Severo-Zapadnyi krai

[Curt F. Woolhiser]

Quoting Uladzimir Katkouski <uladzik at YAHOO.COM>:
 >
> I guess Northwestern Province is fine. Maybe one
> possible solution is to add a short explanation in a
> footnote, that Russians wanted to destroy any remnants
> of the Litvin-Belarusan identity, so both words, Litva
> and Belarus, were banned.

Although Tsarist officials for a time prohibited the use of the geographical
names "Litva" and "Belorussija," they continued to use the term "belorusskij"
in reference to the East Slavic-speaking population of the central regions of
the former GDL (in accordance with the view that "belorusy" were simply a
sub-ethnos within the "triedinyj" Russian people). Indeed, as Siarhiej Tokc'
(2000) notes, in their fervor to rid the region of Polish influence, Tsarist
administrators and census takers actually contributed to the spread of the
ethnonym "belorus" among the local population in the late 19th century.

(See Tokc', Siarhiej (2000). Etnic^nyja pracesy na terytoryi belaruska-polskaha
pamez^z^a u XIX - na pac^atku XX stahoddzia. In E. Smul/kowa and A Engelking
(eds.), Je,zyk a toz*samos'c' na pograniczu kultur. Bial/ystok: Katedra Kultury
Bial/oruskiej Uniwersytetu w Bial/ymstoku.)

===============================
Curt Woolhiser
Harvard University
Department of Slavic Languages
and Literatures
12 Quincy St., Barker Center
Cambridge, MA 02138-3879 USA

Tel. (617) 495-3528
Fax (617) 496-4466
email: cwoolhis at fas.harvard.edu
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