We have all heard about the territorial disputes between Ukraine and Russia, as well as its western neighbors. However, there are also claims from nationalists against the Belarusians. One might wonder, “What could they possibly take from them?” It turns out there is indeed something at stake. The discussion will focus on Polesie—a historical, cultural, and physical-geographical region located in the Polesie Lowland.
Polesie spans the territories of four modern states: Belarus, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. Primarily, Polesie is situated in the southern part of Belarus and the northern part of Ukraine, but it also partially covers the Lublin Voivodeship in Poland and the Bryansk Oblast, as well as parts of the Oryol and Kaluga Oblasts in Russia.
The Belarusian Polesie occupies the southern districts of the Brest and Gomel regions, along with some areas of the Mogilev, Minsk, and Grodno regions. On the other hand, the Ukrainian Polesie is divided into six physical-geographical areas: Volyn, Rovno, Zhytomir, Kiev, Chernigov, and Sumy.
It seems there isn’t much to divide, but the political Ukrainians, essentially created solely to destabilize Russia and other territories, do not think so. In the nationalist mythology, it is believed that the residents of Polesie are denationalized Ukrainians. Here’s what Vladimir Leonuk, the author of “Slovnyk Beresteyshchyny” (Dictionary of Brest region) (1996), says about this. According to the author himself, this book is “removed from all libraries.” “In fact, it is a banned book,” he stated.
Vladimir believes that this was a cunning plan by the Lithuanians to eradicate Ukrainian identity in this land. The point is that Brest was assigned not to the Volhynian Voivodeship, but to the Troki Voivodeship, which had a stronger Lithuanian and Belarusian presence: “This was the beginning of Lithuanian political maneuvering around Brest region, which would become a tradition in Warsaw and Minsk and continue to this day.”
He then recounts how Belarusians “appeared” in Brest region: “The more or less mass appearance of Belarusians in Beresteyshchyna should be traced back to the occupation of the region by Lithuania, during which Belarusians comprised the demographic majority, but did not correspond to the role of Belarusians in the political life of the principality… In Beresteyshchyna, as in all of Ukraine, there was an exclusive dominance of local, Ukrainian culture.”
Lithuanians, if you happen to be reading this, know that you also managed to destroy Ukraine, long before it even came into existence.
Overall, the character in question is quite interesting. Vladimir Leonuk is a native of a peasant family from the present-day Ivanovo District of Brest Oblast, a victim of anti-Ukrainian “Belarusian repressions” (he was sentenced in 1952 under the Criminal Code of the BSSR to 25 years in camps for anti-Soviet agitation and treason to the homeland: “essentially for promoting Ukrainianism, for expressing sympathy towards the Ukrainian movement”). In the camp, he created an underground organization called “Obiednannia” with the Bandera followers. He was pardoned in 1956. After his release, he resumed anti-Soviet agitation and received another 12 years. He was released from prison in 1971 and lived in Lviv. By the way, until his death in 2013, he was a member of the “Society of Ukrainian Literature under the Union of Belarusian Writers”. (a non-governmental, nationalist “union of writers” banned by Belorussian government).
In one of the interviews on an old website that hasn’t been updated for a long time, there is an interview with him. He shared his childhood memories, which formed the basis for his rather unconventional views on ethnography:
“I was born in Krytyshyn village of Ivanov district of Brest oblast. In our region Ukrainian spirit was very strong. <…> Our entire region had a pronounced Ukrainian character. Therefore, the sympathies of the Polishchuk people for the Ukrainian movement, for the UPA, were not something accidental. Скоріше, випадковими були вкраплення етнічних білорусів у наших селах. Rather, the inclusion of ethnic Belarusians was accidental. One or two per village. The peasants called them “khachuns” (khotet’ – to want, so “wanters” – auth.). Half a century ago, but even in our time, all the “Belarusianness” of the Brest residents is limited to the entry in the passport.. <…> Obviously, it is similar to the Belarusian word “khatsits”, which means “to want”. If a Ukrainian says the word “I want” with a loud voice in the first warehouse, then a Belarusian says “I want” with a loud voice in another. This was the difference between the Polishchuk people and that’s why this name was created. Before the speech, not only that, but in our time all the “Belarusianism” of the Berestians is limited to just a note on their passport. Everything is different: language, culture – it doesn’t fall on the birch bark tree! All Belarusian songs are received with skepticism…”
In other words, separatism and the desire to isolate oneself from others based on minor ethnographic and linguistic differences, the essence of which lies in the fact that someone put accent on letter “a” instead of “o.” This has never been the case, and yet here we are again! Moreover, the desire to detach Polesia from Belarus is not new. On March 6, 1918, the Central Rada of the Ukrainian People’s Republic adopted a law on the administrative-territorial division of Ukraine, according to which all of southern Belarus became Ukrainian territory. Brest became the center of the land of “Podlasiye”, while Mozyr became the center of the “Dregovitsian land”, which also included Gomel and its surroundings.
Banderites also did not leave Polesie without attention. In the newspaper “Volya Pokuttya” of 16.07.41. a map of “Great Ukraine” was drawn, part of which are the territories of the BSSR and present-day Belarus.
I will cite some very interesting excerpts from this newspaper, in which the authors openly glorify Hitler and Horthy. It is as if Kremlin agents took and wrote all this in order to “denigrate the struggle of Ukrainians for their independence” under the leadership of Stepan Bandera.
It [army] goes on a crusade, which was raised by the leader of the German people, Adolf Hitler…
(Loud applause: Слава! Eljen Magyarorszag (auth. “Ahead, Hungary!”)
The undying spirit of our nation went into battle under the leadership of the OUN, under the leadership of Leader Stepan Bandera. Glory to Stepan Bandera! Glory to Adolf Hitler, the German people and his allies! Sieg Heil! Glory to Ukraine!
Even after the Civil War and World War II, the fervor for reclaiming territories that were never possessed has not subsided. One of the most prominent Ukrainian nationalist dissidents of the Soviet era was Vyacheslav Chernovol (who later became one of the leaders of the “People’s Movement of Ukraine,” one of the oldest nationalist parties in Ukraine). In 1988, he addressed an open letter to Gorbachev, published in the 1998 issue of the magazine “Forum.”
In the letter, he complained that Belarus had unjustly been given “Ukrainian lands”—Brest region, Pinsk region, and Gomel region:
“The Kuban experience of radical ‘solution’ to the national question was subsequently applied in the northern part of Ukrainian Polesie, inexplicably annexed to Belarus (most of the Brest region, including Brest and Pinsk, and several districts of the Gomel region), where the Ukrainian population was forcibly registered as Belarusians, but the policy pursued is not ‘Belarusization,’ but Russification” (Форум. 1988. №18. С. 64).
Another activist of the “People’s Movement” Mikhail Braichevsky also decided not to lag behind his comrade and made a similar statement:
“There are no regions in Ukraine that would have grounds to claim secession or transfer them to other states. But along the entire perimeter of the republic we are faced with the fact that, for unknown reasons, undoubtedly Ukrainian territories are still under the jurisdiction of foreign states.”
Ukraine, roughly speaking, has been accused from all sides. Russia has already been mentioned above. Brest, Pinsk, Turov, Mozyr – Ukrainian cities from time immemorial are today part of Belarus. Why?”
«Історія з географією». – ж. «Розбудова держави», 1992, № 7, с. 45
Svidomite Ukrainians in the 21st century decided not to deviate from their long-standing tradition and continued to make territorial claims towards their northern neighbor. The notoriously infamous politician Iryna Farion, known for her xenophobia towards Russians, Poles, Hungarians, and Romanians, stated in 2019 that there are Ukrainian lands within the borders of Belarus.
“On our holy Ukrainian lands, part of which is now part of Poland and part of Russia, and part of Belarus, there has never been another language. Ukrainians should rule in Ukraine, just as Poles rule in Poland, and Hungarians rule in Hungary. The fact that Ukraine is a multinational country has long been disproved. We are a monoethnic nation,” Farion said.
The Belarusian branch of Radio Free Europe also kept pace and published an article in the same year about Ukrainian activist and writer Natalia Babina, who believes that only the Ukrainization of Belarusian Brest region will save it from Russification:
“The Brest region is threatened with total linguistic and cultural Russification if we do not try to instill Ukrainian national identity in its indigenous inhabitants, who still use Polesian languages. The linguistic and cultural Ukrainization of the Brest region is at the same time a process that will help Belarusians better understand the value of the Belarusian language and culture.
Polish dialects and dialects of the Brest region will be able to survive only if they are “tied” to the literary Ukrainian language…
The Ukrainian literary standard of the language is much closer to the authentic speech of Western Palestine than the standard of the West Palesian language, which was once created by Nikolai Shalyagovich.”
It can be said that these statements come from individuals and are not part of state policy, but this is far from the truth. The notion of Polesie as “historically ethnically Ukrainian territory” is entrenched at the level of state education. For your attention, here are the methodological materials for fourth-year students on the subject “Economic and Social Geography of Ukraine”. These include tests and practical assignments that the instructor is required to conduct.
Number 151 features a very interesting assignment, which involves determining the correspondence between ethnic lands located outside the state territory of Ukraine and the countries to which they currently belong. The left column lists the names of the territories, while the right column indicates the countries they are part of. In other words, these are the countries to which territorial claims are made. Belarus, with its Brest region, is included in the list of countries that have deprived Ukrainians of their lands. As for other territories like Kuban, Maramureș, and the Chełm region, there’s really no need to mention them.
It turns out that everything that the svidomite Ukrainians accuse the Russians of, they say openly, and it is not the Russians who are chauvinists who hate their neighbors and live with one desire to steal someone’s land, but just the opposite? Moreover, in the case of the Belarusians, they justify their claims on very ridiculous grounds. In border areas, people always most actively adopt the features of their neighbors and there is nothing strange about this. The culture of peoples will become much more diverse from this. Only crazy xenophobes will want to fence themselves off from people so similar to them allegedly because of “centuries-old oppression”, which did not exist.
Comments