West Belarus
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West Belarus is the name used to denote the territory of modern Belarus that belonged to Second Polish Republic between Polish-Soviet War and World War II. The term is used mostly in a historical context.
The territory included today's Hrodno and Brest voblasts, as well as part of the Minsk and Vitebsk regions.
Administratively West Belarus was divided into several voivodeships:
- Nowogródek Voivodeship
- Polesie Voivodeship
- Białystok Voivodeship (partly)
- Wilno Voivodeship (partly)
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[edit] History
In 1921, at the end of the Polish-Soviet War, Belarusian territories were divided between Poland and Soviet Russia under the terms of the Peace of Riga. The part that belonged to Poland was named West Belarus in Soviet Russia. Several thousand Poles were settled in the area pursuant to the legislation of December 20, 1920. In the elections of November 1922, a Belarusian party obtained 14 seats in the Polish parliament (11 of them in the lower chamber, Sejm). In the spring of 1923, Polish prime minister Władysław Sikorski ordered a report on the situation of the Belarusian minority in Poland. That summer, a new regulation was passed allowing for the Belarusian language to be used officially both in courts and in schools. Obligatory teaching of the Belarusian language was introduced in all Polish gymnasia in areas inhabited by Belarusians in 1927. However, during the interwar period, the Belarusian minority in Poland was repressed.
Under the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, Poland was divided between the Soviet Union and Germany and was invaded by these countries in September 1939 (see Invasion of Poland). Western Belarus in its entirety was made part of the Byelorussian SSR. It was initially planned to move the capital of the Byelorussian SSR to Vilnius. However, the same year Stalin ordered that the city and surrounding region be transferred to Lithuania, which some months later was also invaded by Soviet Union and became a new Soviet Republic. Minsk therefore was proclaimed the capital of the enlarged BSSR. The borders of the BSSR were again altered somewhat after the war (notably the largely Polish area around the city of Białystok was returned to Poland) but in general they coincide with the borders of the modern Republic of Belarus.
After entering the Soviet Union, the people of Western Belarus, especially those who favored democracy and Belarusian independence, immediately faced violent repression from the NKVD, which may explain incidents of local collaboration with Germans during the Nazi occupation of Belarus.
[edit] Polonization
Belarusians in Western Belarus faced extensive Polonization, though the suppression of Belarusian identity was not as deep compared to the Russification of Soviet Belarus across the border[citation needed].
According to the Polish national census of 1921, there were around 1 million Belarusians in the country. Most historians, however, estimate the number of Belarusians in Poland at that time to be 1.7 million or even up to 2 million. In the 1921-1926 period Poland did not have a consistent policy towards its ethnic minorities. Belarusian schools, not being subsidised by the Polish government, were facing severe financial problems by 1921. After the 1930 elections in Poland, Belarusian representation in the Polish parliament was reduced and in the early 1930s the Polish government started to introduce policies intended to Polonize minorities. In 1938 about 100 Orthodox churches were destroyed or converted to Roman Catholic ones in the eastern parts of Poland. Use of the Belarusian language was discouraged. Not a single Belarusian school survived until the spring of 1939, and only 44 schools teaching the Belarusian language still existed in Poland at the beginning of World War II.
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- Janusz Żarnowski, "Społeczeństwo Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej 1918-1939" (in Polish language), Warszawa 1973
- Eugeniusz Mironowicz, "Białoruś" (in Polish language), Trio, Warszawa, 1999, ISBN 83-85660-82-8
