Forgotten occupation: Germans and Belarusians in the lands of Ober Ost (1915–17)

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article discusses Belarusian national activism during the First World War in the western borderlands of the Russian Empire, in the areas occupied by the German army in 1915. Chronologically, it is limited to the period between 1915 and 1917, before the German administration adopted a clear Lithuanian-oriented strategy for Ober Ost. The author examines both German and Belarusian perspectives, concentrating on the evolution of German attitudes to Belarusians as a separate ethnicity in Ober Ost as well as on the challenges for the Belarusian nation-building process in this period. Despite restrictive and exploitative German policies, Belarusian national elites in Ober Ost were able to articulate their goals and engage in practical nation-building activities. In contrast to the eastern Belarusian provinces, which remained under Russian rule and experienced a surge of national politics only after the February Revolution, in 1915 Ober Ost Belarusians were already pioneering the national cause through publishing, charities, and schools. They were able to secure partial support from the German occupation authorities, yet the latter merely instrumentalized Belarusian nationalism as a tool of their anti-Polish policies.