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Belorussian Review
3
MUNICH
1956
The views expressed in the Review are those of their authors. They are not bound by any single political philosophy nor are they to be construed as representing the point of view of the INSTITUTE.
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Material contained herein may be reproduced, provided reference is made to this publication
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All comments and inquiries are most welcome and should be addressed to:
Institute for the Study of the USSR
Editor, The Belorussian Review
Augustenstrasse 46
Munich, Germany
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Verantwortlich fur den Inhalt: Dr. Stanislau Stankievic
Herausgeber und Verlag: Institut zur Erforschung der UdSSR, e. V., Muhchen 37, AugustenstraBe 46, Telefon 5 81 27. Printed in Germany by Buchdruckerei Dr. Peter Belej, Miinchen 13, SchleiBheimer StraBe 71
The Belorussian Review is a publication of the Institute for the Study of the USSR. Its purpose is to present the free world an analysis of contemporary events and detailed studies of Belorussian history and culture by persons who know the system intimately.
*
The Institute for the Study of the USSR was organized on July 8, 1950. It is a free corporation of scientists and men and women of letters who have left the Soviet Union and are now engaged in research on their homeland.
Any member of the Soviet emigration, irrespective of his national origin, political affiliations or place of residence, is eligible to take part in the work of the Institute provided he is not a Communist Party member or sympathizer.
All comments and inquiries are most welcome and should be addressed to:
Institute for the Study of the USSR
Editor, Belorussiun Review
Augustenstrasse 46
Munich, Germany
CONTENTS
Mikola Volacic, The population of the Western Belorussia and
Its Resettlement in Poland and the USSR
St. Stankievic, Kupala in Fact and Fiction
Janka Kupala, Three poems
H. Niarniha, Education in the Belorussian SSR and Communist Doctrine
Leu Haroska, Religion in Belorussia Today
S. Kabys, Belorussian Industry and the Sixth Five-Year Plan
T. Daulecyn, Soviet Methods of Labor Discipline
CHRONICLE OF BELORUSSIAN EVENTS
In the BSSR
J. Zaprudnik, The XXII Congress of the Kommunist Party of Belorussia
J. Zaprudnik, The XIX Congress of the Komsomol in Belorussia
Ales Karpovic, The Second Congress of Composers of the Belorurssian SSR
J. Zaprudnik, Regimentation of the Population in the BSSR
II. Abroad
The "Francis Skaryna Kryvian (Whiteruthenian) Society of Arts and Sciences in the USA, Inc"
P. M., The Belorussian Institute of Arts and Sciences
The Population of Western Belorussia and Its Resettlement in Poland and the USSR
MIKOLA VOLACIC
One of the results of World War II in Eastern Europe was that territorial and ethnographic changes begun by Nazi Germany were finally carried out by the Soviet Union in its own way, with a view to securing the interests of Moscow's imperialist policy, in accordance with the old Roman saying: Divide et impera (Divide and rule).
This article makes no attempt to survey all the territorial and ethnographic changes behind the Iron Curtain, but only those which took place on the territory of Belorussia in connection with the shift of the pre-war Polish-Soviet frontier of 1921—1939 and its establishment along the so-called "Curzon Line", modified first, in favor of the Belorussian SSR, and second, in favor of Poland.
The German campaign against Poland which began on September 1, 1939, and the Soviet campaign of September 17, 1939, brought to an end the former Polish state, dividing it between Germany and the USSR. On the basis of the agreement of September 1939, between Ribbentrop and Molotov, nearly all the historically defined districts of western Belorussia (except the districts of Suvalki and Padlassa) were incorporated into the BSSR containing 108,000 sq. km. of territory with a population of 4.8 million according to the Polish census of December 9, 1931.1
Before one month had passed, on October 10, 1939, on the basis of the Soviet-Lithuanian agreement, the territory of the western part of the BSSR was reduced by 6,655 sq. km., with a population of 457,000, and incorporated with the city of Vilna and part of the Vilna region into the Lithuanian state.2
After the occupation of western Belorussia and the western Ukraine, the Bolsheviks tried to "legalize" these acts by a sort of "plebiscite" in order to eliminate Polish claims to these territories as a result of the Riga Treaty. Although there is no such thing as the expression of free will of any population under Soviet occupation, nevertheless, as two experts on European affairs, Professors J. Shotwell and M. Laserson,3 have stated, it may be supposed that elections to the so-called people's assemblies in Belostok and Lvov for the incorporation of western Belorussia into the BSSR and of the western Ukraine into the Ukrainian SSR4, held on October 23, 1939, were anti-Polish demonstrations of dissatisfaction with Polish economic and nationality policy.
ETHNOGRAPHIC RATIOS IN WESTERN BELORUSSIA BEFORE
WORLD WAR II.
An idea of the ratios of ethnographic groups in western Belorussia before World War II in the light of official Polish statistics, may be obtained from the second universal census of the population which took place on December 9, 1931. These statistics are an extremely important source of information about the former Polish state. According to this census the government of the former Polish state represented ethnographic ratios in western Belorussia as shown on the following page.5
As can be seen, the number of Poles is extremely high — 52.1% of the total population — while the main population, which is Belorussian, is given as 19.2%. In order to artificially reduce the number of Belorussians, a special nationality Tutejszy (native) was introduced in Polesie, which constituted 62.5% of the population. Tf we include Tutejszy in the Belorussian ethnic group (in the same way as Ruthenians in the Ukrainian) the figure 1,692,400 is obtained which should be added to the Belorussian ethnic element. Even then the figure is much too low because, in addition to the machinations with Tutejszy? Polish statistics include in the Polish group: (a) nearly all Belorussians of the Roman Catholic denomination,7 (b) a great many Belorussians of Orthodox denomination, (c) a certain percentage of other nationalities (Jews, Tartars, Karaims,. Russians, Germans, etc.) The Russian group is also artificially inflated at the expense of the Belorussian population.8
GOVERNORSHIPS
Belostok9 Vilna Novogrodek (In thousands) Polesie
Total
1,643.9 1,276.0 1,057.2 1,131.9 5,109.0
396.1 261.3 102.7 148.8 908.9
1,247.8 1,014.7 954.5 983.1 4,200.1
1,182.3 761.7 553.9 164.1 2,662.0
225.3 164.5 46.6 44.1 480.5
957.0 597.2 507.3 120.0 2,181.5
205.6 289.7 413.5 75.4 984.2
5.9 7.8 11.8 5.6 31.1
199.7 281.9 401.7 69.8 953.1
2.6 0.4 0.5 54.0 57.5
0.4 0.2 0.1 0.8 1.5
2.2 0.2 0.4 53.2 56.0
0.8 1.2 0.7 _ 2.7
0.1 0.1 0.1 — 0.3
0.7 1.1 0.6 — 2.4
35.1 43.3 6.8 16.2 101.4
10.5 9.7 2.5 7.8 30.5
24.6 33.6 4.3 8.4 70.9
7.3 1.3 0.4 1.0 10.0
2.7 0.6 0.2 0.1 3.6
4.6 0.7 0.2 0.9 6.4
195.0 108.9 77.0 113.0 493.9
150.4 75.6 41.3 72.7 340.0
44.6 33.3 35.7 40.3 153.9
15.2* 69.5* 4.4 708.2** 797.3
0.8 2.8 0.1 17.5 21.4
14.4 66.7 4.3 690.5 775.9
* Includes 13,100 Lithuanians in Belostok and 65,300 in Vilna Includes 707,100 "natives" (Tutejszy).
The lack of objectivity in Polish statistics is shown by a comparison of the figures for ethnic and religious groups. The relationship between religious groups of the population of western Belorussia, according to the census of December 9, 1931, including the city of Vilna and part of the Vilna region which were incorporated into Lithuania, was as follows:
Governorship Roman Catholics Uniates Orthodox Protestants Other Christians Jews Others Total
Belostok10 Urban Rural 1,114.1 209.8 904.3 1.5 0.6 0.9 304.7 27.3277.4 15.2 5.0 10.2 8.8 0.6 8.2 197.4 152.1 45.3 2.2 0.7 1.5 1643.9 396.1 1247.8
Vilna Urban Rural 797.5 159.0 638.5 1.0 0.3 0.7 324.7 19.6 305.1 3.5 2.0 1.5 34.7 3.0 31.7 110.8 76.2 34.6 3.8 1.2 2.6 1276.0 261.3 1014.7
Novogrodek Urban Rural 424.6 38.1 386.5 1.8 0.11.7 542.3 19.1 523.2 1.3 0.4 0.9 1.2 0.1 1.1 82.9 43.7 39.2 3.1 1.2 1.9 1057.2 102.7 954.5
Polesie Urban Rural 124.9 37.5 87-4 1.8 0.5 1.3 875.8 36.7 839.1 5.5 0.6 4.9 9.3 0.3 9.0 114.0 73.2 40.8 0.6 0.6 1131.9 148.8 983.1
Total Urban Rural 2461.1 444.4 2016.7 6.1 1.5 4.6 2047.5 102.7 1944.8 25.5 8.0 17.5 54.0 4.0 50.0 505.1 345.2 159.9 9.7 3.1 6.6 5109.0 908.9 4200.1
It is clear that besides Roman Catholics, the statistics include in the Polish group various other nationalities, regardless of ethnic origin and national religion. Thus, for instance, the number of Jews by religion is given as 505,100, but as regards nationality affiliation, which the statistics calculate according to "native tongue," there are 493,900: the total number of Orthodox believers is 2,047,500, and the total number of Belorussians, Tutejszy, Ukrainians and Russians is only 1,852,900. In other words, 194,600 persons who profess the Orthodox faith are included in the Polish group, regardless of the fact that indigenous Poles have nothing whatever to do with the Orthodox denomination.
The falsification of official Polish statistics has long attracted the attention of research scholars toward the problems of national minorities in the former Polish state. One of these was Paprocki, who stressed that the Polish censuses of 1921 and 1931, "instead of using nationality or ` national language' as a basis frequently give figures by religion or `native or local language,' which means local dialect. Thus it is not surprising that the official statistics do not reveal the true number of Belorussians in Poland." n
Mornik questions the statistics of the first Polish census of 1921 with regard to Belorussians.12
"Official statistics," he writes, "give the number of Belorussians as 1,057,000. That this is a doubtful figure for the Belorussian regions of Poland is very obvious if we compare the Russian statistics for 1897 with Polish statistics for 1921. According to the last official Russian census, there were at that time 1,700.000 Belorussians in the Belorussian regions of the present-day Polish state. Srokowski13 considers that in 1921 there were at least 1,600,000 Belorussians. The number of Orthodox Belorussians in individual governorships was then as follows:
Vilna
261,426
Novogrodek
421,556
Belostok
197,407
Polesie
491,510
Total
1,371,899
To this figure should be added Belorussians of Roman Catholic denomination, who in Polish statistics numbered only 60,123. This figure is certainly too low, as Srokowski agrees. Rappaport14 believes that the number of Belorussians of Roman Catholic denomination amounted in 1921 to at least 300,000, because the general opinion is that every fourth Belorussian is of Roman Catholic denomination."
Further, Mornik, after meticulous calculations, concludes that in 1928 there were 2,137,000 Belorussians in western Belorussia. Engelhardt15 calculates that for 1931 the total number of Belorussians on these territories was between 2,750,000 and 3,000,000.
Dudley Kirk, whose research on this problem is quite recent, analyzing the irregularities in the appraisal of nationalities according to the language in use, writes:
Where personal advantage or prestige is involved, bilingual persons will tend to report themselves as adherents of the dominant language regardless of the facts. For negative reasons, others may be afraid of admitting minority status. Zealous enumerators may be induced by nationalistic considerations to interpret and record the answers in ways favoring the dominant language.16
In this connection, W. Parker Mauldin and Donald S. Akers,17 in an official publication of the Bureau of Statistics of the United States of America, include in the Belorussian group all Orthodox people regardless of their language and all Tutejszy, thus arriving at a figure of 2,020,000 Belorussians in the former Polish state in 1931.
Despite their corrections, the American authors make the mistake of repeating the statement that the national religion of Belorussians is the Orthodox faith,18 and that the Roman Catholic denomination is characteristic only of Poles, which is a fallacy expressed by various other writers and is quite groundless. Just as the Uniate and Orthodox denominations are characteristic of the Ukrainians, so the Catholic and Orthodox denominations are characteristic of Belorussians.19
In calculating the number of Belorussians in western Belorussia it should be considered that the Roman Catholic and Orthodox denominations are nearly equal in strength. This factor was exploited by the Poles who, in order to strengthen their claims, alleged that the Catholic population of western Belorussia was a Polish element.
The question of the origin of the Poles in Belorussia was quite correctly answered by Professor Stanislau Lubic-Majeuski, a known historian and geographer, in his lecture delivered on April 5, 1940, in Vilna:
Up to 1919 there was no colonization whatever of Belorussian territories by Poles. The local Belorussian gentry became polonized only under the influence of external conditions, and the influx of genuine Poles began only in 1919- During the last twenty years a number of Poles have settled here. There is no question whatever of local Poles. Among the so-called local Poles there is not a drop of Polish blood.20
In reality, before 1919 it was not possible for Poles to emigrate to Belorussia, except to Padlassa, part of which was annexed to Poland in 1569. Despite the formal declaration of the Lublin Union of 1569, which in its Point 13 discusses the desirability of abolishing the regulation prohibiting Poles from settling in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the III Lithuanian Statute of 1588, which was in force in western Belorussia until 1840, made it illegal during this whole period for foreigners (Poles and others) to buy land and to settle in Belorussia and Zhamojdz (Lithuania proper).
Even after 1919, the Polish immigration was not as large as Polish statistics would have us believe. It is easy to calculate the size of the emigre Polish element in western Belorussia by comparing the population figures of the first census of 1921 with those of the second census of 1931, taking the average natural increase of the population in western Belorussia between 1921—1931 as 2.2%.2i
The Emigre Polish Element in Western Belorussia from 1921 to 193122
Of this number, about 110,700 emigre Poles lived in towns of western Belorussia with a population of over 10,000 in 1931. The remaining 124,300 lived in small towns and villages, where they constituted the following categories of the population:
1. Military settlers24
18,600
2. Civilian settlers25
5,500
3. Landowners and theirs servants26
12,000
4. District administration27
5,500
5. Police with their families28
10,000
6. Frontier guards29
10,000
7. Teachers with their families30
10,000
8. Post office employees31
3,500
9. Transport services32
12,400
10. Forestry economy33
25,000
11. Industry34
10,000
12. Roman Catholic priests and church administration35
1,800
Total
124,300
Such was the position of the Polish emigre element between 1921 and 1931. Before 1921, ie., before the census was taken, there were already a certain number of Polish immigrants in Belorussia, occupied principally with Polish administration and education, but their total number did not exceed 25,000.36 Therefore, the following figures for Poles in western Belorussia may be arrived at, including the former Belostok37 and Vilna governorships:
Poles who arrived between 1919 and 1921 25,000
Poles who arrived between 1921 and 1931 235,000
Total 260,000
The ethnographic composition of the population of the whole of western Belorussia in 1931 was as follows:
Belorussians
3,460,900 (78.0%)
Jews
450,000 (10.1%)
Poles
260,000 (5.9%)
Russians
101,400 (2.3%)
Lithuanians
70,400 (1.6%)
Ukrainians
60,200 (1.3%)
Germans
25,500 (0.6%)
Others
9,800 (0.2%)
Total
4,437,200
POPULATION MOVEMENTS DURING WORLD WAR II
During World War II there were large-scale movements of the population in western Belorussia, enforced first by the Soviets and later by the German occupation authorities.
From the beginning, the Bolsheviks carried out mass arrests of elements inconvenient to them in the western territories of Belorussia and the Ukraine. The first onslaught was directed against the "ruling strata" of Polish, Belo-russian, Ukrainian, and other nationalities. Detailed lists of people to be immediately detained38 were prepared in advance in Moscow. Thus, on the third day after their arrival in Vilna they arrested the most prominent Belorussians, just as they did in other cities and towns of Belorussia.39 Besides the prepared lists brought with them, the NKVD, with the assistance of a barely organized intelligence service, selected and arrested the following categories of the population:
1) Active representatives of various political parties, social and national organizations;
2) Officers of the Polish army and the Russian anti-Bolshevik army, participants in anti-Bolshevik uprisings,40 leaders of military and para-military organizations;
3) The leading Polish elements in administration, the judiciary, education, economy, industry, etc.;
4) Members of all branches of the police force, police agents, employees and agents of the Polish civil and military intelligence services;
5) Landowners, and all active Polish elements in villages denounced by the newly created intelligence service as having acted against the interests of the Belorussian population during the period of Polish rule;
6) The leading elements in the forestry economy, transport, post office and telegraph services, etc.
The Bolsheviks arrested these elements and in addition prepared detailed lists for three mass deportations of the population to the USSR which took place in February and May, 1940, and in June, 1941.
The first large-scale deportation of detained persons and their families, together with other members of the population of western Belorussia, took place on February 9 and 10, 1940. The action was prepared in advance and was carried out simultaneously in all parts of the country with the assistance of the police, military occupation forces and all available transport. The main thrust of the deportation action was directed against the Polish military settlers, frontier guards, large landowners, Polish elements who had taken an active part in political and national pre-war activities, and against the families of those belonging to the previously arrested categories. Altogether 140,500 persons were deported.41
Soon after, a second deportation was organized in May, 1940, which included: (1) families of servicemen, police, civil servants, administrative workers, schoolteachers, mostly Poles; (2) the so-called Kulaks — more prosperous Belorussian peasants; (3) small-scale merchants, property owners, most of whom were Belorussians and Jews; (4) all those who were listed for deportation by the local activists. According to the personal observations and testimony of the population in various regions of western Belorussia,42 the deportation of May, 1940, was on a smaller scale and not as terrible as the winter action. An average estimate places the number of deported at 70,000.
The third wave of deportations, and the filling of the prisons to capacity, took place not long before the beginning of the German—Soviet war in June, 1941. This action was directed against various categories of the population, but mainly against the middle classes in the towns and the more prosperous peasants in the countryside. The Polish immigrant population had been disposed of in the first two deportations and in individual detentions, but now the basic group of deportees comprised the more prosperous peasants who had been members of the Belorussian peasants' and workers' Hramada, together with their families, Jews, and even members of the Communist Party of western Belorussia.43 This action was halted by the outbreak of war, and thousands of deportees still in transit were liberated by the German army from further deportation. Thousands were killed by the Communist guards during the evacuation disorders or perished under bombardment. However, not less than 50,000 people were deported to the Soviet Union.44 In this way the Bolsheviks arrested and deported from western Belorussia, including Vilna, the following numbers of people:
1. Individual detentions
45,000
2. First deportation
140,500
3. Second deportation
70,000
4. Third deportation
50,000
Total
305,500
The question of Soviet deportations of the populations of western Belorussia and the western Ukraine in 1939—41 is discussed by various writers. E. M. Kulisher45 and Frank Lorimer46 give a figure of from 1.5 to 2 million. Poniatowski's figure is similar47; Dangerfield48 gives 1,080,000, which is the nearest to the truth. However, these writers uncritically assume that in western Belorussia and the western Ukraine in 1939 there were 4,500,000 Poles, and that the Bolsheviks in fact arrested and deported Poles only. From this figure they deduct the total number of those who returned to the Middle East, were repatriated between 1945 and 1948 to Poland, or perished during military operations. The total number of Polish citizens from the former Polish state was disclosed by the Bolsheviks for the first time in the Soviet memorandum submitted to the Polish embassy in Moscow, after diplomatic relations had been re-established as a result of the agreement between Sikorski and Stalin of July, 1941.49 The Soviet authorities then gave a figure of 750,000, of which a third were childern. This total included Polish prisoners of war, deported during mass deportations.
According to our calculations, from 1939 to 1941 the Bolsheviks deported from western Belorussia and the western Ukraine a total of 925,000 persons, including prisoners of war from the Polish army.
Of the previously cited number of 305,500 deported from western Belorussia, at least 200,000 were genuine Poles, and the remainder Belorussians and other nationals. Thus, at the outbreak of the German-Soviet war in 1941, there were about 65,000 Poles left on western Belorussian terriories (including the Belostok50 region, the Vilna region, and the city of Vilna); i.e.. the Polish element was considerably reduced.
THE SOVIET—GERMAN EXCHANGE OF POPULATION
An agreement between the Soviet government and Germany on the resettlement of the population of German origin from western Belorussia and western Ukraine to Germany and of the Belorussians, Ukrainians and Russians from Poland to the USSR, based on the principle of voluntary agreement,51 was signed on November 16, 1939.
On the basis of this agreement, about 25,000 Germans left western Belorussia for Germany and about 15,000 Belorussians returned home from Poland. In this way the German ethnic group in western Belorussia ceased to exist. There were no legal exchanges of Poles between the Soviet Union and Germany, although apparently such an exchange was initially contemplated. This may be concluded from a German order issued to the Polish Red Cross in Warsaw at the end of 1939, which instructed it to be prepared to receive prisoners of war who were expected to come from the USSR.32 It seems that later the Soviet Union decided to liquidate the Polish question by taking severe reprisals of the type carried out at Katyn.
After the first wave of arrests and deportations a large number of Poles escaped to Vilna, which was then incorporated into Lithuania, as yet un-sovietized. In 1939, 12,000 Poles escaped from western Belorussia to Vilna alone.53
On the other hand, the German persecution of the Jews in Poland provoked a Jewish exodus eastward across the scantily guarded Soviet-German frontier in 1939 and the beginning of 1940. According to the calculations of the Jewish Institute,54 about 200,000 Jews escaped from Poland to western Belorussia and the western Ukraine, of whom at least 120,000 reached Belorussia.
The new population increase in western Belorussia was due to the influx of personnel of the Soviet administrative, Party, economic, propaganda, police and military occupation apparatus into the large and small towns. This can be graphically illustrated by the enormous expansion of the town population:
Town
1939—1940
1941
Belostok
107,000
135,000
Grodno
50,000
62,000
Baranavichy
30,000
60,000
Brest
51,000
73,000
Slonim
17,000
30,000
Novogrodek
17,000
32,000
Vilna
209,000
260,000
This influx of population, mainly of non-Belorussian origin, balanced the josses due to deportations and detentions, so that the total number of inhabitants of western Belorussia during the Soviet occupation did not decrease between 1939 and 1941 and amounted approximately to 5,055,000. The new element may be broken down as follows:
Belorussians
3,890,000 (77.0%)
Jews
650,000 (12.8%)
Russians
260,000 (5.1%)
Poles
65,000 (1.3%)
Lithuanians
75,000 (1.5%)
Ukrainians
65,000 (1-3%)
Others
50,000 (1.0%)
Total
5,055,000
As compared with 1931, ethnographic relationships changed in 1941 as follows: approximately the same percentage of the population remained Belo-russian, 77%; the Russian and Jewish groups increased by 2.7%, the German group ceased to exist, and the Polish group was reduced from 5.9% to 1.3%.
GERMAN OCCUPATION OF BELORUSSIA 1941—1944
During the German occupation the ethnographic composition of the population of western Belorussia was subjected to violent upheavals. First, the German invasion of June, 1941, provoked a wave of evacuation of the alien Soviet element, approximately 50% of which managed to leave western Belorussia. Later the Germans almost completely exterminated the Jewish population- Of a total of 650,000 Jews in western Belorussia, no more than 10—12,000 survived. Only those who managed to join the guerillas in the forests escaped with their lives.55
The liquidation action was not only directed against the Jewish population. During military operations against the Red Army in 1941, the German SS front groups executed or sent into captivity not less than 25,000 Belorussians from western Belorussia, on the basis of denunciations by the remaining Polish activists who submitted to the Germans lists of alleged Belo-russian Communists.58 The German liquidation action assumed even greater proportions during the period 1942—1944, when the guerilla warfare was in full operation. During that period about 35,000 men and women were arrested and executed. In addition, around 100,000 Belorussians, most of them peasants, were liquidated in "pacification actions," as were about 20,000 Poles in separate anti-Polish operations.57
The Polish and Soviet guerillas executed about 25,000 Belorussians, mostly peasants, in the course of robberies or organized pogroms against the nationally conscious Belorussian elements.58 About a quarter of a million Belorussians were deported to forced labor in Germany.59 Thus the losses of population in western Belorussia during the German occupation were as follows:
Jews executed
640,000
Escaped to the East
75,000
Executed by the front line SS
25,000
Arrested and executed by SD, military police, Gestapo and other organs
35,000
Liquidated during pacification actions
100,000
Poles executed
20,000
Deported to Germany.
250,000
Killed by guerillas
25,000
Killed during military operations
15,000
Total
1,185,000
To this figure should be added the number evacuated during the German retreat from Belorussia in July and August, 1944. At that time at least 100,000 persons60 left western Belorussia, most of them for Poland and East Prussia, where they were overtaken by the Soviet army. The return of the Bolsheviks to western Belorussia gave the signal for the beginning of a new mass deportation of persons accused of collaboration with the Germans or of activities against Soviet interests. In this way, about 120,000 people of Belorussian nationality were arrested and sent to the Urals.61 Summing up, the main population losses during World War II (ignoring the catastrophically low natural increase of the population — 0.5%)62 amounted to nearly 1,500,0^0 persons in western Belorussia alone.
TERRITORIAL CHANGES 1945—49
As early as 1942, while military operations were still proceeding, the Bolsheviks defined clearly their territorial and nationality policy for the future.
Immediately after the beginning of the war with Germany, on July 30, 1941, the Bolsheviks signed an agreement with the Polish emigre government in London for the reestablishrnent of diplomatic relations in which all treaties between the Soviet Union and Germany were declared null and void, including the treaty of September 28, 1939, concerning the division of former Polish territory. The Poles interpreted this cancellation as the restoration of the Polish-Soviet frontiers existing before World War II, as specified by the Riga Treaty, and the Bolsheviks placed their own interpretation upon it, which was that western Belorussia and the western Ukraine should be included in the central Soviet orbit. Thus the new Polish—Soviet conflict between the Soviet government and the Polish emigre government was created, and a search was begun for pro-Soviet elements within the Polish community who would agree to accept the Soviet conception.
Having found such support in the Union of Polish Patriots.63 Stalin was able at the Teheran conference to give a precise formulation to his plan for the restoration of future Poland, which was to renounce its claims to the Belorussian and Ukrainian territories and to reestablish itself within the frontiers of Polish territory and territory acquired in the West. The "Curzon Line" seemed to the Kremlin the best territorial solution for various reasons: (a) it had been created in due course by the Alliance; (b) it separated from Poland the majority of the Orthodox (and Uniate) Belorussian and Ukrainian population, and therefore solved the religious problem in favor of the Orthodox denomination and consequently in favor of "russification."
It was approved as the provisional eastern frontier of Poland64 with Soviet modifications in favor of Poland, by all participants in the Yalta conference, and at the Moscow conference, in which a mixed Polish delegation including the Lublin Committee and the London emigre government participated.65
The Soviet Curzon Line shifted the pre-war Polish frontier westward and removed 179,740 sq. km. with a population of 10,652,979, according to the 1931 census, from the area controlled by the Polish administration before the war. The shares of the Belorussian SSR and the Lithuanian SSR were as follows:66
Simultaneously the Soviet Curzon Line severed from Belorussia the following territory with populations in 1931 and 1946 as shown:68
As we see, the part of western Belorussia incorporated into Poland, the so-called Belostok region, is an important territory with an area of 14,311 sq. km. and a population of 637.768.
The Bolsheviks willingly gave this territory to Poland in spite of its size because its population was mainly Belorussian of Roman Catholic denomination, toward which Moscow was hostile. The religious relationships were as follows:
STATISTICS OF 192179
District Roman Catholics Uniates Orthodox Jews Protestants
Belaya Padlaskaya 66.0 1.4 13.4 18.4 0.4
Belostok 60.6 0.2 9.7 27.4 1.8
Avgustov 90.9 — 1.1 6.5 0.4
Bielsk 45-3 — 42.6 11.7 0.2
Sokolka 80.0 — 10.3 9.3 —
Grodno 42.0 — 36.6 20.8 0.2
Volkovysk 46.2 — 41.6 11.8 0.2
Average 61.5 0.2 22.9 15.1 0.4
THE RESETTLEMENT OF POLES AND BELORUSSIANS ACROSS
THE CURZON LINE
The resettlement of specific groups beyond the delimited frontier had already been carried out by the Soviet Union in other instances. The following cases should be mentioned: mass deportations of the population into certain regions to do forced labor, the creation of the Jewish territory of Birobidzhan, the agreement with Germany of November 16, 1939, on population exchanges and the liquidation of the Crimean Tatars, the Kalmyk republic, the Chechen autonomous region and the Karachaev autonomous region in 1944—1945. A similar idea was conceived by Stalin with regard to Polish and Catholic elements even during the Teheran Conference.71 At the time, when Stalin stressed that he wanted no "Polish population" within the borders of the USSR, he was unquestionably referring to Bolorussians of Roman Catholic denomination and emigre Poles;72 to Roosevelt's question: "Do you plan any resettlement of the population?" Stalin answered in the affirmative. At the lime of the occupation of western Belorussia and the western Ukraine by Soviet troops in the summer of 1944, the Soviet plan for resettlement was immediately put in operation. On September 9 and 22, 1944, the Polish Lublin Committee, a Soviet puppet group, signed a number of resettlement agreements with the Belorussian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian Soviet Republics.
The complete text of these agreements was never published, but it is probable that the three were identical in their main points with those of a model prepared in advance, whose contents were published in the American, Soviet and Polish press.73 The text of the agreement with the Lithuanian SSR74 is known, and it is assumed that there was a similar agreement with the BSSR. All persons of Polish or Jewish nationality who were Polish citizens before September 17, 1939, and who lived on the territory of the Belorussiajfc Ukrainian of Lithuanian SSR, i.e. to the east of' the Soviet Curzon Line were subject to resettlement. These two categories of the population had a right to claim Polish citizenship again and to go to Poland. All persons of Belorussian, Ukrainian, Russian or Lithuanian nationality who lived on Polish territory to the West of the above-mentioned line were entitled to claim Soviet citizenship and to resettle in the USSR. The resettlement was supposed to take place without the exertion of pressure or compulsion, on the principle of free choice. The petitions for resettlement by those willing to go had со be submitted in writing or verbally to special commissions between October 15 and December 1, 1944. The actual resettlement was planned for a short time later, but was to take place before April, 1945. In practice the process of resettlement lasted several years.
POLISH ANTICIPATION AND REALITY
Pre-war Polish statistical propaganda which claimed that there were 5,274,000 Poles in the so-called eastern provinces (2,583,000 in the western Ukraine and 2,691,000 in western Belorussia)75 had practical results during the international discussion of the Polish question at the conference in Potsdam. A particular point discussed was the amount of compensation Poland should receive in the West at the expense of German territory for the territories lost in the East in connection with the new eastern frontier of Poland established at Yalta. In other words, how much territory should be given to Poland in the West for the resettlement of Poles from the East.7" Churchill and Truman, under the influence of Polish statistics, believed that 3-4,000,000 Poles would have to be resettled from behind the Curzon Line,77 and for this reason they were opposed to shifting the western Polish frontier to the western Neisse and Oder, since about 8 million Germans would have had to be expelled from this territory (including East Prussia).78 At that time Bierut was expressing the Soviet view that about 4 million Poles would have to be resettled from East of the Bug,79 and London Polish emigre circles quoted a figure of 6 million.80
The slow progress of repatriation in 1944—45 made it necessary to introduce certain amendments in the inflated Polish figures. At the second session of the Council for the Affairs of Recovered Territories which took place on December 16—18, 1946, in Cracow, Henryk Kopec delivered a report on the subject of the demographic aspects of the changes in Polish frontiers.sl
According to his calculations, in 1939 there were 4,222,037 Poles on the territory incorporated by the USSR, who were allegedly concentrated in the following governorsh ips:
Vilna
878,434
Tarnopol
632,945
Novogrodek
466,579
Lvov
567,637
Volyn
360,314
On the other hand, Kopec cited the number of Ukrainians, Belorussians and Lithuanians under Polish administration and included in the plan of resettlement in the East. He calculated that the following numbers were to be resettled in the Soviet Union:
Ukrainians
701,361 (from the regions of Rzeszow, Lublin and Cracow)
Belorussians
79,267 (mainly from the Belostok District)
Lithuanians
8,000
Russians
42,343
Total
830,971
The calculation of Kopec did not agree with official Polish data. On October 1, 1944, the Government Department for Repatriation82 gave a figure of 673,876 persons of Ukrainian and other nationalities to be resettled to the East, and on October 1, 1945, only 538Д86.83
The campaign of resettlement from the Belorussian, Lithuanian and Ukrainian SSRs to Poland started three weeks after the signature of the agreement, As early as October 9, 1944, the Polish State Repatriation Board was established, and in March, 1945, 45 local repatriation commissions with headquarters in Vilna> Luck and Baranavichy were in operation. At the beginning of July, 1944, when the front still lay along the Vistula, the Soviet news agency Tass reported84 that the first trains with resettlers had left Baranavichy, Grodno, Stolptsy and Volkowysk for Poland, but the number of people in these transports was not disclosed. The conditions under which the resettlers found themselves was extremely difficult: nothing had been organized to receive the newcomers and the localities to be assigned to arriving resettlers had not yet been made known. The breach in the front was not made until January 22, 1945; the Red Army then advanced to the Oder in its central sector, thus creating a large space for resettlement.85
The experiences under the Bolshevik occupation of 1939—41 on the one hand and the fear of reprisals on the part of returning Bolshevik authorities on the other were the main reasons why the population exploited all oppor™ tunities of escaping from direct Soviet rule and of going to the restored Polish state, which in accordance with international obligations was expected to become an independent state with a democratic government. The resettlement agreement offered an opportunity to all Belorussians of Roman Catholic denomination to emigrate to Poland; it was enough for a person to prove that he was a Roman Catholic and a citizen of pre-war Poland in order to be included in the "Polish group." For people of Orthodox faith it was much more difficult, but even they occasionally insisted that they were Roman Catholics in order to escape from Soviet occupation.86 According to official statistics, 135,654 persons or 34°/o of those registered for resettlement left western Belorussia in 1944—45, that is, they left the territory between the Soviet "Curzon Line" and the former Soviet—Polish frontier of 1921—39, excluding the city of Vilna and part of the Vilna region which were incorporated into the Lithuanian SSR. During the same period 53,899 persons, out of a total of 350,432 persons registered for resettlement, departed from the city of Vilna and the Vilna region which had been incorporated into the Lithuanian SSR.87
The resettlement action became more animated when, after the unconditional surrender of Germany, the Polish frontier was established on the western Neisse and Oder, and former German territories in the West and in Prussia were incorporated into Poland. Now the resettlers were simply directed to these free territories under considerably better conditions than before. In this way, in 1946, 136,419 persons were resettled from the western BSSR and 123,443 from the city of Vilna and its region (Lithuanian SSR).88
In 1947 resettlement was neglected. Only 2,090 persons left the western BSSR, and 671 emigrated from the city of Vilna and its region. The action of resettlement of the so-called "Poles" from western Belorussia was then discontinued. Its results may be illustrated as follows:89
RESETTLEMENT TO POLAND IN 1944—49
This table illustrates clearly the political situation in Poland during these years. After the signing of the resettlement agreement, the population had great hopes of escaping from Soviet oppression, because at that time it was expected that a democratic regime would be established. The population responded to these expectations with mass registration for departure. In 1946 the sovietization of Poland began, and there was no longer any real hope that after leaving their own country they would be liberated from Communist terror: it existed already in the BSSR and began to spread in Poland. As a result, the population renounced the idea of resettling. In 1947 only 2,761 persons left for Poland, and 288,769 decided to remain where they were, since there was no compulsion in western Belorussia, except in Vilna, where the Lithuanians were pressing the population to go to Poland,92 while in western Ukraine 69,577 Poles were compelled to register and to resettle.93 Similar reprisals were applied by Poles on their territory.
According to their locality of residence, only 10% of the resettlers were townsfolk and 9O°/o were peasants.94 This is a very important indication of the ethnographic character of the resettlement. In 1944—45 in the villages of western Belorussia to the East of the new Polish—Soviet frontier there was. no Polish population whatever: Polish settlers, forestry employees, servicemen, police, large landowners and civil servants of the former Polish state had been arrested and deported by the Bolsheviks in 1939—41; some fled abroad and the remaining few had been liquidated by the German occupation authorities.95 The countryside of western Belorussia was purged of alien elements and had become monolithic in ethnographic composition. The Jewish population and the gypsy and German groups had ceased to exist. Therefore about 90% of the resettlers (from western Belorussia to Poland) were Belorussians of Roman Catholic denomination who planned to escape from the Bolshevik yoke, exploiting the resettlement agreement. When they became convinced that resettlement in Poland did not liberate them from Communist rule, a number of them renounced their original intentions. In 1944—45, and in 1946—1947 a total of 395,000 Belorussians of Roman Catholic denomination went to settle in Poland on the newly acquired territories. Resettlers from the city of Vilna and its region went to settle in East Prussia,96 and from other Belorussian territories they went mainly to the western Polish territories.97 There were about 45,000 Poles in the towns of western Belorussia, east of the Curzon Line, and this number left for Poland-
As has been seen, it was not only impossible to find the expected 2,691,000 "Poles" in western Belorussia; a total of 452,176 persons left, among them about 45,000 native Poles. The rest were Belorussians of Roman Catholic denomination, and about 10-12,000 Jews who had survived German persecution.
Such real facts astonished even the Poles themselves, who had naively believed in their artificial statistics. At the second session of the Council for the Affairs of Recovered Lands, in December, 1946, Dr. V. Skryman read a report about the progress of resettlement, underlining the poor results obtained, particularly in Belorussia. He tried to justify to a certain degree the slow progress ol the resettlement by saying that in the Vilna region and in other Belorussian territories the Repatriation Commission was submitting candidates to strict controls, requiring proofs not only that the candidate's language was Polish but that he was of genuine Polish ethnographic origin. Great difficulties were encountered in connection with the loss of personal documents during the war. He blamed the Catholic clergy in western Belorussia and the Ukraine who distributed pastoral letters of the higher ecclesiastical hierarchy advising the population not to depart.98
Certainly the explanations of Dr. Skryman are not sufficient to justify the comparatively small number of resettlers. The main proof of `'Polish" origin was adherence to the Roman Catholic faith. This was easy to prove. If there were any obstacles they concerned rather people of Orthodox denomination who tried to pretend to be Poles in order to emigrate. In such cases they had to produce documentary proof of their Polish origin. The Resettlement Commission did not reject the applications of 288,769 persons from western Belorussia, but these people voluntarily renounced their plan of resettlement when they learned that Poland had also become a Communist state.
THE REPATRIATION OF FORMER POLISH CITIZENS FROM THE USSR TO POLAND
Apart from the above-mentioned agreements with the BSSR, the Ukrainian SSR and the Lithuanian SSR of September, 1944, Poland signed a separate agreement with the USSR on July 6, 1945," in Moscow, dealing with the resettlement of former Polish citizens from all sections of the USSR to Poland. This agreement included Poles and Jews who were citizens of the former Polish state and whose deportation to various parts of the USSR had occured in 1939—41. In its structure this agreement was similar to the agreements with individual republics. It provided on the one hand for the resettlement of Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Lithuanians and other nationalities, from Poland to the USSR on the voluntary principle. The final date of the resettlement campaign was fixed at June 15, 1946. A supplementary clarification of this agreement was provided by Modzelewclri, Polish ambassador to Moscow, in a radio talk on July 7, 1945.100 He stated that the above-глер ticned Resettlement Agreement of July 6, 1945 included those Poles and Jews who had served in the Polish army during the war on the territory of the USSR or contributed to the restoration of the independence of the country or rendered other services. The resettlement action began in the autumn of 1945, and achieved the following results.101
1945
22,058
1946
226,1401947
7,964
1948
7,251
1949
553
Total
263,966
It is to be regretted that the ethnographic classification is missing from the table, and therefore it is difficult to say what percentage was constituted by Belorussians and Ukrainians deported in due course, together with Poles, to the USSR. According to the calculations of the Jewish Institute102 there were about 150,000 Jews among those who returned from the USSR, either deportees of the 1939—41 action or refugees who escaped the German extermination campaign and fled to the USSR during World War II.
Among the Poles who returned from German camps in the West, there was a considerable number of Belorussians of Catholic denomination who were covered by the resettlement agreement and sent directly to the former German territories in Poland. According to Schechtman,103 10% of the 1,472,324 persons who returned to Poland from German camps were from the other side of the Bug. Therefore the total numbers of various nationalities resettled from Belorussian territories to the west of the "Curzon Line" were as follows:
Belorussians
469,000
Poles.
120,000
Jews
85,000
THE RESETTLEMENT OF BELORUSSIANS TO THE EAST OF THE SOVIET-POLISH FRONTIER
been planning to liquidate the existing religious and national differences in the western regions of Belorussia and the Ukraine by resettling Roman Catholic elements to the west of the Curzon Line,- and by transferring STl Orthodox people and Uniates to the east of the line. This action began in October, 1944, when э dense network of resettlement commissions in Lublin. Hrubie-show, Khelm, Zamosc, Krasnostaw, Przemysl, Lubartow, Tomaszow, Belostok, Belaya, Bielsk, Lomzha and so on, set about compiling lists of Belorussians, Ukrainians, and Lithuanians to be resettled in the USSR.104
On November 29, 1944, Izvestia wrote that the first transport of 122 Ukrainian families had arrived in Kherson from Poland. In December, 1944, and the first months of 1945, during the period of intense cold, the forcible resettlement in the USSR assumed vast proportions. Polish and Soviet authorities planned to move 701,361 Ukrainians, 79,267 Belorussians, 42,343 "Russians" and 8,000 Lithuanians.105 As no one was anxious to leave his farm and more favorable conditions to join the deportation, it seems obvious that the transfer was not voluntary. The Ukrainians and Belorussians replied with an armed guerilla resistance. During 1945 and 1946 the guerilla movement in the regions of resettlement considerably delayed this action. In April, ]946, the Ukrainian units of Banderovtsy and Bulbovtsy completely paralyzed the Soviet—Polish campaign in the area between the Czechoslovak frontier and the Curzon Line, thus preventing the resettlement of Ukrainians in the USSR.106
The same thing happened in the Belostok District. The Belorussian guerilla army of the Corny Kot (Black Cat) organized in the Belaviezha virgin forests in the beginning of 1945 under the command of General Vituska received considerable reinforcements during this period from the population of the Belostok district of Orthodox denomination threatened with forcible deportation to the USSR. The Polish division under the command of General Paszkiewicz, "Security" units and the NKVD started a campaign against the Belorussian guerilla Black Cat army in the spring of 1946. However, the joint forces failed to defeat the Belorussian guerillas, and only forced them to move to the territory of the BSSR (to the east of the Curzon Line). At the end of 1946 the failure of the pacification campaign on the one hand and mounting resistance on the other, forced the authorities to discontinue the deportation of Orthodox Belorussians from the Belostok district. The campaign of resettlement to the USSR achieved the following results:107
Despite propaganda assertions that the resettlement was to be on a voluntary basis, the Poles in the first stage of resettlement, in agreement with the Soviet resettlement commissions, applied police pressure to the Uniates and the Ukrainian—Belorussian population of Orthodox denomination within the territory under their administration in order to remove these people to the East of the new Soviet—Polish frontier. From 1943 the Bolsheviks had
Before December 31, 1945
341,715
January—April, 1946
69,095
May, 1946
62,070
June, 1946
43,118
July—December, 1946, inclusive
2,221
Total
518,219
These figures include all those expelled from Poland to the USSR. According to the statement of Volski, Deputy Minister for Repatriation Affairs,108 of May 2, 1947, the total figure of 518,219 persons resettled to the USSR included 483,000 Ukrainians, 30,000 Belorussians and about 5,219 Lithuanians.
At the end of 1946 the resettlement campaign to the USSR was finally abandoned, and was not renewed. In order not to reinforce the guerilla movement, the Poles resettled about 218,000 Ukrainians in East Prussia, but most of the Belorussians of Orthodox denomination remained in their previous locality of residence. According to the census of February 14, 1946, there were about 117,000109 of them in the Belostok district. One characteristic feature of the whole proceedings should be underlined: the Belorussian population of Orthodox denomination who declared that they were of "Russian" nationality, were not forced to go to the USSR. This is proved by the absence cf a "Russian" group among the resettlers. Apparently the Poles were afraid to touch the "ruling" nation, and there were no volunteers for resettlement to the USSR among them.
Thus the Belorussian guerilla army under General Vituska crowned the services rendered to his motherland and the liberation movement with the very great achievement of paralyzing Soviet plans for severing the Belostok district from Belorussia and incorporating it permanently into satellite Poland by means of the forcible deportation of the Belorussian population of Roman Catholic denomination. Today the national character of the Belostok district has not changed. The Belorussian language, customs, traditions and national culture are preserved. As a result, in 1948 the Polish regime was compelled to organize schools with Belorussian as the language of instruction in the Belostok district.110
THE NUMBER OF BELORUSSIANS WEST OF THE SOVIET-POLISH FRONTIER
West of the Soviet Curzon Line, Belorussians were settled in the following regions:
1) The Belostok district;
2) Former German territories in western Poland;
3) Former German territories in East Prussia, incorporated into Poland.
Ethnographic relationships in the Belostok district remained unchanged with the exception of the Jewish and German groups which ceased to exist there. After the war the Poles succeeded in expelling only 30,000 Belorussians of Orthodox denomination, while 117,000 remained. As compared with the pre-war state, the population in the Belostok district was reduced by 350,000. Of these, 176,500 were Jews, 20,000 were Germans and the other 150,000 were the victims of Soviet and German deportations. The last figure also includes about 36,000 persons resettled in the Elk, Golda and Olecko districts which were incorporated into the Belostok region; about 10,000 who immigrated in 1944 to the West and 30,000 who were deported to the USSR in 1945—46.
At the beginning of 1956, the population of the Belostok region, including the incorporated districts, amounted to 1,030,735, of which the Belorussian group included:111
Orthodox Denomination
120,000
Roman Catholic Denomination
558,000
Other denominations
13,000
Total
691,000
Belorussians in the districts incorporated into Poland numbered about 300,000, of whom 280,000 had resettled from western Belorussian and the rest directly from West European countries. Among those who resettled in the western territories of satellite Poland, there were about 25,000 Belorussians of Orthodox denomination or of other denominations who managed to exploit the resettlement agreement. The Belorussian population is dispersed throughout the whole incorporated territory, but the majority, about 60%, are in the region of Wroclaw; 20% are in the Stettin region and about 20% in the districts of Zielona Gorka, Opole and Silesia.
As already mentioned, it was principally the inhabitants of Vilna and the Vilna district and Ukrainians from the Przemysl region who were resettled in East Prussia and Pomerania (mainly Danzig, Koszalin, and Stettin). Among the resettlers there were about 133,000 Belorussians of Roman Catholic denomination and about 2,000 of other denominations. Summing up ail the statistics, the following figures are obtained:
NUMBER OF BELORUSSIANS RESETTLED WEST OF THE CURZON LINE
1946
1956
In the Belostok Region
632,000
691,000
In the Western Regions of Poland
300,000
350,000
In East Prussia and Pomerania
135 000
150,000
In Central Poland
15 000
16,500
Total
1,082,000
1,207,500
CONCLUSIONS
1) In the course of the resettlement action of the so-called "Polish" element from western Belorussia to Poland, it became glaringly obvious that Polish pre-war statistics on the number of Poles in western Belorussia had been completely falsiiied. In reality, they constituted only 5.9% of the total population. In order to inflate the percentage of Poles in western Belorussia, the pre-war Polish state treated as Poles all Belorussians of the Roman Catholic denomination, and a large percentage of the Belorussians of Orthodox denomination and of other religious denominations.
2) The native-bom Poles and the immigrants from ethnographic Poland, as well as the active local pro-Polish element, were liquidated by the Soviet authorities in 1939—41, and those who survived were decimated by the Germans during the occupation of Belorussia and finally by the Soviet authorities in 1944. After the retreat of the Germans and the occupation of western Belorussia by the Bolsheviks in 1944, all the 45,000 remaining Poles, including those in the city of Vilna and its districts, were resettled in Poland in accordance with the Resettlement Agreement. Therefore hardly any Poles remained east of the Soviet Curzon Line after 1947.
3) The Soviet authorities were interested in removing not only the Poles but also the Belorussians of Roman Catholic denomination, so that they might forge a stronger link between the remaining population of Orthodox denomination and Moscow, even though this link was one of religion. On the other hand, the population itself hoped that it might find better living conditions in Poland. This is the reason why about 400,000 Belorussians, in addition to the native Poles, agreed to move from western Belorussia to Poland.
4) After ceding the Belostok District to satellite Poland, the Soviet authorities and Poles attempted to sever this Belorussian territory permanently from Belorussia by forcibly deporting from this territory Belorussians of the Orthodox denomination and polonizing Belorussians of Roman Catholic denomination. Thanks to the efforts of the Belorussian guerilla army and the resistance of the local population, these plans failed. Only 30,000 Belorussians were expelled from the Belostok district, while 691,000 remained.
5) In consequence of the resettlement campaign, the ethnographic composition of the satellite Polish state is only nominally pure. There are still 1,207,500 Belorussians living there, i.e., nearly as many as were accounted for in the whole of western Belorussia in the Polish statistics of the 1930's. Just as before World War II, the policy of polonization is being applied to this Belorussian group with the connivance and support of Moscow.
6) The resettlement action was absolutely unnecessary, for it only inflicted suffering upon the Belorussian and Ukrainian people, and brought no positive results. It contributed to the present situation, in which nearly 460,000 Belorussians (including those who returned from the West and from the USSR) and about a million Ukrainians are dispersed throughout the territory of Poland, where their denationalization is inescapable, whereas formerly the Polish element in western Belorussia and the western Ukraine represented no real force and could have had no influence on the national life of these two peoples.
Kupala in Fact and Fiction
ST. STANKIEVIC
Janka Kupala has acquired well-deserved fame as the greatest Belorussian poet and the creator of modern Belorussian literature in the broadest sense of the word. From the standpoint of the ideological content of his works he is the generally acknowledged spiritual leader of the Belorussian nation and the prophet of its national renaissance. This exclusive role, the significance of Kupala in Belorussian literature, and his unusually great popularity among the people were the main reasons why the Bolsheviks were unable to eliminate Kupala completely from the history of Belorussian literature, as they did with a number of other Belorussian poets and writers. It was impossible to liquidate him, if not physically, at least as a poet, although his attitude toward Communism and the Soviet regime through all its periods was sufficient to make this desirable. In his pre-revolutionary works the poet conceived and devoloped national-liberation ideas, not all of which could be tolerated by Communism later on. After the October revolution, while he continued to serve these ideals faithfully, Kupala's attitude toward Communism was at first negative and openly hostile, and later, as Communist oppression became more intolerable, secretly hostile. Although during the last period of his life and work Kupala was compelled to adopt a formally positive attitude toward the Soviet system, there are a number of proofs that this "ideological transformation" of the poet was not sincere but only external. Western scholars who are interested in Belorussian affairs draw a parallel between the roles of Kupala and of Jakub Kolas, another outstanding Belorussian poet, in Belorussian national life and their attitude toward Communism. Walter Kolarz, a known expert on Soviet problems, writes as follows: The role which Kolas and Kupala played in Soviet Belorussia is unparalleled throughout the USSR. No Belorussian Bolshevik ever assumed the role of a national leader of the Belorussians — the leadership was in the hands of Kolas and Kupala. Instead of "removing" the two poets, the Soviet regime tried to direct their poetic creation into the "right channels" and to use them for Communist propaganda. Kolas and Kupala were often critized, at times they seem to have been in disgrace but they never disappeared, as did many excellent writers and poets of almost all the major peoples of the Soviet Union.
The purge of Kolas and Kupala would have been tantamount to the bankruptcy of Soviet cultural policy in the BSSR, since the two were not only outstanding literary figures but actually cultural "awakeners" of their people. Belorussia could do without its "national democrat" historians and folklorists, it could do without its leading
Communist politicians. Kolas and Kupala, however, were indispensable. Their case showed that there are limits even to purges in the Soviet Union. Tiie purge in Belorussia could not be carried so far as to endanger the cultural foundations of the third largest people of the Soviet Union. This is why Kolas and Kupala were spared despite all their "sins" and "deviations."1
Since Jsnkn Kupala remained a figure in Belorussian literature, as did two other Belorussian poets of this generation, Jakub Kolas and Zmitrok Biadula (who died in 1941), the Bolshevikc considered it necessary to perform a thorough operation on his literary legacy in order that it should not diverge from the Soviet political line in its important aspects. This they achieved completely only after the death of the poet (June 28, 1942) by the following methods: I) Kupala's whole work was carefully purged, so that the post-war editions oi his work exclude a large number of his poems which in critical reviews of Kupala have progressively passed into oblivion; 2) those works which are currently being reprinted, are given a tendentious interpretation in Soviet literary criticism in accordance with its requirements; 3) the period of the compulsory sovietization of the poet after 1930, although the poems written during this period were comparatively limited and poor from an artistic v'ewpoint, is being appraised by Soviet literary critics as the period of the most fertile development of Kupala's poetic talent.
All these methods of falsifying creative literature are generally known in the BSSR, aiH were applied to a number of other Belorussian poets and writers. But with Kupala, this practice of falsification has recently been applied on such a large scale and so unscrupulously that it may serve as an eloquent example of how creative literature is treated in the Soviet Union. The appraisal of Kupala by Soviet literary critics from the time of the complete sovietization of Belorussian literature in 1930 to the present passed through an interesting evolution. When in 1929—30 there arose the first wave of premeditated suppression of all aspects of Belorussian national life in the BSSR and the mass imprisonments were organized of the so-called "national democrats," Kupala was particularly accused of favoring Belorussian nationalism and of being hostile to the Soviet regime. In subsequent years these accusations became milder in tone, although even then the literary critics, while emphasizing the "ideological transformation" of the poet, never forgave him for his past "sins" both before the revolution and during the post-war revolutionary period, until the time of the already mentioned "ideological transformation" after 1930.
Until recently, Soviet literary critics have represented Kupala in a similar light. Only during the last few years has the rapid rehabilitation of Kupala taken place. In addition to a number of small articles on the poet's works, there are three long books by well known literary critics, E. Mazalkou,2
A. Kucar3 and V. Ivasyn4 which deserve special attention. In these works Kupala is represented as a poet who was always progressive and revolutionary, who in his early works propagated ideas which led to the October revolution," and later, after the victory of this revolution, immediately became a devoted enthusiast and ideologist of the new Soviet order. The works of Kupala which were in contradiction to these ideals and frequently even openly hostile to them, and for which Soviet critics of the 1930's blamed him and tould not forgive him, are now being explained as a result of Kupala's temporary lack of understanding of the proletarian sense of the Bolshevik revolution, or is the short-term influence upon him of the Belorussian reactionary nationalist environment.
To assist in the writing of theoretical works on Kupala and as if to strengthen the appraisal of this political aspect of his work, the Institute of Literature and Art of the Academy of Sciences of the Belorussian SSR published Janka Kupala's Collected Works in six volumes5 in 1952—54. Neither in the title of this edition, nor in the introduction to it, nor in the explanatory notes to the separate volumes is it anywhere mentioned that this is a complete collection of Kupala's works, but neither is it mentioned that it is incomplete. As thus edition is the product of the highest scholarly institution of the BSSR, and has the external appearance of a scholarly edition, because at the end of each | volume it gives bibliographical data about each work as well as various versions of texts, the reader gains the impression that this six-volume edition comprises the whole literary heritage of Kupala. Thus, U. Jurevic, one of the rev ^ ers of the edition, states: "The publication of the complete collected works of Janka Kupala is an important event in the cultural life of the Republic."6 A. Kucar also states that: "The complete edition of Kupala's works is now under press."7
The nature of the edition of Kupala's Collected Works has been examined in some detail, as further on in this article this aspect will be the point of departure. Actually, this edition, so cautiously presented to the reader as the complete. edition of Kupala's works, excludes a large number of his poems, the most important ones from Kupala's ideological viewpoint and the most valuable from the literary angle. All the literary works of the poet written before 1930, with the exception of translations from other languages, number approximately 370 large and small works, of which about 150 are not included in the above-mentioned "complete" edition.8
However, this quantitative percentage of Kupala's works today suppressed the BSSR cannot compare with their qualitative value if it is remembered that the ideological and artistic character of Kupala's poetry without these suppressed works is presented not only in an incomplete but in an entirely falsified light. At the same time it should be pointed out that there was however, enough space in this edition of the Collected Works for all ordinary translations of Kupala from other languages, of which there are a considerable number, and that these poems are of secondary importance for the study of the literary and ideological personality of the poet.
The first volume of the Collected Works begins with a long critical article about Kupala written by V. V. Barysienka. In his analysis of Kupala's contribution the works suppressed in the edition are not mentioned at all. Neither is there a hint about Kupala's ideological deviations from the Soviet line, or about his nationalist tendencies.
The frst literary work of Kupala was his poem Muzyk (peasant), published on May 15, 1905, in the Minsk Russian newspaper Severo-Zapadny Krai (North-West Territory), and as early as 1908 Kupala published the first volume of his works under the title Zalejka (The Flute). The second volume of Kupala's works entitled Huslar (The Psaltery Player) was published in 1910, and his dramatic poem Adviecnaja Piesnia (Eternal Song) and his great dramatic work Son Na Kurhanie (The Dream on the Burial Mound) were published in the same year, 1910.
Although Kupala rapidly gained stature in the artistic sense after Zalejka, from the point of view of theme and ideological content these four publications constitute a single whole and complete the first period of his literary work. These poems were born under the clear influence of the revolutionary events of 1905, and contain the expression of the main ideas of this revolution Their main theme was the difficult living conditions, the indescribable poverty of the Belorussian peasant, and the social injustice together with demands that the human dignity of the Belorussian peasantry and of the nation be recognized.9
Thus both the social aspect and the ideological trend of these works, originating in the revolutionary ideas of 1905, were not contradictory in any way either to pre-revolutionary Bolshevism or to the present Bolshevik views about that historical period. For this reason, of 106 individual poems published in the volume Zalejka, only three were not included in the new edition of Collected Works; even the most hostile Soviet literary critics of the 1930 period never blamed Kupala for his Zalejka period.
The three poems which have been excluded from Zalejka constitute a sort of prelude to those thoughts and ideas which later were to be so richly developed in Kupala and which in the Soviet Union today are Considered fallacious, reactionary and politically harmful. These three poems are Adzin (Alone), in which, as the title indicates, the poet expresses his loneliness and disappointment with social life because of a lack of understanding on the part of the people; idealization of the past of the Belorussian people is, as we shall see later, one of the great sins of the Belorussian poets of that period, and decided the fate of the poem Nad svajej ajcynaj (On my Country); and finally the third poem, Lubimos maje susiedzi (Dear Neighbors,' Let Us Love Each Other), in which Kupala, rejecting the principle of the class struggle, appeals to all social strata of the Belorussian population for mutual understanding and unity.
Of the 72 poems in the volume Huslar, 7 were excluded from the Collected Works.19 The reasons for this are very clear. One of these poems, Husli Samahraji (The Self-Playing Psaltery) idealizes the past of Belorussia during the feudal times of independent principalities, and the six other poems, Jak iny z chaty vychodzim (When We Go out of the House), A jak nam zorki zahasnuc (When Stars Shine for Us no More), Biasieda (Conversation), К zoram (Toward the Stars), Kruhavarot (Whirpool), and Maja chata z kraju (literal translation: "My House is on the Outskirts," but the real meaning is: It is Not I [y Business—Translator's note) are full of profound pessimism under the influence of which the poet tries to disassociate himself from real life and struggle. This pessimism, provoked by Stolypin's reprisals after the revolution of 1905, is particularly characteristic of his volume Huslar and contradictory to the Communist doctrine, which disapproves of escapism and calls for revolutionary enthusiasm and struggle. Therefore it is understandable that these as well as a number of subsequent poems expressing similar sentiments had now to be eliminated from Kupala's works so that the following paragraph could be written about him:
During the period of reaction, while in the writings of Belorussian bourgeois-nationalistic writers fallacious idealistic tendencies, amorality, mysticism, and antidemocratism were on the increase, Kupala staunchly held to revolutionary-democratic positions in literature.11
Today, preventing the dissemination of those works of Kupala in which he p Vimistically reacted against Soviet reality, the Bolsheviks have removed one of the important aspects of Kupala's outlook which, it is true, never dominated him, but was nevertheless characteristic of certain of the most critical years of his literary production.12
With regard to the other poems of the volumes Zalejka and Huslar which have been suppressed in the Collected Works, the thoughts and ideas expressed m them contain only the seed of those which later mainly determined the ideology of the poet. For this reason it cannot be said that after the elimination of these works from the literary output of Kupala, Soviet literary manipulation was able to falsify Kupala very much. In the present Soviet edition of his works and in Soviet literary criticism, the Kupala of the first period remains basically as he really was. However, the situation is different as regards the subsequent periods of his writings.
In connection with the abolition m 1905 of the ban on publishing in Belorussian which had been in force since 1867, the opportunity was opened for the development within the territory of tsarist Russia of the Belorussian press and of publishing activity in general. Belorussians exploited this opportunity, and on September 14, 1906, the first Belorussian weekly newspaper, Nasa Dola (Our Fate) appeared for the first time in Vilna All its first issues ` were, however, confiscated by the Russian authorities, and the newspaper was closed down. On November 10, 1906, another weekly newspaper, Nasa Niva (Our Field) appeared in its place which, thanks to its more moderate character, survived until 1915, that is, up to the German occupation of Belorussia during World War I. Soon all Belorussian poets and writers rallied round Nasa Niva and it became the center of the Belorussian national renaissance and of the Belorussian literary movement. This period of Belorussian literature is known in history as the Nasa Niva period. Janka Kupala, who in 1908—09 worked on the editorial board of Nasa Niva, and was its editor-in-chief during the years 1914—15 was one of the poets most closely connected with this paper and with its ideological trend.
In the beginning, the newspaper Nasa Niva developed the ideals of the 1905 revolution paying primary attention, like Kupata in his first works, to the idea of social liberation of the Belorussian people and to restoring them their human dignity. Soon after, however, the newspaper began to outgrow this narrow social framework and supported the cause of the many-sided national and cultural renaissance of the people as a nation equal in worth to other nations. Up to the turning point in the year 1930, Nasa Niya was looked upon with favor in the Soviet Union, and its ideological renaissance trend was considered progressive. The Literaturnaya Entsyklopedia pu^Ashed in 1929 authoritatively stated that its ideas were educating a whole generation of poets and writers whose works were giving the basic tone to the epoch, and therefore this period in the development of Belorussian literature can rightly be called the Nasa Niva period.13
This newspaper is now considered reactionary and the History of the Belorussian SSR, published in 1954 by the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of the Belorussian SSR, called it the "organ of the Belo,:ussian bourgeois nationalists.14 In order to justify Kupala for his collaboration with this "bourgeois nationalist organ," the History of the Belorussian SSR writes:
Nasa Niva was the only paper which was published in Belorussian. For this reason, poets like Ciotka, Bahdanovic, Biadula, Kupala, Kolas and other democratic writers were compelled to publish some of their artistic works in it. However, this did not affect its bourgeois-nationalist trend.15
Kupala's ideological horizon during the second period of his writings followed the ideals of Nasa Niva. This period of literary production lasted from 1910 until World War I. The little that Kupala produced during these years was written during the initial stage of World War I. His works of that period were generally included in his volume Slacham Zyccia (Alor-'g the Road of Life), published in 1913, and in Spadcyna (Legacy), published in Minsk
In 1922, as well as in his great drama Raskidanaje Hniazdo (The Destroyed Nest), written in 1913 in prose but published in- a separate volume only in 1919.
Kupala's works of that period are outstanding for artistic maturity of talent, technical perfection of verse, great richness and variety of subject matter, high artistic standards and poetic scope. All these and many other literary features of this work indicate that at that time the poet reached the summit of artistic perfection.
Both the artistic scope and the ideological sphere of the poet's interests widened and deepened considerably. Literally all national and social problems of the Belorussian people discussed in the columns of Nasa Niva were fully reflected in Kupala's writings. The poet responded sensitively to all requirements of Belorussian national life, and took upon himself with full awareness the role of people's tribune. At that time there became firmly associated with Kupala's name the well-deserved title of prophet of the Belorussian national renaissance and ideological leader of the Belorussian people.
While in the first period of his creative work Kupala was concerned with social problems, he now gave priority to the national problem. The poet treated social questions, frequently discussed even now, as inseparable from national questions, or imparted to them a profoundly national character.16
Because of Kupala's new preoccupation with national problems and his ideological association with Nasa Niva, it was logically to be expected that his works of that time would have to go through the sieve of current Soviet censorship. This is in fact what happened. Of 217 original works published in the volume Slacham Zyccia, 51 poems were excluded from the latest edition of the Collected Works, and of the 162 works in the volume Spadcyna, 55 poems are excluded from this edition.
Ndsa Niva, when putting forward its demand for a full national renaissance of the Belorussian people, had to define its attitude toward Russians and Poles, because both the former and the latter claimed Belorussia and there the main cause of the political and cultural backwardness of the Belorussian nation. Under the circumstances it should be stressed that while sharply attacking tsarist absolute rule and the russifying policy conducted by Russian reactionary nationalist circles, and on the other and staunchly fighting against the Polish chauvinist elements in Belorussia, Nasa Niva never showed any hostility either toward the Russian or the Polish his works Kupala to whom the sentiment of national hatred was the defended similar positions. Moreover, of all the Belorussian poets of and Kupala distinguished himself by his ideas of lofty humanitarianism, Was Writings had Profound ethical foundations." The fact that Kupala of p delighted with the literature of both nations and translated a number Russian and Polish poems into Belorussian tends to indicate that he felt Particular hostility toward the Russian or the Polish people.
However, present-day Soviet critics and the editor of the Collected Works of Kupala prefer a different interpretation. Not a single one of a number of poems in which Kupala, in one form or another, speaks against the national enslavement of the Belorussian people by tsarist Russia appears in the new edition of his Collected Works. It is perhaps understandable that such a fate was reserved for Kupata's poem Paprostu (Speaking Simply), which concludes with the words: "Stop torturing us, you Poles and Russians!" or his poem Hodzie о (Enough), in which the poet indignantly exclaims: "Enough of western or eastern culture! For a Belorussian they have the same value, and you, our bosses, have the same nature: you would have sucked the last drop of blood from the hearts of others." However, in a number of his poems Kupala does not call the oppressors of the Belorussian people by name, but gives them anonymous appelations such as "alien." All these poems are excluded from the Collected Works, apparently for the simple reason that they may produce an association of ideas undesirable for the present political trend in Belorussia.
Other methods of purging Kupala of undesirable expressions are made use of in the Collected Works. One interesting example is the poem Slachom Hadou (In the Wake of the Years). This poem is very important as Kupala gives there the characteristics of his writing over a 20-year period, while trying to fall in with the requirements of Soviet criticism. Considering it imperative to include these poems in the Collected Works, the publishers with-cut scruple excluded the whole verse, "`One is In favor of a Muscovile and another of a Warsaw paradise," without even mentioning this censorship in a footnote.18 ь
In addition to eliminating from the literary legacy of Kupala not only the poems expressing anti-Russian sentiments but also those which contain so much as a vague and generalized hint about the national persecution of the Belorussian people by the tsarist regime or by nationalist Russian circles of the tsarist period, present-day Soviet literary critics try to make not only Kupala but all of Belorussian literature dependent on Russian literature, particularly on Maxim Gorky, the classic of Russian Soviet literature. This dependence reaches such a height that in the light of commentaries of current Soviet literary critics the impression is gained that Belorussian literature as a whole is a satellite of Russian literature, and that Kupala is a satellite of Gorky.
E. Mazalkou, in his monograph on Kupala, wrote:
Soviet Russian literature, the progressive and leading literature of the Soviet Union, headed by Maxim Gorky, the Soviet writer of genius, and by the best and most gifted poets of the Soviet epoch, including V. Mayakovsky, A. Tolstoy, M. Sholokhov, A. Fadeyev. A Furmanov and M. Isakovsky, has been and is having exclusively beneficial influence upon the literature of Soviet Belorussia as well as on multi-national Soviet literature.19
Maxim Gorky was a great teacher and a solicitous friend of young Belorusian literature. His immortal revolutionary works full of ardent hatred toward the old world of violence, lies and oppression, works which consolidated faith and victory of social truth and justice, found a profound response in the works of Belorusian writers.
That Belorussian literature succeeded in achieving a genuine popularity and in expressing the leading and most lofty ideals of its time, it owes to a considerable degree to the profound and inspiring influence of the works of Maxim Gorky.21
And here are the opinions of Ales Kucar, another literary critic:
The beneficial influence of the writings of A. M. Gorky on Janka Kupala contributed to the correct understanding by Kupala of the task of unification in the struggle of the Belorussian people with the great Russian peoples.21 A number of these slogans in defense of the man are uttered in Gorky-like style. In this respect Janka Kupala remains faithful to his great comrade-in-arms and teacher.22 In their poetry J. Kupala and J. Kolas acquired an all-Russian significance, as faithful followers of A. M. Gorky, in defending realism which they counter-opposed to the corrupt, decadent trends in literature.23
Ivasyn repeats nearly the same thing as Kucar:
Portraying the personal fate of a hero against the background of historical events, the profound psychological revelation of personalities, poetic treatment of the character of a man of э heroic initiative, the impregnation of the drama with internal action, all this bears testimony tc\T"4ipala's fruitful and creative learning from Gorky.24
Tae following words from the history of the Belorussian SSR are the culmination of all these revelations:
M. Gorky, the great Russian proletarian writer, played the greatest part in the development of modern Belorussian literature and in the works of Janka Kupala and Jakub Kolas. The works of Maxim Gorky awakened creative thought and found a profound response in the works of .both Belorussian poets. Maxim Gorky helped Belorussian literature to become fully popular, and an expression of the leading ideas of their period. The name of Maxim Gorky was the literary banner for Jakub Kolas and Janka Kupala. The great proletarian writer was the first to draw attention to the young literature of Belorussians and welcomed it. He became its great teacher and friend.85
All these assertions from Soviet sources are entirely groundless. All those common of similar ideas which the Soviet critics find in the works of both Gorky and Kupala were so widespread and generally typical of literature °f the pre-revolutionary period that quite naturally they could appear in the works of individual writers entirely independently of any literary influences. It is noteworthy that the above-mentioned quotations about Gorky's influence on Kupala rot only unanimously repeat identical allegations but quite frequently use identical formulations and even expressions. It is one more proof that this is merely another case of a political line imposed from above on Belorussian literature.
To be quite objective it should be remembered that since the early period of his writing Kupala was in close contact with M. Gorky, who was the first among Russian writers to draw attention to his works, paying high tribute to them, and translating his poem A cho tam idzie (Who is Coming) into Russian. As long ago as 1911 Gorky wrote:
I should like to draw the attention of sceptics to the young literature of Belorussians — the most oppressed nation in Russia — to the work of writers who have rallied round the periodical Nasa Niva (Our cornfield). I should like to take the liberty of quoting the song published recently by Nasa Niva, the words of which were written by Janka Kupala, the Belorussian poet [Gorky's translation of Kupala's poem A chto tam idzie is quoted here].
In order to understand the profound meaning of this song which, perhaps, in due course, may become the national anthem of the- Belorussians, the reader should look through the columns of Nasa Niva; he will learn a lot of interesting things.26
Kupala held Gorky in high esteem, and after the latter's death he dedicated one of his poems to his memory, in 1938. But this does not signify that Kupala was Gorky's pupil, or that he owed to Gorky all his progressive ideas. Kupala, like nearly all other poets, included in his works occasional reminiscences from works of other writers, because of his temporary admiration for them. However, they never had a literary influence upon him. Kupala was a highly original poet.27 It is also noteworthy that Gorky personally adhered to similar opinions when in 1910, in a letter to the Ukrainian writer M. Kaciubinskyj, he wrote the following: "There are two poets in Belorussia: Jakub Kolas and Janka Kupala. They are very interesting. Their writings are full of simplicity, longing, melancholy and sincerity. If our writers had some of these qualities, my God, it would have been wonderful." 28
With reference to foreign literature, Kupala's interest was mainly concentrated on the works of Taras Shevchenko, the Ukrainian poet, and on the democratic Polish poets; he was also interested in Russian literature. Kupala's translations from the literatures of these three peoples, neighbors of the Belorussians, serve to substantiate the above opinion. If all the long and short works translated by Kupala from these three literatures are counted, Polish literature leads with 37 works, Ukrainian is next with 25 (works of Shevchenko exclusively) and Russian is last with 14.
*
Nasa Niva and the poets supporting it, including Janka Kupala, treated the Belorussian nation as an entity from the social point of view and made no classification into hostile social classes of exploiters and exploited. This theory of the classless Belorussian nation was based on the fact that the members of the exploiting strata of the Belorussian nation, the large land-owners, industrialists, businessmen and so on, had either been polonized or russified as a result of the historical process, and ipso facto were no longer a part of the Belorussian nation, or they were nationally alien by their origin. The Belorussians who preserved their national features, such as language, tradition and culture, and who during the period of the Belorussian renaissance began to be nationality conscious again, consisted exclusively of peasant masses. There was very little differentiation within this group, and therefore it was not sensitive to any form of class struggle. Instead there was an intense struggle against the nationally alien exploiting classes in Belorussia, which was not only of a social but also of a national character.
The theory of the classlessness and social unity of the Belorussian nation
I became one of the main ideological fundamentals, which was not limited to the Belorussian movement of the Nasa Niva period. After the proclamation of NEP in Soviet Belorussia, this theory was included even by the Belorussian National-Communists in the program of activities of the Communist 3arty of Belorussia. Thus, on November 5, 1921, the Communist Party of 5osheviks of Belorussia approved 13 program points under the heading: "The National Question and the Communist Party." Point No. 6, which summed the results of the October revolution for Belorussia, reads as follows:
This political-social liberation became at the same time a national liberation for Belorussians because the class and nationality composition of the Belorussians was nearly identical. Since time immemorial the Belorussians had ceased to be large landowners or businessmen, neither were they industrialists or kulaks.29
During the national pogrom in the BSSR in the 1930's this thesis was most strongly attacked by the Communists. Nevertheless, it suggests that this theory about the classlessness of the Belorussian people was popular and that its correctness was unchallenged by the Belorussians.
Janka Kupala, who in his writings faithfully reflected the ideological trend of the Belorussian national renaissance, laid this particular theory at the foundations of his ideology. He never saw any differences within the Belorussian nation. Thus, for instance, in his poem Za Praudu (For the Truth) he addresses all Belorussians:
Drop your quarrels and squabbles, you children of the same mother,
We are united by the same idea;
With understanding and order we shall become prosperous,
We shall be treated as human beings.
The social hostility in the works of Janka Kupala was directed exclusively against nationally alien elements, against all those "aliens" and "foreigners," the "vindictive forces from east and west," "alien people," "bad neighbors," to which reference has been made in the preceding chapter. Instead, there is literally not a single poem of Kupala's in which he describes class distinctions or social hostility among the Belorussian people themselves.
This position of Kupala gave considerable trouble to the Bolsheviks who, while rehabilitating Kupala m general, had to purge him somehow of this particular sin, especially important from the viewpoint of Communist ideology. Contrary to the truth, contemporary Soviet literary criticism unanimously asserts that Kupala was nevertheless aware of the class struggle within the Belorussian people and chat only Belorussian reactionaries and bourgeois nationalists tried to convince him of the contrary and to soften the sharp class nature of his poetry.
As long ago as 1950 the Large Soviet Encyclopedia wrote:
The ideologies 01 the Belorussian bourgeois and kulak elements were trying to lead literature away from the class struggle of the working masses, to plant in the consciousness of the people a deceitful theory about the classlessness of the Belorussian nation, and to divert Belorussian literature into a single channel of national liberation of the `motherland'.8C
A. Kucar points out that: Efforts of the reactionary bourgeois nationalists, critics and journalists ... to distract the attention of writers from the contemporary class struggle were unsuccessful, and that Kupala and Kolas aimed at reflecting the varying class strata in Belo-russia.31 The subject is discussed more amply by E. Mazalkou, who said:
Like the Polish chauvinists the Belorussian bourgeois nationalists tried to convince Kupala that he had taken the wrong path, that the Belorussian nation represented "one single entity," and that it did not contain sharp contradictions between the exploiting and exploited classes.32
Nevertheless, according to Mazalkou, Kupala did not follow the path indicated by the "bourgeois nationalists"; he stated:
Every new poem of Kupala's is impregnated with hatred of the oppressors, is full of young revolutionary energy, and in itself is a glaring negation of the deceitful assertions of the bourgeois nationalists about the classlessness of the Belorussian nation and to the effect that the aims of the class struggle are alien to the Belorussian nation.33
The falsification of Kupala's literary legacy by means of ascribing to his writings the presence of class struggle elements within the Belorussian people has been the most naive of all these falsifications. Thus, the publishers of the Collected Works eliminated from their edition all Kupala's poems in which, as for instance in the quoted poem Za praudu (For the Truth) and in Lubimos, maje susiedzi (Dear Neighbors, Let Us Love Each Other), Kupala repudiates the existence of any class distinctions or class struggle among the Belorussian people. However, Soviet literary critics could not find among Kupala's works a single poem where these class distinctions are manifest. Therefore all assertions ot1 this criticism similar to those quoted above are either groundless or are based on poems in which the poet admittedly shows social hostility, but only toward nationally alien and non-Belorussian elements in Belorussia. Thus V. Ivasyn tries to reinforce his arguments with Kupala poem Ja nie dla vas (1 Am Not For You), while stating that:
In opposition to the bourgeois nationalists who hypocritically proclaimed that they would serve the whole Belorussian nation, he [Kupala] consistently adhered in his writings to the principle of revolutionary-democratic partisanship. In his first poems the poet bravely and frankly declared his class sympathies and dislikes, decisively and courageously disassociating himself and his work from the ruling classes.34
Thus Ivasyn contradicts himself. In the poem Ja nie dla vas, рапу, о nie (I Am Not For You, My Lords, О No) quoted by Ivasyn, the word party (my lords) v/as a term exclusively applied at that time to the Polish owners of large estates in Belorussia, and expresses the poet's hostility toward people who are socially and nationally alien to Belorussians.
Belorussian literature of the Nasa Niva period attempted to renew its historical past as a glorious epoch of its state and cultural life. Of all the Nasa Niva poetry, the writings of Kupala contain the clearest and the most comprehensive pictures of the past, both of the legendary and historical period of the independent Belorussian sovereign principalities with their democratic order up to the XIII century, and later the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, during which the united Belorussian nation dominated other peoples included in the Duchy. In resurrecting aspects of the past glory of the Belorussian people, the aims of Janka Kupala and his contemporaries were not only literary, but national as well. By reviving past centuries of glory in the national consciousness and comparing and contrasting them with wretched present conditions, the poet wished to awaken the national conscience of the nation, to compel it, while drawing strength from past centuries, to shake off serfdom. Besides poems of lesser artistic value, Janka Kupala devoted to reminiscences of the Belorussians past his best and ideologically strongest works, including the poems Na kucciu (Christmas Eve Dinner), Nad Niomnam (On the Banks of the Nemen) and Svajmu narodu (To My Own People). All these works, and others which contained even the slightest reference to the independent life of the Belorussian people in past centuries, are missing from the Collected Works. Present-day research on Kupala makes no mention of these poems either.
The reason for these drastic operations on Kupala's works are understandable. Writings in which the poet describes the historical past of Belorussia as a happy epoch of free and independent state life and of its high cultural development contrast sharply with the basic lines of current Soviet historiography.
According to this historiography, all East Slavic tribes at the dawn of history formed part of a single "old Russian nationality,"35 and its dismemberment into individual feudal principalities took place as a result of the lack of economic unity,36 which made it possible for the Lithuanian princes to conquer and subjugate "western Russia," the so-called Belorussian lands, in the XIV century.37 However according to Soviet historians there is no case at all for distinguishing a separate Belorussian language or culture at the time, because:
Among the wide masses of the population on the lands and in the principalities there was a strong feeling of the unity of Russia. While local dialects existed, the population spoke the same language, had the same culture and the same secular and church legislation.38
Present Soviet historiography asserts that under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania the Belorussian people were not at the summit of their golden age but in a state of cultural decline and political enslavement:
The guesswork of Belorussian nationalists which purports to show that the golden age of Belorussian history was the period of the rule of the Lithuanian Dukes is a distortion of historical truth and a falsification of the history of the Belorussian people. Lithuanian feudal lords aiming at the consolidation of their domination in individual regions of Belorussia occasionally made some concessions to the Belorussian feudal lords and to the trading classes of the population, and these concessions in the form of regional privileges and charters of the so-called "Magdeburg rights" granted to the towns did not affect the working masses of the Belorussian people and did not improve their situation at all.39
It is clear that m this situation there was nothing for the Belorussian people to do but to strive to unite with Russia. According to the assertions of Soviet historians, and contrary to the historical truth, these attempts at unification were very marked during the whole Belorussian historical process.40
While in the poetic interpretation of Kupala, Belorussia was free and independent both during the period of feudal sovereign principalities and as a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in the modern Soviet interpretation: "Belorussia achieved statehood for the first time in history as a result of the wise nationality policy of Lenin and Stalin."41
A number of poems which are of a clearly national character and in which the poet expresses his profound and sincere patriotic sentiments are not included in the Collected Works. Together with numerous other works, the best of his lyrics, poems of great importance for the whole of his literary work, and which are not missing from one of the previous editions of Kupala's collected works or from a single anthology of Belorussian poetry, have now been eliminated from Kupala's literary legacy.
Thus, widely known poems such as Maladaja Bielarus (Young Belorussia), Uzo dnieje (Already Day is Dawning), and Bielaruscyna (All That is Belorussian), in which the poet joyfully states that Belorussia, after a prolonged period of decline, has begun to revive and to demand a complete restoration of her national dignity equal to other nations, were not included in the Collected Works. The poet concludes his work Maladaja Bielarus with the slogan, "My young Belorussia, take your honorabU" place among nations!" The well-known works of Kupala, Zabrany Kraj (Annexed Country) and Prarok (the Prophet), which expose the tragic situation of the Belorussian people in conditions of enslavement and demonstrate how it destroyed in the national conciousness the sense of national and human dignity are also excluded from the Collected Works. The poem Caru Nieba i ZiamM (To the King of Heaven and Earth), in which the poet, after expressing his great indignation at the enslavement of the Belorussian people, makes a mighty appeal: "O God, if you are King of heaven and earth, give us back our Motherland!," was also dropped. A similar fate was reserved for a very characteristic poem, Kazka ab piesni (The Tale of a Song). In the latter, in beautiful, poetic images the poet expresses the idea that only their own national song can have an influence upon the people, making them happy and inspiring them to great deeds, and that an alien song has no appeal to the national soul. Finally, the profoundly emotional poem Ja ad vas daloka (I Am Far From You) is missing from the Collected Works. During his visit to Finland, Kupala proclaims his boundless love for Belorussia and his profound homesickness for his own country. The poem concludes with a beautiful lyrical image: when he dies, and is buried in an alien land, his shadow will rise up, "lean on a cross, and look through centuries in the direction of the fields of his own Belorussia."
It is very characteristic that even the poems in which Kupala strongly stresses the important role played by national language in the national life of the nation, and speaks in its defense against attacks by western and eastern denationalizers do not form part of the Collected Works. Among the poems belonging to this group and particularly popular and important for gaining an understanding of the complete personality of Kupala are Voraham Bielaruscyny (To the Enemies of All that is Belorussian) and Rodnaje Slova (One's Own Language).
In the first poem the poet protests strongly against the suppression of the Belorussian language and literature. It is noteworthy that in this particular case he speaks not against Russian but Polish chauvinists. According to the testimony of Kupala's wife, Zenon Pietkiewicz, a Polish journalist, tried to prove in one of his articles that actually there was neither a Belorussian literature nor a Belorussian language, and that Kupala "is inventing unnecessary literature." Janka Kupala replied to this chauvinistic sally with the poem Voraham Bielaruscyny.42 This anti-Polish tendency did not, however, save Kupala's poem, which is an enthusiastic hymn in honor of the native language which, when the people had lost everything else, remained "faithful Щ order to lead the people from their fall to boundless joys." Some time ago V. Lunacharsky wrote the following about the poem Rodnaje Slova: "It is difficult to find a better, more sensitive and more solemn assertion of the love of an oppressed people for their own language."43
It should be particularly stressed that in the poems in which Kupala refers to the Belorussian national problem and speaks out for Belorussia, there are absolutely no narrow nationalistic accents and no nationalistic hatred. Despite the ideas expressed in these poems, in the Soviet Union today ……
The ideas expressed in Svajmu Narodu and Na Schod were developed by Kupala in a number of other poems during 1918—19, which were later published in a subsequent volume of his collected works, Bieznazounaje (Nameless). Thus the negative attitude toward Bolshevism assumed sharp forms in his poem Bjuc na tryvohu zvany (The bells are tolling the alarm); the Bolshevik revolution is represented here as a sinister tolling of alarm bells which, although allegedly "announcing the new spring" and "calling to the new God" for the Belorussian people, are in fact "tearing their arteries" and "destroying their own home." The anti-Bolshevik nature of this poem is absolutely clear. However, the sharpest and most severe condemnation of Bolshevism is in the poem Kryuda (Injustice). Here as in his poem Na Schod, also written in 1918, Kupala calls the Bolsheviks "unshackled slaves," and says that is why "the human spirit was unable to rise high;" he refers to them as a "slave" who "made an alliance with injustice and offered his own shoulders to support it." It goes without saying that both these poems are now also excluded from Kupala's writings.
As the ideological conclusion of Kupala's works of this particular period, we may take his two poems, one written on August 28, 1919: Paustan z narodu nasaha (Rise from among our people), and Pierad buducyniaj (Facing the future), which was written on January 24, 1922. Although these poems were written more than two and a half years apart, they have common ideological foundations and suffer identical fates. The first, due to Bolshevik censorship, was not included in the volume Spadcyna, and the second was actually published in Number I of the Belorusian literary periodical Adradzennie (Renaissance) in 1922, which the very next day was confiscated by the same censor. Later Soviet literary critics stopped referring to these two poems altogether.46
Taking as his point of departure the assertion that the Belorussian people did not have sufficient strength to raise a national revolution on a scale large enough to achieve the liberation of their country from alien domination, Kupala first calls for a prophet to rise and "to take off the shackles from the homeland," then calls for a bard "to wake the dead," then calls for a knight "to liberate his country" and finally appeals for a ruler for whom "Belorussia has long been waiting," who should rise "to restore his destroyed throne."
Kupala's representation of Belorussia as a homeland in shackles after the proclamation by the Bolsheviks of the Belorussian "independent" state as the Belorussian SSR, which took place on January 1, 1919, is clearly eloquent. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Soviet critic, O. Kanakocin, wrote of the poem Paustan z narodu nasaha: "We did not expect such a provocation, even after knowing the whole dark past of the poet."47 In 1919 the well-known Russian Bolshevik poet, Demyan Bedny, reacted to poem with the following words:48
The poet betrayed the people, Is dancing for lords' pleasure, Yes, lords' pleasure ... Janka's nightingale song Has become a snake's hiss, Yes, snake's hiss.
Now Kupala concluded sadly that now as before the people are clanging their shackles and "forgot who is the boss and who deprived him of his royal attire." This reproach in his poem Pierad buducyniaj (Facing the Future) evolves progressively into an open and severe national self-flagellation of the nation for its indifference, national passivity, and ideological cowardice. In this poem, written under Soviet domination, the poet depicted Belorussians as "subdued strangled mice," as "robbed of their honor and shirt, expelled from their own home."
Kupala's satirical comedy Tutejsyja (Natives), a work of high artistic quality completed on August 31, 1922, has not been reprinted and is condemned to complete oblivion. It was performed once in the Minsk Theater in 1926, but the day after the premiere was removed from the repertories of the Belorussian theaters.49 Tutejsyja is the last published work of Kupala in which he succeeded in taking a clearly and openly negative stand against the Bolsheviks and the Soviet regime. The action of Tutejsyja takes place during 1918—20, when occupation armies were changing frequently in Belorussia. The play not only refers to Soviet rule as a regime of foreign occupation, but even caricatures the Bolshevik occupation and presents it in a most unfavorable light as compared with the Polish and the German occupations.
Thus, Kupala's writings during 1918—22 are strongly permeated with the idea of a free and independent Belorussia, and not with the idea of the Soviet-Belorussian republic being established in its various forms. Kupala does not even mention this Soviet republic, considering it an alien creation which does not satisfy national aspirations. Bolshevik literary criticism of the 1930's saw in the writings of this period an extremely critical attitude by Kupala toward Bolshevism and the Soviet regime. L. Bende, official Party literary critic, wrote in 1931:
During the first years of peaceful construction Kupala, blinded by bourgeois nationalism, still continues to oppose actively in his writings the dictatorship of the proletariat. The most characteristic and largest works of this period are his play Tutejsyja of 1922 and the poem Pierad buducyniaj (Facing the Future).
Tutejsyja, Pierad buducyniaj, and other works of Kupala were the nationalist reaction to the dictatorship of the proletariat as a transition to peaceful construction, when the hopes of bourgeois and petty bourgeois nationalist elements for the restoration of the BNR [the Belorussian National Republic, proclaimed on March 25, 1918]—through armed conflict were frustrated by the victory of the working class.50 Today, when the time has come for a complete rehabilitation of Kupala, and he is being presented as an inspired bard of Communism and the Soviet order, such accusations are no longer being repeated. It is true that A. Kucar still points out that during that period Janka Kupala and Jakub Kolas:
... did not always understand the fundamental distinction between the socialist October revolution and the bourgeois democratic revolution, and made occasional errors in their writings. Thus, in 1922 Janka Kupala erroneously wrote a nationalist play Tutejsyja.51
However, this criticism of Kupala is considerably milder than L. Bende's statement, and interprets the poet's deviation from the Bolshevik political line as innocent error resulting from an incomplete understanding of the socialist meaning of the proletarian revolution. This justification by Kupala makes possible the following generalization on the part of the critic: "The theme of Soviet patriotism passes like a leitmotif through the entire literary work of Janka Kupala of the Soviet period."52
V. Ivasyn solves this problem in a similar way. After pointing out that at that time Kupala did not understand the "socialist essence of the October revolution," and while thus explaining the "errors and ideological blunders which occur in some of the works of the poet written during the civil war period,"53 Ivasyn adds the following appraisal of Kupala's literary work of that period:
Thus, during the 1920's Kupala takes a great and determined step toward a broad reflection of Soviet reality. He was attentively listening to the voice of the new epoch, trying to appraise the great historical turning point from the new Soviet positions, to understand those great changes which took place in the historical fate of Belorussia and the Belorussian people as a result of the great October socialist revolution.5*
In 1921 a sudden change was made in Bolshevik nationality policy in Belorussia. The session of the Central Executive Committee of the BSSR and the Third Congress of the Soviets (February, 1921) initiated the so-called "belorussification," which at first concerned itself sole