Year: 2008
Type: article
Abstract: This text analyzes the relation between independent movements of Lithuanians and Belarusians in the period of the First World War. Lithuanians stood firmly for the ethnographic model of their future state, whereas Belarusians, whose national movement was weak, declared loyalty to the formula of the restoration of the historical GDL. Since the projected ethnographic Lithuania actually coincided with historical ‘Lithuania Proper’ and the boundaries of the territory occupied by Germans, the latter exploiting the national factor tolerated and promoted a certain political activity of Lithuanians and Belarusians maintaining a quite constructive dialogue between the two. The events of 1918 proved that Lithuanians objectively pursued interests of their developed ethnocentric nation and in politics attributed only an auxiliary role to Belarusians. Simultaneously, Belarusians received a strong impulse towards their independence.
Source: Lithuanian Historical Studies
Author: Edmundas Gimžauskas
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2999857050