Problems of ethno-confessional relations in Western Belarus during the second Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1921–1939) (on the example of the assumption Zhirovitsky monastery)

Abstract

The Article by Kirill Solovyov, candidate of cultural studies, is devoted to the problems of ethno-confessional relations in the territory of Western Belarus during the interwar period. Introduction. Given the fact that 2019 was the anniversary year for the young independent Republic of Belarus, and in 2020 the anniversary of the victory In the great Patriotic War in the expert community of Russia and Belarus, as well as in political circles and among the national Belarusian intelligentsia, you can find directly opposite points of view on how the process of national revival took place in the territory of modern Belarus in the period of 1921–1939, how the relations between the Polish government and Polish national associations on the territory of the “Kresov Vskhodnih” and Belarusian nationalist and Russian public emigrant associations were built. As a rule, if a State committed to integral nationalism wants to detach a part of the people from their historical roots, this happens either through cultural or religious assimilation. The article deals with attempts of such religious assimilation by the Polish authorities during the sanation regime of 1921–1939 for example, the existence in Poland of Orthodox Uspensky Zhirovichi men’s monastery. For a sufficient evidence base of the proposed research, the author used the comparative method of historicism in the field of religious studies and the method of “inheritance of culture”, which can be applied in the field of sociology of religion, thanks to which it is possible to show how great the temptation to unify in a multinational young state and turn it into an ethnonational unified community. Materials for the study of this problem were both post-revolutionary emigrant studies on this topic, and modern Belarusian studies concerning the history of inter-Church relations on the territory of the Western Belarusian lands in the interwar period. In the course of a comprehensive study of this problem the author conducted an interesting geocultural analysis of the development of the Polish state in the field of interethnic and interreligious relations which was based on the Polish version of the so-called integral nationalism. The article also traces the trend towards the termination of the Riga Treaty between the RSFSR and the Polish state which became more active after 1926. It should be noted that the Polish state used this trend to plant on the “Eastern borders” of the Polish military colonists – besiegers, who were the military and political support of the new Polish state. Using the example of the existence of the Orthodox Dormition Zhirovitsky monastery on the territory of the second Polish – Lithuanian Commonwealth, the author traces how Orthodox Christians resisted the tendencies of ethnocultural assimilation. The study has shown how necessary it is for the State to not interfere in the Affairs of the Church, and how important it is to avoid the temptation to use the “national” Church in building an independent and sovereign state. This is a serious problem that is typical for those post-Soviet States that plan to build their national identity on the principles of extreme nationalism.