East Slav's "Unity"

[Uladzimir Katkouski]

Dear SEELANGers:

I already asked this question a year ago, but back then I got only two
answers that were not that helpful. So here I come again... ;)

My question is about the alleged "triedinstvo": As you know, in Russian
textbooks in 19th and 20th century (and maybe earlier) there was a very
popular notion, that East Slavs were allegedly one single "Russian"
nation, consisting of the "Great Russians", "White Russians" and "Small
Russians", and that they were really "one nation" for a "long" time, and
then "suddenly" they broke apart thanks to the "bad Polish influence" or
something like that. I've personally seen it in many old Russian texts.

Just yesterday I saw it again on wikipedia.org: "Since linguistic/ethnic
separation of the Belarusian nation as a separate ethnos around the
beginning of the 18th century, the term Ruthenia is rarely used for
Belarussians."



So the questions are:
- Where did this "18th century" came from?
- Do they still teach that in Russian history courses in Russia (or in
the US)?
- What do authorities in the field say about this "theory" these days?
- Are there good publications about that on the Net?
- What do you personally think about it?


Regards,
Uladzimir Katkouski
http://blog.rydel.net/



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