Imperial Nationality Policy and the Russian Version of the History of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Mid-Nineteenth Century

Abstract

This article analyses how changes in Russian nationality policy after the 1830–31 Uprising in Poland and Lithuania led to the initiative of an historical project that sought to prove the Russian nature of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It focuses on the tender organized by the Ministry of Education in the 1830s for the publication of a history textbook, which was to form the canon of Russian interpretations of the history of the Grand Duchy. The most important creator of this narrative was Nikolai Ustrialov. According to Ustrialov, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was just as much a Russian state as the Grand Duchy of Moscow, with the sole caveat that the tiny Lithuanian nation had played a part in creating it. Territorial rivalry between these two states was a mere ‘family quarrel’ over which dynasty would prevail. The supremacy of the Lithuanian dynasty did not mean the victory of an alien power since the Lithuanian princes were closely related to Russian princes and moreover, a considerable number of them belonged to the Eastern (Orthodox) Church. Russians could regard therefore them as their own. The last part of this article is devoted to the changes in nationality policy after the 1863–64 Uprising and the requirement for a new interpretation of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.