New economic policy against Belarusization in the 1920s: Pskov province

Abstract

Following the decisions on the nationalities question made at X and XII congresses of the Russian Communist Party of the Bolsheviks, Belarusization as part of the general nativization policy started to be implemented not only in Belarus itself, but also in Russian regions in places where the Belarusian population lived compactly. These primarily included the border governorates of Pskov, Smolensk and Bryansk. In the first of the three, three districts — Sebezhsky, Nevelsky and Velizhsky — were considered the «most Belarusian» after the liquidation of Vitebsk governorate in 1924.

However, even in these districts, the topic of Belarusians and Belarusization began to appear on the agenda of local authorities only in 1925, and then under constant pressure from Moscow.

Based on the materials of the funds of the People's Commissariat of Education and the Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR of the State Archive of the Russian Federation and the State Archive of the Pskov Region, developed and previously unused, as well as publications of the Pskov Nabat newspaper, it can be argued with good reason that the weakness of working with Belarusians in the province was determined by the following circumstances. Firstly, the local population together with the authorities, from the volost executive committees to the governorate one, believed that there was no separate Belarusian people, as well as no language, but there was a small part of Great Russians who spoke “corrupted” or “slangy” Russian. So, from their point of view, there was no reason to engage in Belarusization. Secondly, the Belarusians who lived in the Pskov region were few in number and scattered in separate villages, unlike, for example, the communes of the Latvians. This circumstance did not allow for any collective work among them. Thirdly, the authorities had no time for Belarusization during the first half of the 1920s. First of all, it involved the transfer of schools to the Belarusian language. But the new economic policy that began at the same time led to the mass closure of schools, especially the primary ones, due to their transfer to the local budget. In fact, the new economic policy turned out to be incompatible with the objectives of Belarusization.