History of The Term
The term Belarusian as an ethnonym referring to the inhabitants of what is now Belarus developed only in the 20th century. Before the late 19th century, the term White Ruthenia usually referred specifically to eastern regions of modern Belarus. Slavic-speaking inhabitants of the Grand Duchy, especially those living east of the historical Baltic lands of the Lithuania Propria – in cities like Minsk, Hrodna, Navahrudak – were usually referred to as Ruthenians in the English language. According to Belarusian historian Anatol Hrytskievich, lands of modern north-western Belarus constituted the major part of historical Lithuania and one should therefore not associate the medieval Grand Duchy of Lithuania exclusively with the modern Republic of Lithuania.
During the 19th century Russian authorities attempted to erase the terms Lithuania and Lithuanians, and replace them with the term White-Ruthenia, that was present on the maps since 16th century. For instance, this can be traced by editions of folklorist researches by Ivan Sakharov, where in the edition of 1836 Belarusian customs are described as Litvin, while in the edition of 1886 the words Литва (Lithuania) and Литовцо-руссы (Lithuanian-Russians) are replaced by respectively Белоруссия (Byelorussia) and белоруссы (Byelorussians).
A new wave of national revival on the territory of modern Belarus arose inspired by local intellectuals and nobility like Vincent Dunin-Marcinkevich and Jan Czeczot who created literature in the modern Belarusian language.
The use of the term Belarusian for self-identification by common people of modern Belarus appears to have gained populiarity only in the early 20th century (after the short-lived Belarusian People's Republic in 1918 and the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1922). In parts of the Belarusian linguistic territory outside the borders of the modern Belarus, the self-identification is rarely Belarusian. An example of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania heritage is the Ukrainian subgroup of Sivershchyna Litviny in Chernihiv Oblast, on the border with Belarus.
Read more about this topic: Litvin
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