Belarusians in Latvia: Belarusians and Poles

From the moment the Belarusian Department was founded, the Poles have waged the most implacable struggle against it.

Their hatred of the Belarusians is explained by the fact that the birth of the Belarusian national movement in Latvia wrecked all the plans and hopes of the Poles for the early return and annexation to Poland of the "Polish Inflanty" (this is what the Poles still call Latgale).

As early as 1917 the Poles in Latgale, following the example of Galicia, the Vilnia region and Poznań, created their own territorial organization, the "Rada Polska w Inflantach" (Polish Council in Inflanty), and began to prepare for the annexation of this land to Poland.

The objective conditions seemed to be taking shape in the Poles' favour. Of the half-million inhabitants of Latgale, the largest group is the Catholics, numbering more than 300000 people; the remaining 200000 souls are divided among Old Believers, Orthodox, Lutherans, various sectarians and Jews.

The predominant Catholic group includes some 40 thousand true Poles, some 40 thousand Catholic Belarusians, little conscious of their nationality and at times inclined to count themselves as Poles too, several thousand Lithuanians, likewise considerably Polonized, and some 220 thousand Latgalian Catholics.

Because the Polish language was heard everywhere in the Polish manor houses and was also used in most of the churches, Polish influences in Latgale were very strong. And if one takes into account that the number of the Polonized population was itself very considerable (40000 Poles, 40000 Catholic Belarusians, and the Lithuanians besides), it turned out that the Poles had in Latgale not only cultural influence but also considerable numerical strength.

In 1919 the wishes of the Poles came true: Dvinsk and part of Latgale were occupied by the Polish army.

It is not known how later events of history and Polish relations with Latvia would have developed, had there not occurred a new offensive of Budyonny's Bolshevik cavalry, which forced the Poles to abandon Latgale.

Dvinsk and the whole of Latgale were finally occupied by the Latvian army.

Yet the Poles, thrown back by the Bolshevik army, did not cease to regard Latgale (Polish Inflanty) as their own country and prepared to seize it.

In 1920, when signing peace with Moscow, they bargained for themselves a very narrow strip of land which, like a long arm, stretched through the whole of the Hrodna region and the Vilnia region towards Latgale and maintained the link between it and Poland.

In 1921 the Poles succeeded in considerably widening and strengthening this strip, or bridge, by annexing the Vilnia region to Poland.

Next in turn were the six Latvian parishes (gminas) of Courland that separate the Vilnia region from the Dvina river and the town of Dvinsk, and after that the turn of Polish Inflanty would already have come.

But in that same year 1921 the national idea at last awoke among the Belarusian minority in Latvia too.

Both Orthodox Belarusians and Catholic Belarusians stirred at once. The cultural and educational society "Bacikaŭščyna" (Fatherland) was founded in Latgale.

The belated Belarusian movement was met with ironic jokes, from the Poles as well as from the Russians.

But when the society "Bacikaŭščyna" succeeded in obtaining the opening of the Belarusian Department, when Belarusian schools and teachers' courses began to open, when a Belarusian theatre appeared, and when, finally, the Poles saw that 40000 Catholic Belarusians were already escaping their influence and thereby cruelly breaking the ranks of the numerical forces on which the Poles had counted to lean firmly, then the sharpest struggle against the young Belarusian movement began. Everything was set in motion: religious agitation, denunciations to the government, and baiting in the press.

But a popular movement that has begun is hard to stop, especially when right and truth are on the side of that movement.

After the Belarusians came the Lithuanians, who demanded a Lithuanian school, not a Polish one.

The appearance of the Belarusian national minority in Latgale was a heavy blow to Polish influences and plans.

After the Belarusians had more or less managed to set up their work in the Lucyn and Dvinsk districts, they had to carry it over into the Ilukst district and the town of Ilukst itself, where Belarusian peasants are still being mercilessly Polonized to this day. And if one takes into account that in recent times the Poles have openly begun to lay claim to the Ilukst region, it will become clear why it is precisely now that the Poles are going to any lengths to somehow stop the Belarusian work and prevent its further spread, especially into the Ilukst region.