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Problems in Terminology and in the Periodization of Belorussian History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Jan Zaprudnik
Jan Zaprudnik*
Affiliation:
Queens College; Editor of Facts on Byelorussia
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Extract

In view of the vast scope of my topic I have to restrict myself to the most basic aspects and most recent developments in the subject area. Actually, as far as Soviet Belorussia is concerned there has not been much going on in this area. With sufficient cadres of historians to have produced the 12-volume “Belorussian Soviet Encyclopedia” (Minsk, 1969–1975) and a 5-volume “History of the Belorussian SSR” (the first three volumes appeared in 1972–1973), the topic of terminology and periodization has nonetheless been relegated to silence along with the problem of the general state of historiography. For example among the 4,500 entries in the “Bibliography of Belorussia's History: The Period of Feudalism and Capitalism” (Minsk, 1969, 437 p.) one discovers only nine articles on historiography written in the post-Stalin period, the most recent of which is dated 1965. Of the two articles reviewing the state of historical scholarship on the occasion of the fortieth and fiftieth anniversaries of Soviet Belorussia neither discusses or mentions discussions on the subject of historiography, let alone terminology and periodization. This strange abhorrence by Belorussian Soviet historians of their own metier still persists, as we learn from two reviewers of the third volume of the new 5-volume “History of the Belorussian SSR”: “We must note that in this volume as well as in the previous ones the historiographic part is essentially lacking.” Nevertheless, some individual historians and authors demonstrate their keen awareness of the importance of the matter. This was perhaps most perceptibly expressed in 1968 by a Grodno Professor Jazep Jucho (Yazep Yukho). Explaining the origin and history of one of the basic terms of Belorussia's past and present, the name Bielaruś, Jucho observes: “confusion in terminology leads to a distortion of the whole historical process of the development of the Belorussian people.”

Type
Problems of Periodization and Terminology in the Histories of Belorussians and Ukrainians
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , Fall 1975 , pp. 25 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © Association for the Study of Nationalities, 1975 

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Footnotes

∗

In the cities, towns, and townships in Belaya Ruś now and henceforth Cherkassk regiments must not be present so as to avoid quarrels among military men, both Great Russians and Belorussians.

References

Notes

1. Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, Biblijahrafija pa historyji Biełarusi. Feadalizm i kapitalizm (Minsk, 1969), pp. 9–11, 31.Google Scholar

2. Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, Navuka ŭ Biełaruskaj SSR za 40 hod (Minsk, 1958), pp. 64–89: “Histaryčnaja navuka za sorak hod”; Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, Navuka BSSR za 50 hod (Minsk, 1968), pp. 52–78: “Biełaruskaja histaryčnaja navuka.”Google Scholar

3. Kommunist Belorussii, No. 4 (1974), p. 94.Google Scholar

4. Transliteration of Belorussian names and titles, when quoted from Belorussian-language sources, is in Belorussian Latin characters.Google Scholar

5. J. Jucho, “Pra nazvu ‘Biełaruś‘,” Połymia, No. 1 (1968) p. 181.Google Scholar

6. Nikolay Ulashchik's excellent monograph, Ocherki po arkheografii i istochnikovedeniyu istorii Belorussii feodalnogo perioda, Moscow, “Nauka” Publishers, 1973, 302 p., is an indispensable tool for anyone dealing with the primary sources of the history of pre-1917 Belorussia.Google Scholar

7. N. N. Ulashchik, “Issledovaniya po istorii Belorussii sotrudnikov Vilenskoy arkheograficheskoy komissii,” in: G. M. Ameshina, comp., Problemy istorii obshchestvennogo dvizheniya i istoriografii (Moscow: “Nauka” Publishers, 1971), p. 263. For more on the subject, see, Jan Zaprudnik, “The Name of Byelorussia,” East Europe, No. 3 (July 1975), pp. 12–15.Google Scholar

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9. Biełaruskaja Savieckaja Encykłapedyja (in further refer-BiełSE), v. 2, p. 269.Google Scholar

10. N. Ulashchik, “Issledovaniya …,” p. 265.Google Scholar

11. J. Jucho, op. cit., p. 180.Google Scholar

12. Slavic Review, v. 31, No. 4 (December 1972), pp. 853–862.Google Scholar

13. Ibid., p. 854.Google Scholar

14. Entsiklopedicheski Slovar (St. Petersburg: Brockhaus-Yefron, 1891), v. 5, pp. 232–233.Google Scholar

15. BiełSE, v. 6, p. 398.Google Scholar

16. K. I. Yablonskis, ed., Statut Velikogo Knyazhestva Litovskogo (Minsk: Published by the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, 1960), p. 3.Google Scholar

17. J. Jucho, “Z historyji prava,” Biełaruś, No. 5 (1966), p. 28; see also, BiełSE, v. 10. p. 58.Google Scholar

18. Quoted by S. Ch. Aleksandrovič, Puciaviny rodnaha słova (Minsk: Belorussian State U. Publishers, 1971), p. 10.Google Scholar

19. S. M. Horak, op. cit., p. 860.Google Scholar

20. See, V. N. Tatishchev, Istoriya Rossiyskaya (Moscow-Leningrad, 1962), v. 1, pp. 355–356, 438–439.Google Scholar

21. N. P. Vakar, “The Name ‘White Russia’,” The American Slavic and East European Review, 1949, 3, 201ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22. Note the difference in spelling of the name in English: Byelorussia, Byelorus', Belorussia, Belorus', White Ruthenia, Whiteruthenia, White Russia.Google Scholar

23. J. Jucho, “Pra nazvu ‘Biełaruś‘,” Połymia, No. 1 (1968), pp. 175–182.Google Scholar

24. Ibid., p. 179.Google Scholar

25. O. Pritsak and J. S. Reshetar, Kievan Rus' Is Not Identical With Russia! (Cambridge, Mass.: Published by the Harvard University Ukrainian Studies Fund, 1973), p. 18.Google Scholar

26. I have not been able to find any explanations of the expression, beloruskoye piśmo, beyond the following passage in the “Foreword” to the second volume of documents, Belorussiya v epokhu feodalizma. S serediny XVII do kontsa XVIII veka, published in 1960 in Minsk by the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR (p. 14):Google Scholar

“Some documents published in the book are translations of documents wirtten ‘belorusskim piśmom’ performed in institutions of the Russian state of the 17th century. The indication of their being translations is given by the preservation of their subtitles which are italicized.”Google Scholar

It is, by the way, of relevance to the whole problem of “beloruskoye piśmo” to note that not every document thus written was translated in Moscow offices. In the three volumes of documents, Vossoyedineniye Ukrainy s Rossiyey (Moscow, 1954) in which Professors Pritsak and Reshetar found five documents that had been translated, there are at least forty-three whose italicized subtitles state that each of them is spisok (copy) either z beloruskogo lista, z beloruskogo piśma, or lista z beloruskim piśmom. It is not entirely excluded that the term, beloruskoye pismo, could have been used as connoting, beside linguistic differences, the graphic aspect of the script used in the document. Similar practice can be seen in relation to the work in Moscow by Belorussian wood carvers in the 17th century. Their style of work is known as biełaruskaja reź, or Belorussian carving (see, BiełSE, 2:229). Moreover, the Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is known to be copies “in Belorussian cursive” (belorusskoyu skoropiśyu) of the end-of-the-16th–beginning-of-the-17th centuries (K. I. Yablonskis, op. cit., p. 4).Google Scholar

27. See, I. S. Abetsedarsky, M. Ya. Volkov, eds, Russkobelorusskiye svyazi. Sbornik dokumentov, 1570–1667 (Minsk: “Vysshaya shkola” Publishers, 1963), pp. 293–349.Google Scholar

28. O. Pritsak and J. S. Reshetar, op. cit., p. 22.Google Scholar

29. Ibid., p. 22, fn. 36.Google Scholar

30. Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, Historyja Biełaruskaj SSR (Minsk, 1972), v. 1, p. 318.Google Scholar

31. A. I. Azarov, et al., comp., Belorussiya v epokhu feodalizma. T. 2: S serediny XVII do kontsa XVIII veka (Minsk: Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, 1960), v. 2, p. 165.Google Scholar

32. S. M. Horak, op. cit., p. 860.Google Scholar

33. Ibid.Google Scholar

34. F. P. Filin, Proiskhozhdeniye russkogo, ukrainskogo i belorusskogo yazykov. Istoriko-dialektologicheskiy ocherk (Leningrad: “Nauka” Publishers, 1972), p. 3.Google Scholar

35. Ibid., p. 621.Google Scholar

36. U. V. Aničenka, Biełaruska-ŭkrainskija piśmova-moŭnyja suviazi (Minsk: “Navuka i technika” Publishers, 1969), p. 176. Part of Aničenka's statement is a quotation from M. Vozniak's Istoriya ukrainskoj literatury (v. 1, p. 22).Google Scholar

37. S. M. Horak, op. cit., p. 860.Google Scholar

38. Ibid.Google Scholar

39. Litaratura i mastactva, Minsk, May 16, 1975.Google Scholar

40. K. I. Yablonskis, op. cit., pp. 224–251.Google Scholar

41. N. I. Gorbachevsky, Slovar' drevnego aktovogo yazyka Severo-Zapadnogo kraya i Tsarstva Polskogo. Vilna, 1874; J. Vieraščaka, “Słoŭnik starakryŭskaj aktavaj movy,” Kryvič, Kaunas, No. 10(2) (1925), pp. o1-102; “Maloupotrebitelnyie slova,” V. I. Picheta, Agrarnaya reforma Sigizmunda-Avgusta v Litovsko-Russkom gosudarstve (Moscow, 1958), pp. 544–546; A. I. Azarov, et al., comp., Belorussiya v epokhu feodalizma. T. 2: S serediny XVII do kontsa XVIII veka (Minsk, 1960), pp. 484–493; “Maloupotrebitelnyie slova,” V. I. Picheta, Belorussiya i Litva XV–XVI vv. (Moscow, 1961), pp. 789–791; “Terminologicheskiy slovar,” A. G. Azarova, et al., comp., Tsentralnyi gosudarstvennyi istoricheskiy arkhiv BSSR. Putevoditel (Minsk: “Połymia” Publishers, 1974), pp. 301–304; K. U. Skurat, Daŭnija biełaruskija miery. Leksičny analiz. Minsk: “Navuka i technika” Publishers, 1974, 191p.Google Scholar

For a full bibliographical list of sources, see,“Histarycnaja leksikałohija” and “Leksikahrafija” in: Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, Biełaruskaje movaznaŭstva. Biblijahrafičny ŭkazalnik (1825-1965) (Minsk, 1967), pp. 95–116.Google Scholar

42. For example, directly related to our topic, but generally unavailable, is a work by the Soviet Belorussian historian, A. I. Ignatenko, Vvedeniye v istoriyu BSSR. Periodizatsiya, istochniki, istonografiya. Minsk: “Vysshaya shkola” Publishers, 1965, 48 p.Google Scholar

43. Vłast, Karotkaja Historyja Biełarusi (Vilnia, 1910), p. III.Google Scholar

44. U. Ihnatoŭski, “Biełaruskaje nacyjanalnaje pytańnie i Kamunistyčnaja partyja. Tezisy,” Volny Ściah, Minsk, No. 6(3) (1921), p. 38.Google Scholar

45. M. Dovnar-Zapolski, The Basis of White Russia's States Individuality (p1.?. /1919/), p. 21.Google Scholar

46. V. I. Picheta, “Rannyaya istoriya belorusskogo plemeni,” Kurs Belorussovedeniya (Moscow, 1918–1920), pp. 36–38.Google Scholar

47. See, BiełSE, 4:480: “Załatoha vieku' teoryja.”Google Scholar

48. M. Škialonak, “Padzieł historyji Biełarusi na peryjody,” ZPISY Biełaruskaha Navukovaha T-va, Vilnia, book 1 (1938), p. 4.Google Scholar

49. Bolshevik Belorussii, No. 3 (1948), pp. 35–72.Google Scholar

50. Bolshevik Belorussii, No. 1 (1949), pp. 59–65.Google Scholar