East Slav's "Unity"

[Uladzimir Katkouski]

Thank you very much for taking your time and writing about that, dear
Sergey. I have two points to make (maybe you could comment about them).

1) First, I think we have a problem with definitions. I suppose if we
view the notion of a nation in a modern sense, then we can not talk
about ANY nation before the Franch revolution and the end of 18th
century. There were neither French, nor German, nor Ukrainian, nor
Belarusan nations... So if we want to talk about earlier periods, how do
you call them? How do you define them? How do you view those
"communities of peoples" or whatever you call them?

2) Second. My biggest concern is the word "separated". Where did that
came from? From what I read about our history, I got the impression that
Belarusans of that day (i.e. the "Litvins" and "Ruthenians" of the Grand
Duchy of Lithuania) were much more different from Russians. I would say
that modern-day Belarusans (who are in many ways different from Russians
in terms of language, culture, mentality) are perhaps 10 times more
Russified than our forefathers of those times. Let me give you some
examples:

- In 1514 Francyska Skaryna published "Biblija Rus'ka" (Ruthenian Bible)
which was studied by many scholars, and shows a big number of
differences from Russian (not only lexically, but also in terms of
syntax). If you look at the lexicon of the Statutes of the Grand Duchy
of Lithuania, it appears that "Old Belarusan" (Old Ruthenian) had so
much richer lexicon coming from Polish and Latin. It's all gone in
modern Belarusian. And I guess 97-98% of modern-day Belarusians
perfectly understand Russian and speak at least at a passable level.
Back then that was not the case. I think Litvins of the Grand Duchy
wouldn't understand everything a Muscovite would say.

- Religion. Muscovites then were Russian Orthodox, nothing else. But
back then we were not only "Russian" Orthodox, but also Catholic,
Uniates, and ... Protestant! Don't forget the Reformation in our lands
that brought amazing results to GDL in terms of enlightment, education,
prosperity. (Religiously we were never close to each other.) But it was
then all over...

- Because of 1654-1673. For 13 years Muscovites/Russians waged a most
bloody war against GDL, killing 50% of our population, destroying most
of our cities, totaly erasing our European culture. I can't imagine
Russians in 2004 waging a war against Belarus in which they kill 50% of
our population.

So where's this thing with "separation"? Where does that come from? When
were we "together"?

I think Belarusans are ten times closer to Russians in 2004, then they
were in 1654, exactly 350 years ago.

Regards,
Uladzimir
http://www.rydel.net/



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