От союзника до конкурента: восприятие белорусского национального движения в литовском периодическом издании "Litwa" в 1908-1914 гг.

ENThis part of the Lithuanian politicians considered the possibility of having Belarusian national movement as an ally mainly when it came to the ideological and actual opposition to the Polish national movement. It seems that, at least the Lithuanian National Democrats and part of the Catholic clergy were not particularly interested in development of Belarusian national movement itself. Such interest was dictated by reasons mentioned above, rather than by results of sequential studies of political and cultural program of the Belarusian national movement. Even representatives of Lithuanian intellectuals who maintained close contacts with the Belarusian national movement were not consistent in their position to see the Belarusian national movement as an ally or as a competitor, what testified at least the position of L. Gira. The change of view on the possibility of cooperation between the Lithuanian and Belarusian national movements can be recorded in 1910–1911. Representatives of the Lithuanian National Democrats proposed to maintain some wariness towards the Belarusian national movement, despite the fact that it was on the initial stage of development.This part of the Lithuanian intellectuals “saw” the Belarusian national movement’s claims not only for the heritage of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. They recorded the possible friction between the Lithuanian and Belarusian national movements in matters of affiliation of Vilnius town and its province (in the Belarusian national discourse it was called Vilnia) and saw an opportunity of “overlapping” Lithuania and Belarus in the ethnographic borders. This position of National Democrats and some Catholic clergy, which was expressed in the newspaper “Litwa”, testified that this part of the Lithuanian politicians clearly understood the position of Belarusian politicians to determine in the future the territory of Belarus by ethnolinguistic and ethnographic features and to create a separate political and territorial unit in ethnographic borders. [From the publication]