The myth of the “Belarusian European state”, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which opposed the aggressive claims of “Asian” Moscow, is the foundation of the modern mythology of Belarusian nationalists.
One of the tenets of the Belarusian nationalist ideology is the assertion that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a Belarusian and European state. Inheriting the Polish tradition, Belarusian nationalists oppose the “European GDL” to “Asian Muscovy”, which, in their opinion, underwent total “otatarization” in the 13th-15th centuries and lost its European cultural appearance. The dichotomy “European ON / Asian Moscow” was characteristic of the Belarusian national project from the very beginning: even the classic of Belarusian literature Maksim Bogdanovich wrote that, due to being a part of Lithuania, “Belarusians were not exposed to the Tatar region, like Great Russians”, and “developed on the old root . In the post-Soviet period, the fetishization of the GDL reached its climax, taking on completely unhealthy forms.
At the same time, historical facts contradict the ideas of the Belarusian nationalists about the “European character” of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which, however, does not bother too much of the “familiar” intellectuals who adhere to the principle “if the facts contradict my theory, so much the worse for the facts”. In order not to be unfounded, I will give specific arguments refuting the myth about the standard "Europeanness" of the GDL in comparison with the "Asian" Moscow state.
1) The Lithuanian princes, starting with Vitovt, actively attracted Tatars from the Golden Horde and the Crimea to their territory and provided them with the most comfortable living conditions. “The history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at one time presents us with an extraordinary event. When all of Europe armed itself with a sword and hatred against Muslims, then the prudent policy of the Lithuanian sovereigns, with love and hospitality, invited the Tatars to their possessions, who were forced by the confluence of various circumstances to leave their homeland and voluntarily migrated to Lithuania. It was here, precisely, that the wise foresight of the Lithuanian sovereigns endowed the Tatars with lands, patronized their faith and, subsequently, equated them with the native nobles, saving them from almost all taxes … In Russia, all the prisoners belonged either to the great princes and tsars, or to private individuals: the Tatar kings and murzas belonged to the first category; the captured Muslim, who was privately owned and did not accept Orthodoxy, was in complete slavery. Vitovt, on the contrary, bestowed lands on them, having determined only the granted duty to appear for military service … He also settled them in cities; and in Russia the Tatars were not allowed to settle in the cities … He also freed the settled Tatars from all payments, taxes and extortions. Finally allowed them the freedom of their religion, without forcing them to change religion and even hide with its rituals. In this way, they enjoyed all the rights of citizenship and lived in Lithuania, as if in their homeland, with their own faith, language and customs”(Mukhlinsky AO Study on the origin and state of the Lithuanian Tatars. St. Petersburg, 1857). In the XVI-XVII centuries in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (of which Lithuania was a part since 1569), according to various estimates, from 100,000 to 200,000 Tatars lived. Due to the high number of the Tatar population in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, along with the Cyrillic alphabet, there was an Arabic script used to record the Western Russian written language. The first mosque in Minsk appeared at the end of the 16th century (while in Moscow the first Muslim house of prayer was built only in 1744). By the 17th century, there were also mosques in Vilna, Novogrudok, Zaslavl and Grodno.
2) In the XIV-XVI centuries, Lithuanian princes owned the southern Russian lands as vassals of the Tatar khans, paying tribute to them and receiving labels from them for reigning. The last label from the Tatar ruler was received by the Lithuanian prince Sigismund II in 1560 (the Moscow prince became the owner of the khan's label for the last time in 1432).
3) In the 16th century, among the gentry of the Commonwealth, the ideology of Sarmatism gained immense popularity, according to which the Polish-Lithuanian gentry were considered the descendants of the Sarmatians - ancient steppe nomads. Sarmatism brought some features of Asian aesthetics to the culture of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which clearly distinguished it from other European cultures. The specificity of the Polish-Lithuanian cultural tradition was reflected, in particular, in the "Sarmatian portraits" of the 16th-18th centuries, in which the noble gentlemen were depicted in conventionally "oriental" clothing (zhupans and kontushas with colorful belts). By the way, the prototypes of the Slutsk belts so beloved by the “pro-European Belarusians” were belts brought from the Ottoman Empire and Persia, and their production in Belarus was set up by a Turkish master of Armenian origin Hovhannes Madjarants. In parentheses, I note that in the Russian Empire, in contrast to the Commonwealth, representatives of the upper class were depicted in portraits as was customary in the rest of Europe, that is, without the "Sarmatian" Asiaticism.
As you can see, the "Europeanness" of the GDL, to put it mildly, is greatly exaggerated (as well as the "Asianness" of Moscow). However, these facts will hardly force “conscious Belarusians” to reconsider their historical concept, because they have one universal counterargument for all the arguments of their opponents - “Muscovites” falsified our history (they destroyed / rewrote Belarusian chronicles, imposed false ideas about the Belarusian past, etc.). etc.).
If we talk about the GDL seriously, without resorting to ideological clichés, then even in the 17th century, when Lithuania was politically and culturally a province of Poland, the territory of Belarus was perceived by contemporaries as part of Russia, captured by the Lithuanians at one time. Here is what the Austrian baron Augustine Meyerberg wrote in the 60s of the 17th century: “The name of Russia stretches far, because it encloses the entire space from the Sarmatian mountains and the Tyra (Tura) river, called by the inhabitants of the Dniester (Nistro), through both Volhynia to Borisfen (Dnieper) and to the Polotsk plains, adjacent to Lesser Poland, ancient Lithuania and Livonia, even to the Gulf of Finland, and the whole country from the Karelians, Lapontsi and the Northern Ocean, along the entire length of Scythia, even to the Nagai, Volga and Perekop Tatars. And under the name of Great Russia, the Muscovites mean the space that lies within the boundaries of Livonia, the White Sea, Tatars and Borisfen and is usually known as "Muscovy". By Little Russia, we mean the regions: Braslav (Bratislawensis), Podolsk, Galitskaya, Syanotskaya, Peremyshl, Lvov, Belzskaya with Kholmskaya, Volyn and Kievskaya, lying between the Scythian deserts, the Borisfen rivers, Pripyat and Veprem and the Little Poland mountains. And near Belaya - the regions, concluded between Pripyat, Borisfen and Dvina, with the cities: Novgorodok, Minsk, Mstislavl, Smolensk, Vitebsk and Polotsk and their districts. All this once belonged to the Russians by right, but, due to military accidents, they gave way to the happiness and courage of the Poles and Lithuanians "(" Meyerberg's Travel ", Russian translation in" Readings in the Moscow Society of Russian History and Antiquities ", book IV. 1873).
A similar position is stated in the French geographical dictionary of the early 18th century: “Russia. It is a vast region of Europe that includes parts of Poland, Lithuania and all of Muscovy. Some geographers divide it into two parts - Great and Little Russia, they call these parts "Black Russia" and "White Russia". But Starovolsky divides Russia into three parts: Russia White, Black and Red …
Lithuanian Russia. It is part of White Russia and includes the entire eastern part of Lithuania. It consists of seven regions: Novogrudok, Minsk, Polotsk, Vitebsk, Rogachev and Rechetsk”(Charles Maty, Michel-Antoine Baudrand. Dictionnaire geographique universel. 1701).
And here is how the peasants of Belarus assessed the finding of their homeland as part of the Polish-Lithuanian state:
Oh, cola b, cola
Muscovites have come
Muscovites have come
Our relatives
Our relatives
One faith!
We were kind
We were happy
If Russia has usya, Trimyutsya
By one strength
For one was.
Yes nd to us for sins
Ponishli Lyakhi, Occupied our land
Already yes Lyakhovich.
Oh, Lyakhi would not go, Pans have not brought them together!
Oh, gentlemen, the schobes are gone, So they sold us out!
Oh, gentlemen, you disappeared, But you have abandoned the faith."
(Song of the peasants of the Minsk province // Otechestvennye zapiski. Volume 5. 1839)
The word "Muscovites" in the song has no negative connotations; it was the common designation for Great Russians in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Thus, during the period when the lands of White Russia were part of Lithuania, they were perceived by contemporaries (including foreigners) as Russian territories conquered by the Lithuanians and later subordinate to the Polish authorities, and the inhabitants of White Russia wanted the Great Russians to come as soon as possible and free them from the Polish -catholic yoke.
