I find it strange that Soviets were supposed to "polonize" western Vilnius region. I know they successfuly attempted to win the support of Polish minority there in the 1980/90-ies, but I've not heard of any support of the Poles by Soviets. On the contrary - they were being deported to various remote areas of the Soviet Union, which hardly can be called "polonization". What period are you specifically reffering to here ? Lysy 20:56, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Here I am reffering to this page: http://www.lithuanian.net/language/occupied.htm . An excerpt about the polonization is presented bellow
The occupation had a particularly great impact on eastern Lithuania. The Bolsheviks changed the borders of Byelorussia and Lithuania. The Smolensk, Novel, Starodub, etc. districts which had been part of Byelorussia since early times were given to Russia, and the Byelorussian border was moved to the west, into ethnic Lithuanian territory. The Amena (Osmyany) and Svyriai (Svir) districts were taken away from Lithuania, however, the Druskininkai-Marcinkonys section which had been annexed by the Germans, as well as the Klaipeda territory, were returned to Lithuania. According to the terms of the 1944 treaty between the USSR and Poland, approximately 200,000 people were repatriated from Lithuania, mostly from the former Vilnius territory. Among them there were many Lithuanians who identified themselves as Poles in order to escape Stalin's terror. They were quickly replaced with newcomers. Russians moved mainly into the cities and the countryside was filled with immigrants from the neighbouring Byelorussian districts, who inundated the Vilnius territory and became "Poles". Around 1950 Stalin decided that the Lithuanianisation of the Vilnius Region ran counter to Soviet interests. Lithuanian (and even Russian) schools were extensively changed into Polish schools.
The Stalinist Polonisation of the Vilnius territory had begun and was more brutal than that of the Poles during their occupation. Under Bolshevik rule, a great, even fatal blow was struck to the Lithuanian spirit in this area. In many of the settlements where after the war almost everyone spoke or at least understood some Lithuanian, now only the elderly still remember it. For instance, according to official 1933 data, approx 90% of the people in the neighbourhood of Paskonys spoke Lithuanian, in 1979 barely 30% registered themselves as Lithuanians, and in the even more Lithuanian neighbourhood of Dievenikes barely 19%. The ethnic map was being repainted in new colours. However, Lithuanian traditions were maintained in all of these places: Lithuanian roadside crosses (torn down by the Bolsheviks in many places), home woven cloth, towels, blankets with Lithuanian patterns, Lithuanian flower gardens,unaltered methods of farming, as well as Lithuanian customs, legends, superstitions and fragments of ancient mythology prevailed.
DeirYassin 21:09, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Well, but in 1933 the mentioned territories (Poškonys, Dieveniškės, etc.) were a part of Poland, not Lithuania. These two villages were attached to Lithuania only in 1940. DeirYassin 21:38, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I agree that the claim of Belorussians cheatiing that they are Poles is probably wrong, probably author imagined that in Belorussian SSR there were only Belorussians living. However any major settlement under Soviet times was not free but ruled by goevernemnt, and it was common practice to colonise empty territories with people from nearby territories (e.g. abandoned by locals Ruhnu island of Estonia was collonised by people from Kihnu and Saaremaa islands not far away, Memelland territory which lots great part of people was colonised by Samogitians mostly. So it would be natural to assume that after Poles were deported, and after Stalin decided that it wouldnt be good to Lituanize the Western Vilnius region, it might have been decided to settle it with Belorussian Poles. Now I dont know how it is in Belars, but in Lithuania Polish-dominated area did not decreased, and the areas of modern day Lithuania which used to be Polish dominated parts of Vilnius region remains dominated by Poles, e.g. in Šalčininkai district there are 31'223 Poles and 4'086 Lithuanians, in Vilnius district - 54'322 Poles and 19'885 Lithuanians, the districts which are partitioned between former Lithuanian and Polish dominated areas alos has somewhat equal distribution of both nationalities. The only place where former Polish majority is no longer is Vilnius city itself, but even there Poles makes 104'446 people (over 20%), so the number of them not decreased, just that influc of Lithuanians and Russians lowered their portion. Well anyways, my point here is that with known deportations of Poles to Poland, the only way it was possible that such Polish majority was kept everywhere, and also some former Lithuanian-speaking enclaves as one of Dieveniškės-Pošklonys became Polish-dominated, was if there was an influx of Poles from Belorussia or such; and during Soviet times this could have been done only planned. While as for deportations to Siberia, Kazakhstan and such, every nation lost many people in them, including Lithuanians, so they probably didn't alter the ethnic makeup much except for increase of Russian share DeirYassin 17:43, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
"The Stalinist Polonisation of the Vilnius territory had begun and was more brutal than that of the Poles during their occupation" (sic!) no comments-- Witkacy 20:25, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It is completely truth. Zivinbudas 13:06, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
I believe we could improve this article by simply adding facts and figures to it. So far it gives plenty of data, but for instance fails to inform an uninformed reader like me where the hell is Eastern Vilnius region. The name would suggest that it's the eastern boroughs of the city of Vilnius, but perhaps I'm wrong. So, here's a list of info we need before I remove the neutrality tag:
Could anyone reply to those questions and add as much data as possible? This would really be helpful. Halibu tt 10:36, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
Ok I'll reply:
Hope that helps DeirYassin 12:18, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
And now about the ethnic compositions in Vilnius region (Eastern Lithuania). At the time of occupation of it by poles in 1920 there was an absolute majority of Lithuanians - Lithuanian-speakers and Simple Language-speakers ( Tuteishians) and absolute minority of poles in Vilnius region (Eastern Lithuania). There were only big ambitions of polonised Lithuanian ( Samogitian) Joseph Pilsudski. Zivinbudas 08:15, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
DeirYassin, few points to your text. 1) The Peace Treaty was signed on July 12, 1920 between the Republic of Lithuania and Soviet Russia and confirmed with USSR in 1926, 1931 and 1934; 2) Western Vilnius region returned to Lithuania in 1939 - 1940, not after WWII; 3) The Peace Treaty of 1920 described Lithuanian - Soviet border until Štabinas - former border between Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Kingdom of Poland (correctly occupied by poles in 1569 former Lithuanian Vojvodship of Palenkė ( Polexia). Further in treaty is pointed that Lithuania should agree with Poland on border in Sudovia. As you know, Lithuanian Army in 1920 liberated all Sudovia and Lithuanian government proposed concrete border (to the South of Augustavas) to Poland. So it wasn't only theoretical claim. Zivinbudas 08:54, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
Well, in 1920 Lithuanian Army stopped on Augustavas channel - it was few steps from Augustavas town and about 20 kilometres from proposed to Poland border. Until the Peace Treaty of July 12, 1920 Lithuania claimed much larger territory in Polexia - Balstogė including. Lithuanian-Soviet "alliance" never existed. Zivinbudas 05:23, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
This article contains only one point of view, the Lithuanian one, there is nothing about proccess of "lithuanization" of Poles living in this and other parts if Lithuania, still not allowed to use polish signs in their names.
This article is about Eastern Vilnius sregion, which is now in Belarus, not Lithuania (in Lithuania there is Western Vilnius region). Besides, as far as I recon, there was a deal signed which allows Poles to use Polish letters in their names in Lithuania and Lithuanian minority to use Lithuanian letters in their names in Poland. DeirYassin 11:35, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
DeirYassin, I agree to use the term Vilnius region in Lithuania article. So we can say that there was a problem with occupation by poles of Vilnius region (Southern Sudovia including). About the closure of all Lithuanian schools and opening polish shools in their place in 1950 - 1951 by the order of Stalin. This happened in territory united to Lithuania in 1939 - 1940 ( Western Vilnius region). This was Stalin's "gift" to Lithuania for Partisan War (1944 - 1953). The same happened in Eastern Vilnius region - unliberated part of Lithuania - but there in place of closed Lithuanian schools were opened bielorussian shools. Zivinbudas 07:52, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
Halibutt, if Lithuanians would have the same rights in present Poland like Tuteishians have in Lithuania, it would be paradise to them. Zivinbudas 09:11, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
DeirYassin, don't muddle Simple Language which was used by Tuteishians and Polish language. This is a big mistake. Only part of Tuteishians started to use Polish language language after the polonisation policy of occupiers in 1920 - 1939. Zivinbudas 09:26, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
My first statement was absolutely right. I checked the factes of history of this war. Lithuanian Army liberated Augustavas town and all Southern Suvalkija ( Sudovia) in July, 1920. Army reached the confluence of Augustavas channel and Bebra river. Lithuania holded this territory and Augustavas town until late August, 1920 until poles occupied them. So, Halibutt, your statements are completely false. There weren't any military agreements between Lithuania and Soviets. There was only agreement of transfer of recognized territories to Lithuania. Zivinbudas 17:35, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
Augustavas always was a Lithuanian town, in 1569 illegaly occupied with all Lithuanian Vojvodship of Palenkė ( Polexia) by Kingdom of Poland. Zivinbudas 10:44, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
I wrote illegaly occupied. As you know, breaking of law doesn't create a law. Zivinbudas 12:19, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
The region of northwest Belarus was never part of Lithuania except for in some ambitions of militarist nationalists of the 1920ies. The lands were not inhabited by Baltic population since for centuries, moreover Belarusian speakers were the dominating majority of the whole Vilnia (Vilnius) region by the beginning of he 20th century. When Lithuanian armies got into the /presented to Lithuania by Joseph Stalin/ Vilnia the soldiers were surprised, as there was not a single Lithanian word heard on the streets of Vilnia - only Belarusian, Polish and Yiddish. Even today the elder population of the rural areas of southwest Republic of Lithuania speak pure Belarusian! Just go there and hear it!-- Czalex 19:53, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
As for ethnic maps, it is a matter of opinion/propaganda really, in the same way I seen ethnic maps which shows area as almost fully Polish, and in the same way I seen maps which shows that Lithuanians made majority south to Brest even; back then everybody issued maps which respected more their own views rather than real thing (and in fact, due to what I'll explain bellow, real thing is hard to determinate). While cnsuses doesnt confirms any large availability of spoken Byelorussian in general, not in what is now part of Lithuania I mean (of course, there were and are Belorussians in Gardinas/Hrodna an dsuch). Also, the arguement of Lithuanians was that because there weren't any immigration to the area (only nobles migrated, peasants (majority) used to stay where they born), and the area was once Lithuanian-speaking, that means the Belorussians and Poles were actually Lithuanians speaking Belorussian and Polish respectively (nationality doesnt change, same as e.g. Irish and Scots are of those nationalities even though most of them speaks English as native language now); also, there was large number of people speaking in pidgins (mixed Belorussian-Polish-Lithuanian) so in many cases even determinating language might have been hard (in fact, these pidgin speakers probably made majority, and they were considered by Poles, Lithuanians and Byelorussians to be members of their nationality). All this confusion have been used by the carthographers and such of these nations to draw their own versions of ethnic maps. Stalin gave Vilnius to Lithuania in relation to deal of stationing troops in Lithuania, as well the part of Vilnius region which was given back actually had few Belorussians; the part of Vilnius region which had more of them was attached to Byelorussian SSR. You can start an article about Western Vilnius region if you want (the part of region which was given to Lithuania) and wrie there the reasons of giving it to Lithuania, also Belorussian opinion and such. As for Lituanization of Western Vilnius region, as far as I know there was more polonization because Stalin understood that it will fit Russian interests better if there will be concentrated Polish minority in Lithuania. And you are right I think about the fact that in Eastern Vilnius region Lithuanians were more russianised than belorussianised. Anyways, as a conclusion, I am not saying that current article on Eastern Vilnius region is completely neutral, but still I think it is an useful article as Wikipedia is lare and someone might want to for example to search info about Lithuanians in Belarus during Soviet times, or about the situation of this area and such. I think with time and more edits the article should become more neutral probably. DeirYassin 21:24, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
Very interesting visions which don't have nothing with reality. Simple language-speakers weren't Byelorussians. Tsarist russian government wrote them as Byelorussians in Census of 1897, but this only shows trying to show that Eastern Lithuania ( Vilnius region) was close to russian ethnos (the same did polish nationalistes, when wrote Simple language-speaking Lithuanians as poles). Zivinbudas 06:41, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
Polakozerca? Tak, lubię sloninkę. Zivinbudas 09:17, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
Only one point: the Gardinas' surroundings (and territories to the South until Naura ( Narew) river) were Lithuanian-Ruthenian mixed, but local population until polish occupation (1920 - 1939) had strong Lithuanian consciousness. In XIXth century the majority of this population spoke Simple language as well. Zivinbudas 12:20, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
Was Gardinas occupied by Poland in 16th - 19th centuries? Study better Lithuanian History and drop away "Historia Polski. Klasa 10. Warszawa, 1935". Zivinbudas 13:43, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
(nationality doesnt change, same as e.g. Irish and Scots are of those nationalities even though most of them speaks English as native language now)
British Isles make a rather bad example here - Ireland is an island and Scotland has well established border which didn't change for more then a millenium. Nationality in anglo-saxon world is traditionally defined by territory one lives in, not by language spoken or family origin. People from these areas whose families are of known norman or english descent are still considered to be Scotsmen or Irishmen (and so consider themselves). There is also no clear idea of national minority.
In contrast, national movements of Central and Eastern Europe (including Lithuanian) refer to language and culture rather than area as the basis of nationality. Lithuanian National Movement of late 19th century firmly rejected the historical tradition of large, multi-ethnic GDL and limited is interest to supposed "ethnographic borders" of Lithuania, which (borders) had no historical precedence. This is as if Scottish national movement limited it's interest to Scottish Highlands only and tried to impose Gaelic as only language in the area, calling all english speakers "anglicised Scotsmen".
To put things simply: you can't both have a cake and eat a cake.
And sorry, but claim that one's nationality is or should be defined excusively by his forefathers origin is plain racism.
In the same way in Irish and Scottish territories once Gaelic languages also were widespread, and this is how these territories formed
I can't agree here - Ireland was formed first of all by geological processes, as it is an island ;), so its borders are much more obvious than those of any Central European state. Irish independence movement for most of its history demanded only territorial autonomy and had little interest in language. Scotland was never fully Gaelic speaking (see History of Scotland) and it's territory neither is nor was defined mainly by language criterion.
GDL controlled territories of many nations
The only idea of nation which existed in GDL before mid 19th century was that of political nation of nobles of the whole Grand Duchy - including Minsk, Pinsk and Gomel. By the late 18th century this noble class was almost exclusively Polish speaking and usually not much interested in what language their peasants speak. Most of them would not consider differences between Lithuanian speaking peasant, Polish speaking peasant and Ruthenian speaking peasant (there was no separate term for "Belorusian" back then) to be of any major importance. Peasant was supposed to work hard and obey the orders. In fact a "progressive" nobleman who cared about his peasants would start from teaching them Polish ("the civilised language"). When the GDL-born Polish speaking writer needed to call the language we currently call Lithuanian he would usually use terms like narzecze żmudzkie ("samogitian idiom").
There was obviously also a wider Idea of political nation of the whole Commonwealth (often simply called Poland). Therefore one has to understand that both polish and lithuanian had completly different meanings then.
Modern Lithuanian national movement, led by a small group of intellectuals of mostly peasant origin, created completely new idea of Lithuania and Lithuanian identity, including the idea of polonized lithuanians. As the majority of upper classes felt no connection to that movement and in turn came to support modern Polish nationalism, the movement had also strong socioeconomic or "class" traits (peasants vs landowners). This movement was quite typical for its time - a nice comparative study of 19th century "national revivals" can be found in works of Czech sociologist Miroslav Hroch. (see also Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm - in particular The invention of tradition)
To put it clearly: most sociologists and quite a lot of hisotrians would agree, that nations are a fairly modern phenomenon and that "national revival" is in most cases "creation of a nation". Therefore Lithuanian or Belorusian nation simply didn't exist before 19th century (although obviously there were such ethnic groups). The case of Polish nation is a bit more complicated - it's idea may have been not created from scratch, but it definetely was heavily transformed thoughout 19th century. Just like modern Lithuania is not a simple continuation of GDL, modern Poland is not a simple continuation of neither the Crown, not the whole PLC.
Lithuanian nation existed when your slavic mutant bands still jumped on the trees as monkeys.
85.206.192.188 13:02, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
And now we come to the problem with this article (and a number of other): it shows the ideas (and Estern Vilnius Region is nothing more than an idea) created by Lithuanian intellectuals and spread by Lithuanian schools as more important than political reality. The topic obviously deserves an article, but the one written from neutral perspective, that is describing political claims from the inter-war period as political claims from the inter-war period and not as the only true designation of the area.
Why not making the 2nd part of this article separate? -- Czalex 2 July 2005 16:05 (UTC)
O my God! What a shauvinist nonsenses... I am really shocked to find something like that on Wikipedia. 82.163.39.236
Agreed - this should be split or merged with Vilnus region, assuming this can be referenced. Currently Western Vilnius region redirects to Vilnius region, which is confusing.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 22:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
I find it strange that Soviets were supposed to "polonize" western Vilnius region. I know they successfuly attempted to win the support of Polish minority there in the 1980/90-ies, but I've not heard of any support of the Poles by Soviets. On the contrary - they were being deported to various remote areas of the Soviet Union, which hardly can be called "polonization". What period are you specifically reffering to here ? Lysy 20:56, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Here I am reffering to this page: http://www.lithuanian.net/language/occupied.htm . An excerpt about the polonization is presented bellow
The occupation had a particularly great impact on eastern Lithuania. The Bolsheviks changed the borders of Byelorussia and Lithuania. The Smolensk, Novel, Starodub, etc. districts which had been part of Byelorussia since early times were given to Russia, and the Byelorussian border was moved to the west, into ethnic Lithuanian territory. The Amena (Osmyany) and Svyriai (Svir) districts were taken away from Lithuania, however, the Druskininkai-Marcinkonys section which had been annexed by the Germans, as well as the Klaipeda territory, were returned to Lithuania. According to the terms of the 1944 treaty between the USSR and Poland, approximately 200,000 people were repatriated from Lithuania, mostly from the former Vilnius territory. Among them there were many Lithuanians who identified themselves as Poles in order to escape Stalin's terror. They were quickly replaced with newcomers. Russians moved mainly into the cities and the countryside was filled with immigrants from the neighbouring Byelorussian districts, who inundated the Vilnius territory and became "Poles". Around 1950 Stalin decided that the Lithuanianisation of the Vilnius Region ran counter to Soviet interests. Lithuanian (and even Russian) schools were extensively changed into Polish schools.
The Stalinist Polonisation of the Vilnius territory had begun and was more brutal than that of the Poles during their occupation. Under Bolshevik rule, a great, even fatal blow was struck to the Lithuanian spirit in this area. In many of the settlements where after the war almost everyone spoke or at least understood some Lithuanian, now only the elderly still remember it. For instance, according to official 1933 data, approx 90% of the people in the neighbourhood of Paskonys spoke Lithuanian, in 1979 barely 30% registered themselves as Lithuanians, and in the even more Lithuanian neighbourhood of Dievenikes barely 19%. The ethnic map was being repainted in new colours. However, Lithuanian traditions were maintained in all of these places: Lithuanian roadside crosses (torn down by the Bolsheviks in many places), home woven cloth, towels, blankets with Lithuanian patterns, Lithuanian flower gardens,unaltered methods of farming, as well as Lithuanian customs, legends, superstitions and fragments of ancient mythology prevailed.
DeirYassin 21:09, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Well, but in 1933 the mentioned territories (Poškonys, Dieveniškės, etc.) were a part of Poland, not Lithuania. These two villages were attached to Lithuania only in 1940. DeirYassin 21:38, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I agree that the claim of Belorussians cheatiing that they are Poles is probably wrong, probably author imagined that in Belorussian SSR there were only Belorussians living. However any major settlement under Soviet times was not free but ruled by goevernemnt, and it was common practice to colonise empty territories with people from nearby territories (e.g. abandoned by locals Ruhnu island of Estonia was collonised by people from Kihnu and Saaremaa islands not far away, Memelland territory which lots great part of people was colonised by Samogitians mostly. So it would be natural to assume that after Poles were deported, and after Stalin decided that it wouldnt be good to Lituanize the Western Vilnius region, it might have been decided to settle it with Belorussian Poles. Now I dont know how it is in Belars, but in Lithuania Polish-dominated area did not decreased, and the areas of modern day Lithuania which used to be Polish dominated parts of Vilnius region remains dominated by Poles, e.g. in Šalčininkai district there are 31'223 Poles and 4'086 Lithuanians, in Vilnius district - 54'322 Poles and 19'885 Lithuanians, the districts which are partitioned between former Lithuanian and Polish dominated areas alos has somewhat equal distribution of both nationalities. The only place where former Polish majority is no longer is Vilnius city itself, but even there Poles makes 104'446 people (over 20%), so the number of them not decreased, just that influc of Lithuanians and Russians lowered their portion. Well anyways, my point here is that with known deportations of Poles to Poland, the only way it was possible that such Polish majority was kept everywhere, and also some former Lithuanian-speaking enclaves as one of Dieveniškės-Pošklonys became Polish-dominated, was if there was an influx of Poles from Belorussia or such; and during Soviet times this could have been done only planned. While as for deportations to Siberia, Kazakhstan and such, every nation lost many people in them, including Lithuanians, so they probably didn't alter the ethnic makeup much except for increase of Russian share DeirYassin 17:43, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
"The Stalinist Polonisation of the Vilnius territory had begun and was more brutal than that of the Poles during their occupation" (sic!) no comments-- Witkacy 20:25, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It is completely truth. Zivinbudas 13:06, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
I believe we could improve this article by simply adding facts and figures to it. So far it gives plenty of data, but for instance fails to inform an uninformed reader like me where the hell is Eastern Vilnius region. The name would suggest that it's the eastern boroughs of the city of Vilnius, but perhaps I'm wrong. So, here's a list of info we need before I remove the neutrality tag:
Could anyone reply to those questions and add as much data as possible? This would really be helpful. Halibu tt 10:36, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
Ok I'll reply:
Hope that helps DeirYassin 12:18, 8 May 2005 (UTC)
And now about the ethnic compositions in Vilnius region (Eastern Lithuania). At the time of occupation of it by poles in 1920 there was an absolute majority of Lithuanians - Lithuanian-speakers and Simple Language-speakers ( Tuteishians) and absolute minority of poles in Vilnius region (Eastern Lithuania). There were only big ambitions of polonised Lithuanian ( Samogitian) Joseph Pilsudski. Zivinbudas 08:15, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
DeirYassin, few points to your text. 1) The Peace Treaty was signed on July 12, 1920 between the Republic of Lithuania and Soviet Russia and confirmed with USSR in 1926, 1931 and 1934; 2) Western Vilnius region returned to Lithuania in 1939 - 1940, not after WWII; 3) The Peace Treaty of 1920 described Lithuanian - Soviet border until Štabinas - former border between Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Kingdom of Poland (correctly occupied by poles in 1569 former Lithuanian Vojvodship of Palenkė ( Polexia). Further in treaty is pointed that Lithuania should agree with Poland on border in Sudovia. As you know, Lithuanian Army in 1920 liberated all Sudovia and Lithuanian government proposed concrete border (to the South of Augustavas) to Poland. So it wasn't only theoretical claim. Zivinbudas 08:54, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
Well, in 1920 Lithuanian Army stopped on Augustavas channel - it was few steps from Augustavas town and about 20 kilometres from proposed to Poland border. Until the Peace Treaty of July 12, 1920 Lithuania claimed much larger territory in Polexia - Balstogė including. Lithuanian-Soviet "alliance" never existed. Zivinbudas 05:23, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
This article contains only one point of view, the Lithuanian one, there is nothing about proccess of "lithuanization" of Poles living in this and other parts if Lithuania, still not allowed to use polish signs in their names.
This article is about Eastern Vilnius sregion, which is now in Belarus, not Lithuania (in Lithuania there is Western Vilnius region). Besides, as far as I recon, there was a deal signed which allows Poles to use Polish letters in their names in Lithuania and Lithuanian minority to use Lithuanian letters in their names in Poland. DeirYassin 11:35, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
DeirYassin, I agree to use the term Vilnius region in Lithuania article. So we can say that there was a problem with occupation by poles of Vilnius region (Southern Sudovia including). About the closure of all Lithuanian schools and opening polish shools in their place in 1950 - 1951 by the order of Stalin. This happened in territory united to Lithuania in 1939 - 1940 ( Western Vilnius region). This was Stalin's "gift" to Lithuania for Partisan War (1944 - 1953). The same happened in Eastern Vilnius region - unliberated part of Lithuania - but there in place of closed Lithuanian schools were opened bielorussian shools. Zivinbudas 07:52, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
Halibutt, if Lithuanians would have the same rights in present Poland like Tuteishians have in Lithuania, it would be paradise to them. Zivinbudas 09:11, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
DeirYassin, don't muddle Simple Language which was used by Tuteishians and Polish language. This is a big mistake. Only part of Tuteishians started to use Polish language language after the polonisation policy of occupiers in 1920 - 1939. Zivinbudas 09:26, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
My first statement was absolutely right. I checked the factes of history of this war. Lithuanian Army liberated Augustavas town and all Southern Suvalkija ( Sudovia) in July, 1920. Army reached the confluence of Augustavas channel and Bebra river. Lithuania holded this territory and Augustavas town until late August, 1920 until poles occupied them. So, Halibutt, your statements are completely false. There weren't any military agreements between Lithuania and Soviets. There was only agreement of transfer of recognized territories to Lithuania. Zivinbudas 17:35, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
Augustavas always was a Lithuanian town, in 1569 illegaly occupied with all Lithuanian Vojvodship of Palenkė ( Polexia) by Kingdom of Poland. Zivinbudas 10:44, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
I wrote illegaly occupied. As you know, breaking of law doesn't create a law. Zivinbudas 12:19, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
The region of northwest Belarus was never part of Lithuania except for in some ambitions of militarist nationalists of the 1920ies. The lands were not inhabited by Baltic population since for centuries, moreover Belarusian speakers were the dominating majority of the whole Vilnia (Vilnius) region by the beginning of he 20th century. When Lithuanian armies got into the /presented to Lithuania by Joseph Stalin/ Vilnia the soldiers were surprised, as there was not a single Lithanian word heard on the streets of Vilnia - only Belarusian, Polish and Yiddish. Even today the elder population of the rural areas of southwest Republic of Lithuania speak pure Belarusian! Just go there and hear it!-- Czalex 19:53, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
As for ethnic maps, it is a matter of opinion/propaganda really, in the same way I seen ethnic maps which shows area as almost fully Polish, and in the same way I seen maps which shows that Lithuanians made majority south to Brest even; back then everybody issued maps which respected more their own views rather than real thing (and in fact, due to what I'll explain bellow, real thing is hard to determinate). While cnsuses doesnt confirms any large availability of spoken Byelorussian in general, not in what is now part of Lithuania I mean (of course, there were and are Belorussians in Gardinas/Hrodna an dsuch). Also, the arguement of Lithuanians was that because there weren't any immigration to the area (only nobles migrated, peasants (majority) used to stay where they born), and the area was once Lithuanian-speaking, that means the Belorussians and Poles were actually Lithuanians speaking Belorussian and Polish respectively (nationality doesnt change, same as e.g. Irish and Scots are of those nationalities even though most of them speaks English as native language now); also, there was large number of people speaking in pidgins (mixed Belorussian-Polish-Lithuanian) so in many cases even determinating language might have been hard (in fact, these pidgin speakers probably made majority, and they were considered by Poles, Lithuanians and Byelorussians to be members of their nationality). All this confusion have been used by the carthographers and such of these nations to draw their own versions of ethnic maps. Stalin gave Vilnius to Lithuania in relation to deal of stationing troops in Lithuania, as well the part of Vilnius region which was given back actually had few Belorussians; the part of Vilnius region which had more of them was attached to Byelorussian SSR. You can start an article about Western Vilnius region if you want (the part of region which was given to Lithuania) and wrie there the reasons of giving it to Lithuania, also Belorussian opinion and such. As for Lituanization of Western Vilnius region, as far as I know there was more polonization because Stalin understood that it will fit Russian interests better if there will be concentrated Polish minority in Lithuania. And you are right I think about the fact that in Eastern Vilnius region Lithuanians were more russianised than belorussianised. Anyways, as a conclusion, I am not saying that current article on Eastern Vilnius region is completely neutral, but still I think it is an useful article as Wikipedia is lare and someone might want to for example to search info about Lithuanians in Belarus during Soviet times, or about the situation of this area and such. I think with time and more edits the article should become more neutral probably. DeirYassin 21:24, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
Very interesting visions which don't have nothing with reality. Simple language-speakers weren't Byelorussians. Tsarist russian government wrote them as Byelorussians in Census of 1897, but this only shows trying to show that Eastern Lithuania ( Vilnius region) was close to russian ethnos (the same did polish nationalistes, when wrote Simple language-speaking Lithuanians as poles). Zivinbudas 06:41, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
Polakozerca? Tak, lubię sloninkę. Zivinbudas 09:17, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
Only one point: the Gardinas' surroundings (and territories to the South until Naura ( Narew) river) were Lithuanian-Ruthenian mixed, but local population until polish occupation (1920 - 1939) had strong Lithuanian consciousness. In XIXth century the majority of this population spoke Simple language as well. Zivinbudas 12:20, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
Was Gardinas occupied by Poland in 16th - 19th centuries? Study better Lithuanian History and drop away "Historia Polski. Klasa 10. Warszawa, 1935". Zivinbudas 13:43, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
(nationality doesnt change, same as e.g. Irish and Scots are of those nationalities even though most of them speaks English as native language now)
British Isles make a rather bad example here - Ireland is an island and Scotland has well established border which didn't change for more then a millenium. Nationality in anglo-saxon world is traditionally defined by territory one lives in, not by language spoken or family origin. People from these areas whose families are of known norman or english descent are still considered to be Scotsmen or Irishmen (and so consider themselves). There is also no clear idea of national minority.
In contrast, national movements of Central and Eastern Europe (including Lithuanian) refer to language and culture rather than area as the basis of nationality. Lithuanian National Movement of late 19th century firmly rejected the historical tradition of large, multi-ethnic GDL and limited is interest to supposed "ethnographic borders" of Lithuania, which (borders) had no historical precedence. This is as if Scottish national movement limited it's interest to Scottish Highlands only and tried to impose Gaelic as only language in the area, calling all english speakers "anglicised Scotsmen".
To put things simply: you can't both have a cake and eat a cake.
And sorry, but claim that one's nationality is or should be defined excusively by his forefathers origin is plain racism.
In the same way in Irish and Scottish territories once Gaelic languages also were widespread, and this is how these territories formed
I can't agree here - Ireland was formed first of all by geological processes, as it is an island ;), so its borders are much more obvious than those of any Central European state. Irish independence movement for most of its history demanded only territorial autonomy and had little interest in language. Scotland was never fully Gaelic speaking (see History of Scotland) and it's territory neither is nor was defined mainly by language criterion.
GDL controlled territories of many nations
The only idea of nation which existed in GDL before mid 19th century was that of political nation of nobles of the whole Grand Duchy - including Minsk, Pinsk and Gomel. By the late 18th century this noble class was almost exclusively Polish speaking and usually not much interested in what language their peasants speak. Most of them would not consider differences between Lithuanian speaking peasant, Polish speaking peasant and Ruthenian speaking peasant (there was no separate term for "Belorusian" back then) to be of any major importance. Peasant was supposed to work hard and obey the orders. In fact a "progressive" nobleman who cared about his peasants would start from teaching them Polish ("the civilised language"). When the GDL-born Polish speaking writer needed to call the language we currently call Lithuanian he would usually use terms like narzecze żmudzkie ("samogitian idiom").
There was obviously also a wider Idea of political nation of the whole Commonwealth (often simply called Poland). Therefore one has to understand that both polish and lithuanian had completly different meanings then.
Modern Lithuanian national movement, led by a small group of intellectuals of mostly peasant origin, created completely new idea of Lithuania and Lithuanian identity, including the idea of polonized lithuanians. As the majority of upper classes felt no connection to that movement and in turn came to support modern Polish nationalism, the movement had also strong socioeconomic or "class" traits (peasants vs landowners). This movement was quite typical for its time - a nice comparative study of 19th century "national revivals" can be found in works of Czech sociologist Miroslav Hroch. (see also Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson and Eric Hobsbawm - in particular The invention of tradition)
To put it clearly: most sociologists and quite a lot of hisotrians would agree, that nations are a fairly modern phenomenon and that "national revival" is in most cases "creation of a nation". Therefore Lithuanian or Belorusian nation simply didn't exist before 19th century (although obviously there were such ethnic groups). The case of Polish nation is a bit more complicated - it's idea may have been not created from scratch, but it definetely was heavily transformed thoughout 19th century. Just like modern Lithuania is not a simple continuation of GDL, modern Poland is not a simple continuation of neither the Crown, not the whole PLC.
Lithuanian nation existed when your slavic mutant bands still jumped on the trees as monkeys.
85.206.192.188 13:02, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
And now we come to the problem with this article (and a number of other): it shows the ideas (and Estern Vilnius Region is nothing more than an idea) created by Lithuanian intellectuals and spread by Lithuanian schools as more important than political reality. The topic obviously deserves an article, but the one written from neutral perspective, that is describing political claims from the inter-war period as political claims from the inter-war period and not as the only true designation of the area.
Why not making the 2nd part of this article separate? -- Czalex 2 July 2005 16:05 (UTC)
O my God! What a shauvinist nonsenses... I am really shocked to find something like that on Wikipedia. 82.163.39.236
Agreed - this should be split or merged with Vilnus region, assuming this can be referenced. Currently Western Vilnius region redirects to Vilnius region, which is confusing.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 22:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC)