By “I know, I’ve already written about this so many times, but I would like Poles to finally understand and learn about what most people have no idea about: Belarus is the real Lithuania with which we were in the Union for several hundred years. And today’s Lithuania is Żmudź and the Balts, who do not speak Lithuanian but were given Lithuania as a gift. It is a simplification, but closer to the truth than that it is Lithuania that everyone (almost everyone) thinks about.”
A very interesting text was found on the Facebook profile of the Confederation of Poland and by an author who signed himself “pan-samochodzik”.
The Lithuanian language – but Lithuanian from the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – was Old Belorussian, also known as Ruthenian (not to be confused with Russian). Therefore, our nobility and the Lithuanian nobility did not need translators either at booze or during sejmiks and elections.
You probably couldn’t imagine that we could coexist for hundreds of years with a Lithuania that speaks today’s … Lithuanian?
Mickiewicz’s Lithuania was Belarus, not today’s Lithuania. Mickiewicz was born near Novogrudok – even today it is in Belarus. Mickiewicz’s second language was Byelorussian, and the culture he imbibed was the culture of… Byelorussia which he called Lithuanian. By the way, most of his neighbors were Byelorussians in that area.
However, most Poles probably know that Czesław Niemen was born and raised in Belarus. There is a Belarusian/Lithuanian note in his songs, and one would have to be deaf not to hear it (or not to know the Belarusian culture).
It is time for us to change our attitude towards the Belarusians (or perhaps we should call them Lithuanians), because they are our only friendly neighbors. One Lukashenko cannot change reality although he wants it very much.
I don’t know if the resurrection of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – Poland and Belarus/Lithuania – is realistic, but if you don’t even consider it, it certainly won’t happen by itself. I am not talking about incorporating it into the Rzeczpospolita as Russia did, but about a true Union of equal nations that lasted for hundreds of years. When Belarus was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it did not lose its language. Russia, on the other hand, eradicated it in less than 60.
Belarusians remember this …
By Author “pan-samochodzik”
INFO BOX
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz was a Polish poet, political publicist, activist of the Polish national movement, and a member of the Philomath Society. Some contemporary Belarusian scholars regard him as a Belarusian poet. He influenced greatly the development of nineteenth-century Polish and Belarusian literature.
Żemaitija, or Samogitia, or Żmudź is a historical region and ethnographic region in northwestern modern Lithuania. The region includes the Žemaitija Upland: a hilly and maritime terrain; coniferous and mixed forests, meadows, pastures, arable land; many small lakes and rivers.
Area: 17 000 km²
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