Одна очень интересная старя о литовцах и белорусах в ВКЛ:
FROM WHITE RUSSIA TO BELARUS
Oleg Łatyszonek
ANNUS ALBARUTHENICUS/ГОД БЕЛАРУСКІ N* 5 / 2004 г
„BOTH LITHUANIAN AND RUTHENIAN”
This is how during the sixteenth century Polish scholars gradually shaped the notion of „White Russia” and „White Russians”. Local population, i.e. the ancestors of modern Belarusians, not only had not used such terms earlier, but probably didn’t even know them.
They called themselves „Rus’” (Rus) or „Rusiny” (Ruthenians) and their state Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Russia and Samogitia. The greates figure of Belarusian culture in the first half of 16th century was Francis Skaryna, a Renaissance scholar, at the time the only East Slavonic humanist. His conception of nationality does not differ from that prevailing in his Ruthenian environment. He loved his native province, „the famous town of Polatsk”, but his sphere of activity circumscribed all of Russia, probably inluding even Moscow.
Skaryna enrolled at the University of Cracow as a Lithuanian (Lithuanus), though he later described himself as Ruthenian (Ruthenus) in Padua and Rus (Rus) in Prague. Because he was a Roman Catholic, the word „Ruthenian” must be treated as an ethnic term, while „Lithuanian” as a term marking citizenship. It is worthwhile to remark here that Skoryna studied at the University of Cracow at the same time when Jan of Stobnica lectured there. However, Skoryna doesn’t exhibit any interest in the geographical location of „White Russia”.
Grand Duchy of Lithuania was an ethnically dual, Lithuanian-Russian state. In different periods the equilibrium between the two ethnic factors would fluctuate, which found its expression in state ideology. At the time when the most important task of the ruling strata was consolidation of the Lithuanian-Russian lands within a single state, i.e. in the fifteenth century, chroniclers tried to remain even-handed in representing the role of both ethnic communities.
Belarusian historian V. Chamiarytski proved that historical works written in mid fifteenth century, „Chronicle of the grand dukes of Lithuania” and „Chronicle” from 1446, promoted the conception of a dual, Lithuanian-Slavonic, genesis of the Grand Duchy. Unification of Lithuanian and Russian territories was presented as a voluntary act, caused by the external menace of the Teutonic Knights and Tartars. This is clearly visible in the „Chronicle” from 1446, particularly in the laudation „In praise of Vitawt” which was included in the chronicle. According to its author, it was Vitawt to whom belonged „the Great Duchy of Lithuania and Russia and of many other lands, or, in simple words, of all Russian lands”.
In „Chronicle” from 1446 the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is presented as a Lithuanian-Russian state, whose history is a direct continuation of old Russia, while the emergence of the Grand Duchy is a historical inevitability. Most probably, both chronicles were written in Smolensk31.
Ideological appropriation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by Ruthenians must have been a source of apprehension for ethnic Lithuanians. In reaction to this danger, as well as, in connection with ideological disputes with the Poles,
Lithuanians developed their own ethnogenetic legends, according to which they were descended from the Romans. The beginnings of the legend about the origins of the Lithuanian nation may be traced back to the fifties of the fifteenth century, while the establishment of „ancient family affinities”, which helped to further develop and inspire the legend, took place at the onset of the sixties. A fully developed form of this legend took shape in the latter half of the fifteenth century32.
„The Chronicle of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Samogitia” was compiled at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is notable that in the title of the chronicle the „Russian” part of the official name of the Grand Duchy was left out. The history of Lithuania begins here with the arrival of Romans in Samogitia. Russia is shown as the scene of Lithuanian activities. Ruthenians summon brave Lithuanian dukes, who defend them from the Tartars. Navahrudak, Hrodna, Barysaw and other towns were allegedly founded by Lithuanian dukes after the invasion of Russia by Tartar hordes under Batu-khan. Also at approximately that time temple dedicated to St. Sophia was erected in Polatsk. The dynasty of Polatsk dukes was derived from the dukes of Lithuania, without even mentioning Mindaugas. „The Chronicle of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Samogitia” is a product of Lithuanian patriotism which, in order to raise its national stature, did not flinch from committing forgery.
Thus, both sides already at the beginning of the sixteenth century have unfurled the banners of conflicting national programmes, which testifies to the growing enmity between the two ethnic groups. Furthermore, orthodox population was vexed by the policy of king Alexander, who tried to implement within the borders of his state the resolutions of the religious union of Florence.. A clear sign of discontent is the 1507 rebellion of duke Mikhal Glinski. Glinski occupied Minsk, but was subsequently vanquished and fled to Moscow. According to the local tradition the rebellion stemmed from religious and ethnic conflict. The anonymous author of the „Chronicle of Bychowiec”, and later also Maciej Stryjkowski, attributed to Glinski the intention to reestablish Russian monarchy, which illustrates the moods prevailing at the time.
In 1512 the Grand Duchy lost Smolensk, which passed into the hands of Moscow. The loss of Smolensk was a terrible blow to the Ruthenian community in the Grand Duchy. Smolensk had been its principal intellectual centre. It was here that the conceptions of the Ruthenian nature of the Grand Duchy were formulated. Smolensk had also been the centre of the newly emerging „White Russia”.
In mid sixteenth century the pattern of ethnic and religious tensions in Grand Duchy of Lithuania was undergoing wholescale modification due to the expansion of Protestantism.
Calvinism became the denomination of a large part of nobility. Around 1553 the most powerful nobleman and state official in Lithuania, chancellor and Vilnius voivode Mikolai Radziwill the Black, and his first cousin, Mikolai Radziwill the Red, the brother of Queen Barbara, converted to Calvinism. They were soon followed by numerous other noblemen, both originally of the Catholic and Orthodox persuasions, and by countless representatives of lower gentry.
In 1563 king Sigismundus Agustus passed a decree, whereby to all the offices „were to be elected and elevated not only those subject to the Church of Rome, but on an equal basis, all knights or nobles of Christian faith, both Lithuanian and Ruthenian”. In practice this decree pertained not only to the Catholics and Orthodox but also to Protestants.
Reformation territorially transcended the borders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, since it encompassed all the lands of the Polish-Lithuanian dual monarchy. Specifically, the ideas of Reformation were preached in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by activists from Poland. Protestantism undoubtedly speeded up the cultural polonization of the elites of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. On the other hand, only Protestants, and particularly the Arians Symon Budny and Vasil Tsiapinski, were concerned with preservation of the common Ruthenian language.
Ruthenian maintained its strong position in the secular sphere. The publisher of the new „Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania”, which was published in Ruthenian in 1588, deputy chancellor Lew Sapieha, even though he converted from Greek Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism, remained a staunch patriot of Ruthenian language. In the introduction to the „Statute” he proudly wrote: „And if shame falls on any nation for not knowing its laws, the more so should this concern us, who write laws not in some foreign but in our own language...”
It would be difficult to escape the impression that the words quoted above are an implicit polemic with an earlier comment voiced by Michalon the Lithuanian (Lithuanus) that „Ruthenian language is foreign to us, Lithuanians”.Statute” of 1588 was a powerful expression of a new consolidation of the multiethnic and multireligious Grand Duchy in its new borders after it had sustained substantial territorial losses to Poland in the wake of the Lublin Union of 1569.
for the terminology, the 1588 „Statute” resorts to old ethnic categories of Litva (Lithuania) and Rus’ (Russia). These two notions had in the sixteenth century a specific territorial significance, which was not coextensive with ethnic divisions. Essentially, Litva referred to the south-eastern parts of contemporary Lithuania and the northern provinces of today’s Belarus. The eastern parts of contemporary Belarus were known as Rus’ (Russia). The border between Litva and Rus’ ran east of Minsk.33.
THE FIRST BELARUSIAN
The term „White Russia” for the first time appeared in a local document as late as in 1585. This is the date of an adnotation in the inventory of a Franciscan monastery in Ashmiany concerning the appropriation (in 1407) by the voivode of Polatsk of the estate of Bortniki in „White Russia” (villa esse Borthniky in Russia Alba).
The first native who called himself „Belarusian” was Solomon Rysinski34. On December 2nd, 1586 he enrolled at the University of Altdorf as Salomon Pantherus Leucorussus. Two years later the same Rysinski, in a letter written to his German friend, Konrad Ritterhausen (later a well known poet, lawyer and town clerk of the Nürnberg town council) dated November 15th, 1588, called his fatherland Belarus (Leucorossia). What is remarkable here is that Rysinski used terminology reminiscent of contemporary Belarusian names: Leucorussus is Belarusian, i. e. „White-Rus” and not „White Ruthenian”, as it was customary to write at the time. It is not clear why Rysinski rendered „White” with Greek „Leuko-”. A. Biely associates this peculiar fact with Greek-Latin names used by Julius Pomponius Let and Roger Bacon. Julius Pomponius Let, in his lectures on Virgil, stated that the southern River Bug, or Hypanis, has its source in „the mud of White-Scythians” (in paludes Leucoscytharum), and one of the Scythian languages is Ruthenian. Bacon placed to the west of Great Russia the land of Leucovia, which comprised Estonia, Livonia, Semigalia and Courland, i.e. the territories of modern Estonia and Latvia. It seems that these cases are rather remote in time, but we cannot preclude the possiblity that these scholars exerted their influence on Rysinski. Enrolling at the University of Altdorf, Rysinski already had in his past an episode of studies in Leipzig, so he was an educated man. But the usage of a Greek term could also have been an attempt to display learning. Knowledge of Greek in the Renaissance period constituted proof of more profound learning than mere knowledge of Latin. What drew the two students together was their dedication to philological study of classical texts, and W. Korotyski (one of the first biographers of Rysinski, a Polish-Belarusian poet) evaluated Rysinski’s Latin as „appropriate, although occasionally somewhat stilted”35.
As for Rysinski’s proclamation of himself as a Belarusian, this decision may have been spurred by the works of Mczyski, Kromer and Stryjkowski/Guagnini. Since Rysinski thereby achieved something of an intellectual discovery, in order to specify what exactly he meant when he called his country Belarus and himself Belarusian we should take a closer look at him and the circumstances of his life.
Rysinski was born in what is now Belarus, though the exact place of his birth is not certain. As he wrote in his own epitaph, he was born „in richly endowed with forests and animals Russia which borders on frigid Muscovy”. On this basis it was assumed that his birthplace was the village of Rysin near Polatsk, and his father was a petty gentryman named Fedor. But Rysinski himself mentioned the village of Kobylniki as his birthplace when he enrolled at the Universities of Leipzig and Basel. This could be either Kobylniki (or Kobylnik, today named Naroch) in Ashmyany district or the feudal estate of Kobylniki in Vityebsk voivedeship. The difficulty of solving this puzzle is further bolstered by the fact that the first protectors of Rysinski, the Dorohostaiski family, have enormous estates both in the vicinity of Polatsk and Ashmyany. But given the fact that at approximately the same period Franciscan monks from Oshmyana called the region of Polatsk „White Russia”, the it is this last location which seems to be more likely as Rysinski’s birthplace. Rysinski’s status as gentryman is also dubious, although when he served the Radziwills he passed for a gentryman and used the coat of arms and seal of „Ostoja”.
Rysinski was a Protestant of the Calvinist persuasion. It is not clear where he received his education before he went abroad. He studied in Leipzig, Altdorf and Basel and travelled extensively in Western Europe. Having spent several years in Lesser Poland, Rysinski entered the service of Vilnius voivode and grand Lithuanian hetman (i.e. commander in chief of the Lithuanian armed forces) Krzysztof Radziwill the Thunderbolt as the preceptor of his younger son Krzysztof. Together with his pupil he resumed his travels in Europe. After the death of Krzysztof Radziwill the Thunderbolt Rysinski continued to serve the younger Krzysztof in the capacity of his advisor, especially in religious and cultural matters, and later as the tutor of his son Janusz. He actively participated in the works of the Calvinist Lithuanian Unity and published a reedited and enlarged Cracow hymn-book. He also represented Radziwill in his contacts with the Greek Orthodox fraternity of the Holy Spirit in Vilnius in connection with their complaints which Radziwill chose to support. His life’s work was a 1800 page collection of Polish proverbs published under the Latin title „Proverbiorum polonicorum [...] centurie decem et eco” (Lubcz 1618), which later had reprints under the Polish title „Przypowieci polskie” („Polish parables”). In his own words, he undertook this work encouraged by the wealth of „Sarmatian proverbs”, which is a living testimony of the wisdom and experience of generations, and by the handicapped circumstances of the Polish language, which, after all, is both exceptionally „efficacious” and „felicitous”, as is best exemplified by the linguistic abilities of the Poles. Rysinski collected the proverbs „not from books he had read, but from long cultivated custom and precise observation” apprehending them „by ear from people of diverse extraction, primarily from peasants”. The bulk of the proverbs thus found was collected in the vicinity of Liubcha on the Nioman River. W. Korotyski, who himself was born in Navahrudak district located on the Nioman, ascertained that most of the proverbs quoted in „Proverbiorum polonicum...” live on in the Belarusian language used on the banks of the Nioman, though many of the expressions found in the book are unknown in more remote parts of Belarus. Some of them „have been preserved in Belarusian expressions”. Thanks to the „Polish parables” Rysinski has earned the right to be called „the first Polish paremiologist”.
Rysinski identified himself as a „Belarusian” at a relatively early moment in life. It is, however, quite possible that his interest in folklore (and, more generally, in ethnicity) might have started also in that period. As he wrote, his stay in Leipzig provided him with the occasion to „see different nations and cities”, and collection of proverbs was his „long cultivated custom”. For Rysinski the term „Sarmatian” is equivalent with „Slavonic”. He was delighted to note that it is possible to communicate in „Sarmatian” language in the vast lands stretching from the Adriatic Sea all the way to the Caspian Sea. Thus, Rysinski considered himself a Slav (Sarmatian) and a Belarusian (Leucorussus). He considered Belarus (Leucorossia) his fatherland, though the state to which he owed his allegiance (patria) was the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
He did not, however, consider himself a Lithuanian in the ethnic sense, since he treated Lithuanians as a separate nation from the Belarusians. This is clearly visible in one of his letters to Ritterhausen, in which he comments on the usage of the patronymic forms: „Even now Muscovites, Belarusians and the majority of Lithuanians often continue to use them”36. He also traditionally called the place of his birth „Russia”. New notions, such as Belarusian and Belarus, were probably needed to characterize the new reality after the conclusion of the Lublin Union, since part of Russia was handed over under the provisions of this agreement to the Kingdom of Poland. His interest in folklore could have also led him to the conviction that Ruthenians in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Ruthenians in the Kingdom of Poland (Ukraine) were by then two different ethnic groups which already spoke distinct languages. As a Protestant, he may have felt the urge to introduce a new ethnic term in order to circumvent the ethnoreligious stereotypes, whereby a Lithuanian was bound to be a Roman Catholic and Ruthenian Greek Orthodox. As it had already been mentioned, in the Russian context only Protestants were capable at the time of modern thought on national identity and national language.
In spite of all these reservations, Rysinski’s thinking on ethnicity is strikingly modern. A similar type of Polish-Belarusian literati fascinated with folklore would emerge much later in the nineteenth century. In that age of national rebirth, until the emergence of Belarusian nationalists at the beginning of the eighties, Belarusian national thinking focused on the issues originally defined much earlier by Rysinski: the value of peasant culture and the language of common people. Most of the representatives of national rebirth movement were linguists, folklorists or literati: Poles, Lithuanians and Belarusians simultaneously. Hence, Solomon Rysinski is their perfect archetype.
AGAINST THE BREST UNION – GREEK ORTHODOX „BELARUSIANS”
In the case of Greek Orthodoxy the role of Counter-Reformation was performed by The Brest Union of 1596. Even if the intentions of the Orthodox hierarchs who concluded this agreement with the Church of Rome could be interpreted in their favour, assuming that they wanted to preserve as much as possible of the Orthodox tradition in the context of a Catholic onslaught, thereby integrating the Ruthenian nation, the consequences of this move led to quite different developments. Within the Ruthenian ethnic community of the Polish-Lithuanian state, already weakened by the conversion of its elite to Protestantism and Catholicism, a long-term and destructive scission ensued.
Uniates and adherents of Greek Orthodoxy produced a vast polemic literature which pertained mainly to religious matters. National issues were also raised in these disputes, as well as, in the disputes with Roman Catholics. Ruthenians of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, even though they were separated from each other by the border between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland, continued to represent one ethnos. Therefore, authors of polemical pamphlets and political declarations continued to address the whole Ruthenian nation.
At the time when the Brest Union was being concluded the term „White Russia” was already in circulation. Konstanty Ostrogski himself used this name in a letter to the participants of a Protestant council in Toru in August 1595, whom he urged to join the Greek Orthodoxy. The Kyiv voivode wrote: „not only myself and some of those living here in these our lands feel committed, but many others may be found in lands such as: Podolia, Kyiv, Volhynia, Podlachia, Lviv, Przemyl, in White Russia and Lithuania, our brothers, who in great trepidation (since at stake are not our bodies, possessions, health, but conscience and the salvation of our souls) feel committed not only to having our own congresses, but to consulting you gentlemen, to petitioning his Royal Highness and to strong protestations at sessions of regional councils”37. The letter was read to several hundred delegates who came from all parts of the country38. We may safely assume that when Ostrogski used the term „White Russia” he wrote about it as if it was something obvious and did not have to be explained to the delegates at the council. Since the text enumerates separately all the Ruthenian provinces of the Kingdom of Poland, and only then goes on to „White Russia and Lithuania, our brothers”, it may be assumed that White Russia and Lithuania are separate from the provinces of the Kingdom of Poland lands belonging to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Konstanty Ostrogski had used the name of „White Russia” also earlier in 1594 in a letter to Krzysztof Radziwill the Thunderbolt. Describing the military operations of the Cossack leader Semen Nalivayko he expressed his concern lest the Cossacks invaded „White Russia”39.
It is extremely interesting that the name „Belarusians” was used exclusively by adherents of Greek Orthodoxy. Among the Uniates only metropolitan archbishop Hipatius Potsiei mentioned in passing „White Russia” in a brief remark about Vyaz’ma near Smolensk. Other Uniate polemists used the terms „Russia” and „Ruthenians”. Perhaps, as representatives of a new religious trend, which nevertheless tried to appeal to the ancient tradition of ecclesiastical unity, they avoided innovations, in order not to be accused of forfeiting starina (ancient traditions). Not untill the end of the 17th century did the first Uniate „White Russian” (Ruthenus Albus) appear, Kyiv metropolitan Cyprian Zochowski40.
Those who maintained their allegiance to Greek Orthodoxy even more strongly perceived themselves as the guardians of starina, but they felt free to accept the new nomenclature. In the case of the name „Little Russia” it may be hypothesized that the very term implied an overall Orthodox community since it intimated the existence of a „Great Russia”. Also the name „White Russia”, apart from its purely geographical significance imposed on this term by the Poles, gained religious overtones.Stryjkowski’s „Belarusians” appear in this religious context: „But whither from Russians and other Russian nations got their names, they all use Slavonic language and they are all Christians, united in rites (for the most part Greek), as Muscovites, Lithuanian Belarusians, Bolgarians, Bosnovians, Serbs, etc.”41
For the first time (as it had already been mentioned above) the name „White Russia” appeared in Old Church Slavonic literature in an Orthodox polemical pamphlet „Slovo na latyniu” („Word on Latin”) dedicated to the Union of Florence of 1439, and written, according to most estimates, in 1461/1462 in Moscow by the Serb Pachomius Logophetus. The author of this text put in the mouth of the Bizantine emperor the following words: „Eastern lands are Russian more orthodox and higher Christianity of White Russia...” The sense of the sentence is far from clear and later copyists, also in Poland and Lithuania, simplified it in the following manner: „just as eastern lands are more orthodox, higher Christianity White Russia”42. It is not unlikely, that after the conclusion of the Union of Brest in 1596 „Slovo...” suggested the link between „White Russia” and Greek Orthodoxy.
The term „White Russia” gradually assumed the meaning of today’s Belarus. New reprints of Stryjkowski’s work and Polish translation of Guagnini’s „European Sarmatia” published in 1611 (to which the translator, Marcin Paszkowski, added the following fragment: „And there are three [Russias]: one is white, the second black, the third red [...] White is near Kyiv, Mazyr, Mstislawl, Vitsiebsk, Orsha, Polatsk, Smolensk and the Sieversk province , which have long belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania”)43 as well as the publication of Kromer’s „Poland” in the same year, translated by Marcin Baewski (just like Paszkowski, an Orthodox gentryman from Galicia) must have had their effect.
Szymon Starowolski wrote in 1632: „Russia is divided into White Russia, which is part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and Red Russia, which calls itself Roxolania and belongs to Poland”.
According to Starowolski, White Russia comprises the voivodeships of Polatsk, Mstislawl, Vitsiebsk, Smolensk, Navahrudak and Minsk, i.e. almost the whole territory of today’s Belarus. He did not include in White Russia Brest voivodeship which he considered as Polessia, and the vicinity of Hrodna and the lands to the north of Nioman, which he considered a part of Lithuania44.
At the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries someone in Belarus produced a manuscript copy of Stryjkowski’s work in Ruthenian, thereby introducing for the first time the term „Belarusians” (beloruscy) into literature written in that language45. Furthermore, given the fact that the form beloruscy had never before appeared in Ruthenian writings, we may risk the hypothesis that it is just a translation of Stryjkowski’s Bieorussacy.
Another testimony, which proved that the term „Belarusians” had already won widespread recognition, was given by Moscow patriarch Filaret, who after his return from captivity in Poland said at the Moscow council in 1620:
„When I was in the Polish and Lithuanian state, I witnessed much strife among Orthodox Christians, who call themselves there Belarusians”46.
Filaret used the Ruthenian word beloruscy. As he emphasized, this was how Orthodox Christians called themselves there, i.e. in the Polish-Lithuanian state, and not in Muscovy. This statement may put at rest any attempt to argue that it was Moscow which imposed this term on modern Belarusians.Also the term „White Russia” in the sense of modern Belarus was introduced in Moscow by foreigners. In 1621 a German agent of czar Mikhail Romanov, working under the assumed name of Yuri Rodionov in Riga, mentioned in his report rumours about a planned military expedition of Moscow troops on „Livonia, White Russia and Lithuania”47.
Hence, it was only after 1620 that Muscovites started using the term belorusec in reference to visitors from the eastern regions of Polish and Lithuanian state and the name „White Russia” for this whole territory, regardless whether it was under Lithuanian or Polish jurisdiction. Patriarch Filaret must have been particularly instrumental in spreading this usage since he had the authority to impose it (the patriarch was bestowed the title of gosudar’, otherwise reserved only for czars). This nomenclature was clearly at odds with the names Belarusians and Ukrainians had used to talk about themselves. In what is now the Ukraine the local population used the term „Little Russia” for the Russian provinces of the Polish-Lithuanian state, and with increasing frequency the name „Ukraine” for their own lands, particularly those located on the Dnieper River. Ukrainian scholar Pamva Berynda was the first who called Muskovites „Great Russians” (Vielikorossy) in his Triodia postnaia.
Local self image found excellent expression in the 1638 proclamation of Jack Ostranica, leader of a Cossack uprising. Ostranica announced that he decided to take action at the head of Zaporizhyan troops „in Littlerussian Ukraine to raise with God’s help you, our Orthodox nation, from the Polish yoke”. He addressed „our brothers of noble birth and all common people of Ruthenian blood, who live on both sides of the Dnieper”. He was ready to accept the services of all people who „wish well for their fallen fatherland of Littlerussia” and he mentioned letters which had been earlier dispatched „to the Littlerussian nation”48. Did Ostranica address only the Ukrainians or, when he wrote about „ people of Ruthenian blood, who live on both sides of the Dnieper”, did he also have in mind Belarusians? Krzysztof Zbaraski provided circumstantial evidence when he wrote in a letter to the king in 1623 that Cossacks had won „the open or hidden favour of almost whole Kyivan Ukraine and White Russia”49.
THEY STRUGGLED FOR BELARUS
Belarus lacked a strong centre of opposition to projects of religious union, unlike the Ukraine where opposition could form around the court of Konstanty Ostrogski and, at a later period, the Cossack stronghold of Sich in Zaporizhya. However, given the apostasy of the nobility, its role was partly taken by the burgers. Although Polatsk returned under Polish-Lithuanian rule in 1579 and Smolensk followed suite in 1618, the two towns did not regain their former status. Mahiliow on the Dnieper became the largest city in White Russia. The Orthodox bishop residing there was called (at that time still inofficially) „Belarusian bishop”. Mahiliow Orthodoxy was „reformed”, i.e. the secular element played leading role in the form of Orthodox fraternities which grouped mainly rich merchants. In the sixteenth century Orthodox reformation went so far in Mahiliow that priests were treated almost like hired labourers. The keys to churches were kept in the fraternities and they were handed out to the priests only for the duration of the services. No wonder Mahiliovians treated the Union of Brest, with its insistence on the strengthening the role of clergy along the lines suggested by the Catholic Council of Trent, as Counter-Reformation and infringement of their inviolable rights.
In 1654 Zaporizhian Army entered into a union with Moscow. Zaporizhian hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky himself at the Pereieslav Council called his country, which was giving itself under the czar’s protection, „Little Russia”. After the Council czar Alieksiei Mikhailovich changed his earlier title of gosudar’ and samoderzhets vseia Rusi [the lord and authocrat of all Russia] into a new one: Vseia Velikaia i Malaja Rossii [All Great and Little Russia]. The second title referred to the entire Ruthenian lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth .This meant war.
The defenders of Belarusian Mahiliow were induced to capitulate by a local nobleman Konstantin Poklonski, who went into the Moscow side during the preparations for Muscovity’s invasion. Poklonski accepted the title of „Belarusian colonel” and began the organization of Belarusian regiment50. Poklonski’s ambitions were undoubtedly far-reaching, both for the territory and for the power. He attempted to create a center of his own political and military power, but he had to dodge between Muscovites and Zaporizhian Cossacks, as Khmelnytsky also wanted to execute his power over large, if not the entire, Russia within the borders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Poklonski demanded from Alieksiei that the leader of the Zaporizhian Cossacks at White Russia, nakaznyi hetman Ivan Zolotarenko, did not take over the power on Mahiliovians, „as these are not Ukrainian, but your majesty’s subjects”51. Soon, however, Poklonski could not stand the Moscow rule and turned into Polish-Lithuanian side. In numerous letters sent to Mahiliovians, Cossacks, Moscow dignitaries and Ukrainian leaders he thus explained the reasons for his behaviour: „as I understood, this war was meant to liberate the enslaved Russia, that is accept consolation, as from a Christian ruler.” However, he wrote, what took place was „the pillage of God’s homes, as from Tartars” and he enumerated the misfortunes which fell upon the population. Poklonski decided to return to the bosom of „beloved and golden Fatherland”52. Great Lithuanian hetman Janusz Radziwill endowed him, already as Roman Catholic Vaclaw Konstantin Poklonski, with the authority of a „colonel over all Belarusian lands” and made him a commander of the troops at Biarezina and Druts’. Poklonski was, however, followed by few compatriots and was soon defeated by the Moscow forces. An Ukraininan Zolotarenko became a master of the situation at the Dniepr.
In 1655 the Kingdom of Poland and the Duchy of Lithuania was invaded by the Swedes, which meant an inevitable conflict with Moscow which continued the conquest of the Polish lands.
After the conquest of Vilnius in 1655 Alieksiei Mikhailovich edicted an order in which he called himself na Velikom Kniazhstve Litovskom i nad Beloiu Rossieeiu
i na Volyni i Podolii gosudar’ [the lord of the Great Duchy of Lithuania and White Russia and Volhynia and Podolia]. It is not clear what the czar understood in this case by „White Russia”. Probably this term referred to, as frequently before, both eastern Belarus and eastern Ukraine. Still, the same year the titles were clarified. Patriarch Nikon adopted the official title of „Moscow patriarch of Great, Little and White Russia”. Since then this division has become practically canonical.
A year later Khmelnytsky, who was considering at the time an alliance with Sweden, nominated a new Ukrainian commander of lands beyond the Dnieper, „Belarusian colonel” Ivan Nechay, who did everything he could to undermine Muscovite orders. Furthermore, a group of irregulars under the command of another self-styled „Belarusian colonel”, a local adventurer named Denis Murashka, initiated independent guerrilla activity in the districts of Minsk and Navahrudak. In 1557 Khmelnytsky concluded a treaty with Carolus Gustavus, the king of Sweden, and George Rakoczy, the duke of Transylvania. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was to handed over to Rakoczy but Khmelnytsky intended to incorporate into the Ukraine Belarusian lands stretching beyond the Dnieper all the way to Smolensk in the north. Moscow, which had earlier signed a truce with the Polish-Lithuanian authorities in exchange for the election of czar Alieksiei to the Polish throne, sent its troops against the „Belarusian colonel” Nechay. However, the alliances were soon reversed. Polish bishops and papal nuncio refused to recognize the election of Alieksiei which meant further war. New Cossack hetman, Ivan Vyhovsky concluded a union with the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Nechay and Murashka went over to the Polish-Lithuanian side53.
The notions „Belarus” and „Belarusian” were used at the time not only by politicians and military commanders. They regularly appear in the works of the greatest Belarusian poet of the time, Simiaon Polatski, who was a graduate of the Kyiv-Mohylanian Academy and an Orthodox monk.
In 1656 Simiaon Polacki wrote, probably in collaboration with igumen (abbot of an Orthodox rite monastery) of Our Lord’s Revelation Ihnat Iewlevich and teacher at Orthodox fraternity school Filafiei Utchycki, „verses for the arrival at the native city of Polatsk” of czar Alieksiei Mikhailovich, „the sole ruler of all Great, Little and White Russia”. Moscow ruler is called „the most luminous czar from the east, shining on all Rossians”. The Belarusian monks appeal: „Rejoice Russia, for the orthodox czar has arrived”. They thank Christ for „looking from the heights at the truobled common folk and calling to Russia the czar from the East”. Alieksiei Mikhailovich is also hailed „the Belarussian adornment of fate, offered to us, the suppressed, from the highest throne. „The promised native city of Polatsk bows” before the czar, and so does „all of Russia, White and Little”. The authors go on to praise the czar: „You have saved us from enemy’s yoke, placed Belarussia in the light”54.
After several years of Muscovite rule and havoc wreaked by constant wars the tone of poems written by Simiaon Polatski was quite different: „April 27. The painting of the holiest Divine mother was taken from Polatsk to Moscow”. The poet was dismayed by the fact that the icon was again removed from Polatsk in 1663 and he pleaded to St. Euphrosinia of Polatsk for her intercession to God: „Oh Mother, stoop on our behalf to [the feet of]/ God Our Lord on behalf of our attendants/ for our holy icon to be returned to us and Belarussian land be illuminated”55.
The usage of names „Russia”, „Russian” and „Russia the White”, „Belarussia”, „Belarussian” by the Orthodox elite of Polatsk (and Simiaon Polatski in particular) does not leave any doubts about the meanings given to these terms. „Russia” stands for „Russian lands”: „Great, Little and White Russia”. However, „Russia” and „Russian people” are located within the borders of the Lithuanian-Polish state. One is left with the impression that the czar is for Russia and Russians an external factor. The „Russia” of the citizens of Polatsk is „Belarussia”, in the midst of which Polatsk itself is located. In Simiaon Polatski’s lamentations one may also discern the beginnings of the cult of St. Euphrosinia as the patron saint not only of Polatsk but of the whole „Belarussia”.
Adoption by the Moscow czars of the official title of „gosudar [lord] of Great, Little and White Russia” may be treated (and usually is treated) as the expression of Moscow’s expansionistic sentiments. However, also an Ukrainian idea of „Little Russia”, which included both Ukraine and Belarus, may be treated in the some way. In fact, there was no idea of the „triune” Russia before the year 1655. It is obvious, that Moscow authorities hesitated over how to call Russian provinces of the Polish-Lithuanian state. One possibility was to borrow from the Poles the term „White Russia”, another was to make use of the Ukrainian (originally Bizantine) name „Little Russia”. For a while the two names were used interchangeably. The natives, however, did not show any signs of such uncertainty. Ukrainians never called their country „White Russia”, it was always „Little Russia” or „Ukraine”. Belarusians never accepted the term „Little Russia” and instead opted for „White Russia” – „Belarussia”. Muscovites were pressed to recognize both names. The replacement in the official title of the czars of „all Russia” with a tripartite term meant that the czars had to acknowledge the fact that in European Sarmatia emerged three „Russian” nations.
Translated by Wojciech Kubiński
CONCLUSIONS
To sum up, we may state that the names of White Russia and White Russians were first used in reference to the territory and population of today’s Belarus by Polish scholars, who borrowed these terms from West European (initially Hungarian) literary tradition. We should not, however, talk about imposition of these terms on the natives of Belarus, but rather of borrowing them. At first these names referred to the eastern, Russian provinces of the Polish-Lithuanian state and its habitants, but after the political Union of Lublin the territory referred in this manner was soon limited to today’s Belarus.
The first native who called himself a Belarusian was the writer and folklorist Solomon Rysinski, who did that in 1586. It is most likely that he interpreted this notion in the ethnic sense. Rysinski was a Protestant, but after the religious Union of Brest in 1596 Orthodox inhabitants of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania started to use the name of Belarusians. Hence, the name received both ethnic and religious overtones and continued to combine these two meanings for quite some time. For the Orthodox population of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania adoption of the terms „White Russia” and „White Russians” was on the one hand a way of marking separate identity from Muscovites („Great Russians”) and Ukrainians („Little Russians”), and on the other hand was an ideological act of divorcing oneself from the state traditions of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, increasingly Lithuanian and Roman Catholic. In a sense, Belarus – „White Russia” was becoming one of the successors of the Old „Kyivan” Russia.
The process of growing maturity of the new nation was suddenly arrested by the outbreak of war with Muscovy (1654-1667). Belarus lost half of its inhabitants. Cities were destroyed, the fortunes of burgers, the main adherents of Belarusian national ideas, were dissipated. The nobility converted to Roman Catholicism in droves and adopted both the Lithuanian national myth and the Polish culture. Belarus has become for a whole century a purely geographical notion.
РЭЗЮМЭ
Аўтар – Алег Латышонак – малады беларускі гісторык зь Беластока, у сваім артыкуле канцэнтруецца на аналізе ўзьнікненьня ды распаўсюджаньня назову „Белая Русь“. Першымі аднесьлі яго да тэрыторыі сучаснай Беларусі вучоныя з Польшчы, пераймаючы назоў „Белая Русь“ зь літаратурнае традыцыі Захаду. Асабліва пасьля Люблінскай Уніі, калі канчаткова ўсталяваліся межы Вялікага Княства Літоўскага. А першым чалавекам, які назваў сябе Беларусам быў выдатны пісьменьнік і фальклярыст Салямон Рысінскі, што мела мейсца ў 1586 годзе. Даволі хуткага пашырэньня набыў гэты назоў у першую чаргу сярод праваслаўнага насельніцтва – дзеля адрозьненьня ад Вялікарусаў-Маскавітаў ды Маларусаў-Украінцаў, а таксама дзеля ідэялягічнай сэпарацыі ад усё болей каталіцка-жмудзінскай дзяржаўнае традыцыі Вялікага Княства Літоўскага.
Маскоўская агрэсія ў палове семнаццатага стагодзьдзя закончылася для Беларусі трагічна: зьнішчана эканоміку і больш паловы насельніцтва, прапала мяшчанства як этнічная аснова нацыястваральнага працэсу, баярства масава пайшло ў шляхту, пераймаючы жмудзка-літоўскі нацыянальны міт ды польскую культурнасьць. Белая Русь дэградавала ў гэаграфічны панятак.
Oleg Łatyszonek – Ph. D. in history. Teaches at the Chair of Belarusian Culture at the University of Biaystok. His research interests concern the earliest elements of Belarusian identity and its evolution into full-fledged national consciousness. Author of books: „Biaoruskie formacje wojskowe 1917-1923” [Belarusian military units 1917-1923], Biaystok, 1995 and (with E. Mironowicz) „Historia Biaorusi od poowy XVIII do koca XX wieku” [The History of Belarus from the half 18th till the end of 20th century], Biaystok, 2002. E-mail:
latyszon@poczta.onet.pl
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