Polish Language in Belarus is an Integral Part of Belarusian Culture

Language has always been an issue in Belarus. As a result of active Russification during 19th and 20th centuries, the country is now predominantly Russian-speaking. Belarusian is still considered mother tongue by the majority but the fact of the matter is that this consideration is rather symbolic.

During several past weeks the Belarusian journalists and bloggers from several independent newspapers and websites have been actively debating about bilingualism. The question was whether Russian language should be accepted as a language of Belarusian culture. Looking at this discussion it was impossible not to ask the logical question: is Polish language any worse than Russian in this respect?

Polish aristocrats have never ruled Belarus

We can say that Belarus as a country or region (or, rather, what now is being called Belarus because the name Belarus was not there even 100 or 150 years ago) got some postmodern features long before there the concept of postmodernism was even coined. Thus, see

the indigenous Belarusian elite that in the course of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries adopted Polish language and converted to Roman Catholicism.

The fact that the «Polish» aristocracy of the Belarusian lands was in fact indigenous needs to be emphasized specifically.

Prominent Belarusian noble families like the Ogińskis or the Sapiehas are usually referred to as Polish but in fact have an Eastern Slavic origin.

The cliche that a migrant Polish or Lithuanian gentry ruled over indigenous Belarusian peasants is simply wrong.

The local szlachta was not comprised of Polish migrants, it consisted of local Belarusian people. Cultural differences between the Belarusian gentry and the Belarusian peasantry of the 18th and 19th centuries were hardly larger than, for instance, the gap between the French-speaking Russian nobility and the Russian peasantry at the same time.

Together with the elite, a larger part of the indigenous population of what is now Belarus also landed on the Polish side after the 19th century. This group now identifies itself as the Polish minority in Belarus. This comes despite the fact that the predominant majority of these people do not descend from migrants from Poland and have much stronger cultural and genetic ties with people nowadays known as Belarusians or (modern) Lithuanians.

Overcoming nationalist cliches in seeing the region

Almost from its very beginning,

the Belarusian national movement has treated the great Lithuanian dukes, the revolutionaries Tadeusz Kościuszko or Konstanty Kalinowski, the composer Michał Kleofas Ogiński or the painter Napoleon Orda as representatives of Belarus. And it is quite reasonable and correct to do so

Still, the traditional modernist Belarusian nationalism of the early 20th century was unable to be fully consistent in this regard. However, we can afford being consistent and state that

since these people are "Belarusians", then, obviously, their culture is a "Belarusian" culture as well.

The Polish language and the Polish culture of the so-called Eastern Borderlands (Kresy),

people like Michał Kleofas Ogiński, Stanisław Moniuszko or Adam Mickiewicz, definitely have the same right (and in some cases — an even stronger right) to be treated as a representation of Belarus and Belarusian culture along with modern Russian-speakers

Moreover, Belarusians should also treat people like Lucjan Żeligowski, the head of the Republic of Central Lithuania, and even marshal Józef Pilsudski as their compatriots. These people have never renounced their roots, have never renounced the fact that they are indigenous inhabitants of what now is Belarus.

Being between West and East is an advantage

In the history of Belarus there have always been fractions of pro-Polish and pro-Russian thinkers and politicians. This symbiosis of East and West, Catholicism and Orthodoxy, «Polishness» and «Russianness», or (if you look all the way back to antique times) of Baltic and Slavic features is an inherent Belarusian feature. Throughout history, the «Belarusian» identity has survived by balancing these elements. At the time of the Polish cultural domination Belarusians kept their identity thanks to Orthodoxy and the Eastern Slavic element, during the Russian domination (continuing to this day) — thanks to Catholicism and the Baltic/Polish element.

Except for the north-western regions of the country,

the Polish culture of Belarus was almost entirely destroyed (often — with the physical extermination or deportation of its representatives) by the Soviet regime.

It is now even less probable that the Polish culture of Belarus (together with the Polish culture of the south-eastern part of the Lithuanian Republic) could form some separate non-Polish cultural subject — like Austria or Switzerland manage to be centres of German speaking cultures without being part of Germany. But it is still crucial for us, Belarusians, to remember that our Polish-Belarusian heritage is an integral part of the Belarusian traditions and culture just as it is a part of Polish or Lithuanian culture and heritage.

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