts of the living folk language into a single coherent system. However, this is not the main achievement of V. Anichenko’s work – reports the New York magazine (Belarusian-Ukrainian Language Connections, in: “News from Belarus”, No. 18 (137), New York, September 30, 1969, pp. 4-5), referring to the publication by Y. Komarovsky Language Connections of Brother Nations (in: “Zvyazda”, 23.09.1969). V. Anichenko made a rather successful attempt at a comparative-historical study of Belarusian-Ukrainian written connections in times long past, but more on this next week.