Belarusians in Latvia

(See No. 7 of „Syn Biełarusa“).

X.

The Polish-Muscovite alliance.

The struggle against the Belarusian national revival in Latvia has worked a miracle never seen before: a Polish-Muscovite alliance!

The Russian member of the Saeima Koretsky, already mentioned, and the Polish member of the Saeima Wierzbicki have shaken hands in their common struggle against the Belarusians.

The „esteemed“ allies have divided the spheres of work between them: Mr. Wierzbicki works on the Catholic Belarusians, whom he wants to turn into „Poles“, while Mr. Koretsky incites the Orthodox Belarusians and wants to make them „просто русскими“ (simply Russians).

Mr. Wierzbicki frightens the Catholic Belarusians with Orthodoxy, while Deputy Koretsky tells the Orthodox Belarusians that people want to turn them into Catholics.

Both collect and extort various declarations, put about the necessary rumours, and both at the same time and in concert speak out against the Belarusians in the Saeima and its committees.

Even the Muscovite and Polish Departments at the Ministry of Education have joined the deputies. With the consent of these Departments, in Ilukszta, where there are still no Belarusian schools, the Muscovite Department has set up, among the Belarusian population, a special type of Russian-Polish schools.

The pupils of these schools are Catholic Belarusians, who speak neither Polish nor Russian.

Parents and children understand well that they are not Russians, for in the first place they do not know the Russian language and speak somehow in their own way, „simply“, and in the second place they are all Catholics. On the ground of religion they might perhaps be ready to count themselves among the Poles, but they hear the Polish language only in church and at the Polish manor, and cannot speak it.

Russian is foreign to them, and Polish is incomprehensible, yet they learn both, because there is still no Belarusian school in Ilukszta, and learn they must.

Belarusians and Latgalians.

In 1921, when Belarusian national work began in Latvia, the strongest Latgalian party was considered to be the Latgalian Peasant Party, which had the largest faction in the Constituent Assembly.

The attitude of the other Latgalian parties toward it was very hostile, and almost all of them thought it necessary to fight sharply against it, and likewise against everything it did.

This party supported the Belarusians in their demands for the opening of a Belarusian Department and of Belarusian schools.

The rest of the Latgalian parties, which fought the peasant party, at once went into „opposition“ also to the Belarusian movement in Latvia. Even a party such as the Latgalian Labour Party took up a rather vague position toward the Belarusians.

The Latgalian Peasant Party is very weak in the present Saeima (it has only one seat), but the attitude of the other Latgalian parties toward it is still the same.

Well, naturally, by old habit the Belarusians get their share too, as they were once protected by this party in the time of its influence and strength.

There are two or three ardent enemies of the Belarusians. These are Mr. Kemps and Deputy Trasun the Elder. Both share (and perhaps draw inspiration from) the view of Inspector Svene that „there are no Belarusians in Latgalia at all“.

In his struggle with the Belarusians Mr. Kemps has not stopped even at slander and accusations in print against individual Belarusian activists, and soon one of these cases, concerning an insult in print, will be heard in the Riga District Court. To the credit of the Latvian Saeima it must be said that it decided to hand this deputy over to the Court.

The Latgalian parties have no matters of principle against the Belarusians, unless one counts Mr. Kemps's bare assertions that the Belarusians are not Belarusians but „former Latgalians“…

The existence of a common struggle in Latgalia against Polish influences ought, it would seem, to create even a community of interests and tactics in this direction, but many Latgalians still have no understanding of this auxiliary role of the Belarusian movement in Latgalia.

Possibly some (perhaps even a very significant) part is played in this by the fact that a new form of Polish intervention has now appeared in Latgalia: family intervention.

It shows itself in that the most influential and energetic representatives of the Latgalian intelligentsia very often turn out to be married to zealous Polish women. In these families the Polish language is heard, Polish ideology is felt, and distinct Polish influences prevail.