The Rada of Vilnius Belarusians and the Council of Lithuania

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

Constructive · Ethnocentrism · Ethnography · Impulse (physics · Independence (probability theory · Loyalty · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · Anthropology · Eastern European Communism and Reforms · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Law · Polish Historical and Cultural Studies