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“Us” or “Them”? Belarusians and Official Russia, 1863–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Theodore Weeks
Theodore Weeks*
Affiliation:
Southern Illinois University, USA, tadeusz@siu.edu
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Extract

In the final decades of the nineteenth century, nationality as an “ordering principle” became for the first time a significant factor for Russian imperial policy. Among the most thorny issues facing the imperial bureaucracy was the delimitation of the boundaries of the “Russian nation.” As is well known, St Petersburg never accepted either Ukrainians (at the time more often referred to as “Little Russians”) or Belarusians as separate nations. On the other hand, official Russia also did not deny the linguistic and cultural difference of these two groups entirely. Categories used in the 1897 census reflect this: under the category “mother tongue” (not surprisingly, no specific category of “nation” or “ethnicity” was included), those surveyed could respond “Great Russian,” “Little Russian,” or “Belarusian.” All three of these categories were then, however, subsumed into the larger category “Russian.” In a similar way, Russian officials never denied that Belarusians were in certain respects different from their brethren in central Russia. They did, however, indignantly reject the idea that these differences were so great as to exclude Belarusians from membership in the Russian nation.

Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , June 2003 , pp. 211 - 224
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. For a recent examination of the “Ukrainian question” in late imperial Russia, see A. I. Miller, ‘Ukrainskii vopros’ v politike vlastei i russkom obshchestvennom mnenii (vtoraia polovina XIX v.) (St Petersburg: Aleteiia, 2000).Google Scholar

2. For all its flaws, the 1897 census remains a treasure trove of information for historians and historical sociologists. The Central Statistical Committee of the Ministry of the Interior published the results of the census in 89 volumes (alphabetically by province) plus a massive two-volume “Obshchii svod.” Pervaia vseobshchaia perepis' naseleniia Rossiiskoi Imperii, 1897 g. Izdanie Central'nogo statisticheskogo komiteta MVD, ed. N. A. Troinitskii (St Petersburg: MVD, 1899–1904). The best single overview, or rather Überblick of the census from a nationality perspective is H. Bauer, A. Kappeler, and B. Roth, eds, Die Nationalitäten des Russischen Reiches in der Volkszählung von 1897 (Stuttgart: Fritz Steiner Verlag, 1991).Google Scholar

3. The study of “russification” (a problematic term at best) and nationality policy has become something of a growth industry in the early twenty-first century. For some earlier views, see, inter alia, Michael Haltzel, C. Leonard Lundin, Andrejs Plakans, Toivo U. Raun, and Edward C. Thaden, Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland, 1855–1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981); Geoffrey Hosking, Russia: People and Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997); Andreas Kappeler, The Russian Empire: A Multiethnic History, trans. Alfred Clayton (New York: Longman, 2001); Yuri Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994); and Theodore R. Weeks, Nation and State in Late Imperial Russia: Nationalism and Russification on the Western Frontier, 1863–1914 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996).Google Scholar

4. The exact figure was 5,886,000 with only Great Russians, Ukrainians, and Poles more numerous in the Empire. See table in Theodore R. Weeks, “National Minorities in the Russian Empire, 1897–1917,” in Anna Geifman, ed., Russia under the Last Tsar: Opposition and Subversion 1894–1917 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999), p. 118.Google Scholar

5. Here and throughout this paper, I will use the Russian names for the provinces in question. This reflects contemporary usage and the fact that this is an essay concentrating primarily on Russian attitudes. Obviously, I intend no implication as to the “Russianness” of these provinces. The exact numbers of Belarusians and percentage of total population by province were: Vil'na 891,903 (56.05%); Vitebsk 788,599 (52.95%); Grodno 705.045 (43.97%); Minsk 1,633,091 (76.04%); and Mogilev 1,389,782 (82.39%). Figures from: N. A. Troinitskii, ed., Obshchii svod po imperii rezul'tatov razrabotki dannykh pervoi vseobschoi perepisi naseleniia Rossiiskoi Imperii (St Petersburg: MVD, 1905), Vol. 2, pp. 20–21.Google Scholar

6. The exact official figures for these six cities in 1910 were as follows. Vil'na: 22.9% “Russian,” 28.6% Poles, 39.8% Jews; Mogilev: 38.6% “Russians,” 5.0% Poles, 43.2% Jews; Gomel': 47.5% “Russians,” 1.8% Poles, 50.5% Jews; Minsk: 43.0% “Russians,” 11.4% Poles, 43.3% Jews; and Bialystok: 29.2% “Russians,” 2.9% Poles (almost certainly incorrect—the Polish population of the city was considerable), 64.9% Jews. Source: Goroda Rossii v 1910 g. (St Petersburg: Tsentral'nyi statisticheskii komitet MVD, 1914), pp. 90–93, 554–557.Google Scholar

7. Ezhegodnik Rossii 1904 g. (god pervyi) (St Petersburg: Tsentral'nyi statisticheskii komitet MVD, 1905), pp. 85–86.Google Scholar

8. Figures calculated from material in Goroda Rossii v 1910 g., table 4, pp. 90–92. The exact populations according to this source are: Vil'na 181,442; Vitebsk 101,005; Mogilev 49,583; Minsk 99,762; Grodna 49,707; and Bialystok 80,303.Google Scholar

9. Bauer et al., Nationalitäten des Russischen Reiches, vol. B, table 3, p. 74.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., table 12, p. 93.Google Scholar

11. Ibid., table 22, p. 153.Google Scholar

12. Certainly, more research needs to be done on the development of national identity as a mass movement among Belarusians, but it seems in any case certain that Belarusian national consciousness was not widely developed before the twentieth century. Even a very pro-Belarusian contemporary complained of the “zabitost' i apatiia” that prevailed among Belarusians (Anton Novina, “Belorussy,” in A. I. Kastelianskii, ed., Formy natsional'nogo dvizheniia v sovremennykh gosudarstvakh. Avstro-Vengriia. Rossiia. Germaniia (St Petersburg: Obshchestvennaia pol'za, 1910), p. 389. A very interesting study carried out in 1993–1994 on conceptions of natsya among Belarusians of the Grodno region is Anna Engelking, “The natsyas of the Grodno Region of Belarus: A Field Study,” Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1999, pp. 175–206. On the beginnings of Belarusian national organization, see Aliaksandr Ts'vikevich, “Zapadnorussizm”: Narysy z historyi hramadzkai mys'li na Belarusi u XIX i pachatku XX v. (Minsk: Navyka i tekhnika, 1993 [reprint of c. 1928]); Rudolf A. Mark, “Die nationale Bewegung der Weißrussen im 19. Und zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, Vol. 42, No. 4, 1994, pp. 493–509; Rainer Lindner, Historiker und Herrschaft: Nationsbildung und Geschichtspolitik in Weiβruβland im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1999), esp. pp. 27–146; A. M. Suvalau, “Ab uplyve idealohii na vyznachenne etnichnai prynalezhnastsi belarusau u dasledavanniakh XIX—pachatku XX st.,” Vestsi akademii navuk Belarusi. Seryia humanitarnykh navuk, No. 4, 1996, pp. 36–44; and Steven L. Guthier, “The Belorussians: National Identification and Assimilation, 1897–1970,” Soviet Studies, Vol. 29, No. 1, 1977, pp. 37–61.Google Scholar

13. “O Zapadnoi Rossii,” Russian State Historical Archive, St Petersburg (RGIA), f. 869, op. 1, 1865, d. 563, 1. 14.Google Scholar

14. For examples—a few among many—of otherwise full reports that fail to mention Belarusians in any capacity (though seldom neglect Poles, Catholics, and Jews), see: RGIA, f. 1263, op. 4, 1871, d. 46 (Governor General of Vil'na, 1868–1870); RGIA, f. 1263, op. 1, 1874, d. 3723 (Governor General of Vil'na, 1871–1873); RGIA, f. 1284, op. 223, 1886, d. 186 (Governor General of Vil'na, 1884–6); RGIA, f. 1281, op. 7, 1870, d. 56 (Grodno province, 1869); ibid., 1866, d. 79 (Minsk province, 1865); RGIA, f. 1267, op. 1, 1864, d. 8 (Mogilev province, 1863); RGIA, f. 1281, op. 7, 1867, d. 74 (Vitebsk province, 1866); and RGIA, f. 1284, op. 7, 1865, d. 34 (Vil'na province, 1864).Google Scholar

15. RGIA, f. 821, op. 150, 1913, d. 174, 1. 14. This report is not dated but internal evidence and attached documents allow us to surmise that it was written in spring 1914.Google Scholar

16. Ibid., 11. 19–21.Google Scholar

17. Ibid., 1. 29v.Google Scholar

18. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 194, 1912 g., d. 38.Google Scholar

19. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 190, 1899, d. 84A, 11. 88v-89.Google Scholar

20. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 194, 1903, d. 98.Google Scholar

21. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 190, USH otd., d. 84b, 1. 12v. Sviatopol'k-Mirskii also calls on officials to fight the widespread perception of the equivalence of “Catholic” and “Pole.”Google Scholar

22. RGIA, f. 1276, op. 1, 1905, d. 106,1. 419v.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 194, 1911 g., d. 72,1. 7v.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24. Ibid., 11. 19v, 23v.Google Scholar

25. On the Uniate Church and the Russian authorities, in particular regarding the 1839 “reuniting” (the official term for the mass conversion) of Uniates with the Orthodox Church, see Theodore R. Weeks, “Between Rome and Tsargrad: The Uniate Church in Imperial Russia,” in Robert P. Geraci and Michael Khodarkovsky, eds, Of Religion and Empire: Missions, Conversion, and Tolerance in Tsarist Russia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), pp. 70–91.Google Scholar

26. Bauer et al., Die Nationalitäten, Vol. B, table 6, p. 77. To be more exact, out of a total Belarusian-speaking population of 5,885,547, there were 4,787,391 Orthodox, 38,458 Old Believers, 1,054,451 Roman Catholics, 1,345 Jews, and 2,738 Muslims (along with several hundred Lutherans, Armenian Catholics, and others).Google Scholar

27. RGIA, Chital'nyi zal, op. 1, d. 53A, Minsk 1901, pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

28. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 194, 1909, d. 105, 1. 10.Google Scholar

29. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 194, 1908, d. 56, 1. 2. This statement was made in the 1907 report.Google Scholar

30. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 190, d. 84B, 11. 12v-13.Google Scholar

31. A. V. Zhirkevich, Iz-za russkogo iazyka. (Biografiia kanonika Senchikovskogo, v dvukh chastiakh, s alfavitnym ukazatelem i tremia fotografiiami). Chast' I-ia. Na rodine Belorussii. Minskaia starina, vypusk 3 (Vil'na: Russkii pochin, 1911), p. 11.Google Scholar

32. Ibid. Google Scholar

33. Ibid., pp. 12–14. Quotation from p. 14, original emphasis and punctuation.Google Scholar

34. Ibid., p. 29.Google Scholar

35. For more detail, see Theodore R. Weeks, “Religion and Russification: Russian Language in the Catholic Churches of the ‘Northwest Provinces’ after 1863,” Kritika, Vol. 2, No. 1, 2001, pp. 87–110. Two contemporary Russian-national accounts are A. P. Vladimirov, Istoriia raspoliacheniia Zapadno-russkogo kostela (Moscow: Universitetskaia tip., 1896); and D. N. Chikhachev, K voprosu o raspoliachenii kostela v proshlom i nastoiashchem. Sbornik statei (St Petersburg: A. S. Suvorin, 1913).Google Scholar

36. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 223, 1895, d. 145, 1. 9.Google Scholar

37. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 194, 1906, d. 45, 1. 2v.Google Scholar

38. RGIA, Chital'nyi zal, op. 1, d. 22, Grodno 1907, 1. 94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 194, 1911, d. 34, 11. 12v-13.Google Scholar

40. Ibid., p. 14. The 1910 report from Grodno province echoes this perception, stating that the Catholic clergy encouraged parents to ask that their children be taught catechism in Polish. RGIA, Chital'nyi zal, op. 1, d. 22, Grodno 1910,1. 102.Google Scholar

41. RGIA, Chital'nyi zal, op. 1, d. 53A, Minsk 1913, p. 1.Google Scholar

42. Ibid., pp. 4–6.Google Scholar

43. RGIA, Chital'nyi zal, op. 1, d. 53A, Minsk 1895, p. 10.Google Scholar

44. RGIA, Chital'nyi zal, op. 1, d. 54, Mogilev 1900, p. 5.Google Scholar

45. RGIA, Chital'nyi zal, op. 1, d. 22, Grodno 1901, 11. 74–76.Google Scholar

46. RGIA, Chital'nyi zal, op. 1, d. 54, Mogilev 1907, p. 10.Google Scholar

47. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 194, 1908, d. 66, 1. 6.Google Scholar

48. Ibid., 11. 9v–10.Google Scholar

49. RGIA, f. 1284, op. 194, 1910, d. 69, 1. 3v–4v.Google Scholar

50. RGIA, f. 821, op. 128, 1912, d. 697, 11. 11–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

51. RGIA, f. 821, op. 150, 1912, d. 167, 1. 8v.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52. Ibid., 1. 22.Google Scholar