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Byelorussian history: myth or reality
We can often find critical articles on mythmaking of Belarusian historians in Lithuanian and Polish scientific journals, who with enviable persistence try to refute evident facts of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
The specific character of mentality of the East Slavic nations has one remarkable feature: our historical memory is much longer than an average biological existence of a human, and all conceivable sizes of so-called social memory, i.e. what can be transmitted from mouth to mouth from generation to generation.
It is the national phase of the public development in Eastern and Central Europe that has always brought up tasks for the agenda to set a boundary to clarify differences between one nation and another. Meanwhile, the history of this region shows that these differences are largely the result of the late nationalist interpretations which in different ways reconstructed the common cultural field which has existed here for centuries.
It should be just realized that this so-called school level of pride for the past is a complex of faith. Therefore, the more humane is to let each nation believe in these historical roots which are closer to it. What is more, modern epistemological procedures of verification of historical knowledge can prove the Belarusian, the Lithuanian and even the Krivichi’s and the Litvin’s version of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Even a superficial analysis of corresponding literature is a clear evidence of this fact. Just don’t resort to the argument ipse dixit (“he said it himself”) in such a dispute.
© National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, 2011
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