The Concept of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the Historical Politics of the Republic of Belarus: Stages of Formation and Current State

Abstract

The article considers the formation of the concept of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the post-Soviet Belarusian historiography. The author singles out the main stages of this process, shows the evolution of scientific comprehension of the place of the Belarusian people in this state formation. A special attention is paid to the mechanisms of translating conceptual provisions of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the society, in particular, through the system of state education. The peculiarities of interpretation of the process of formation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in Belarusian, Polish and Lithuanian historiography, the role of the Belarusian ethnos and its culture in the textbooks for secondary and higher schools of 1990—2020s are analyzed. The author came to the conclusion that Belarusian historiography by now has formed the position about the leading role of Belarusian lands in the economic and cultural development of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the second half of the 13th — early 17th centuries.