The photos by MF with the inscription “Smolensk is Belarus” are undeniably good creativity; all that remains is to make those same inscriptions in Dvinsk, Trakai, and Bialystok. In time, such ones will appear too…
When discussing “lost territories in the East,” it is easy to speak beautifully about a Greater Belarus extending to Vyazma or to Mozhaisk, but first one should think about what would have happened to the country if it had received these territories in the late 1920s.
At the very beginning of 1929, the Western Oblast of the RSFSR was created, with its capital in Smolensk, incorporating the entire territories of the Bryansk and Smolensk oblasts, as well as parts of the Kaluga and Tver oblasts and the Velikiye Luki District. (The borders of this entity practically replicate the eastern border of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 15th century – a Belarusian nationalist’s dream). The total area was 163,800 sq. km, with a population of 6,778 thousand.
According to some reports, there were plans to merge this oblast with the BSSR (which was significantly smaller both in territory and population). The so-called Third Enlargement of the BSSR in 1929–1930 would have been advantageous for the Soviet leadership – the BSSR would have transformed from a miniature border territory into a full-sized administrative unit, with its capital in Mogilev. Even from the perspective of territorial governance, the existence of a dwarf border Soviet Republic next to a geographically and economically similar Western Oblast was absurd.
Why this Enlargement did not take place is not exactly known, but the absence of the Third Enlargement was one of the most important events of the 20th century, which effectively saved both the BSSR and the modern Republic of Belarus from total and irreversible assimilation and impossible separation from Russia.
The population of the Smolensk Oblast is 1 million, that of Bryansk is 1.5 million; together they would have constituted 20% of the country’s population (out of 12.5 million). This means that the Russian minority would have constituted about 25–30% in 1991, even more than in Ukraine.
The eastern territories can be compared with eastern Ukraine, whose Soviet leadership managed to extract extra-territories from Moscow, to the great misfortune of the Ukrainian people. It is obvious that the Donbas and Crimea will continue to drag Ukraine down for a long time, and without them Ukraine would have long had a normal Parliament and Government. The same can be said about another country torn between West and East – Turkey. Ataturk managed to retain a significant part of Kurdistan within Turkey’s borders, but over the past 40 years the country has paid a heavy price for barren mountain territories where a poor, conservative Muslim population multiplies more and more every year. And without Kurdistan, everything would have been much better…
Imagine now the elections of 1994 or 2006 in Belarus’s Far East – Smolensk and Bryansk in 1994 would not even have voted for Lukashenko – look at who they have voted for over the past 17 years.
Paradoxically, thanks to the Soviet leadership that spared land for the fraternal republic, Belarus now has the best opportunities for consolidating the nation around a pro-Western choice of development – the majority of the population lives in Western and Central Belarus, the problem of a Russian minority practically does not exist – over 18 years of independence their real presence in society is about 6–7 percent, which makes them even the third ethnic minority, after the Poles.
Therefore, one should not weep too much over desolate territories with a debilitated population – they can be brought into one’s sphere of influence at almost any moment. It is better to look at what Belarus really needs, and where its true historical and cultural center lies – it is just 2 hours from Minsk by car…