The Smolensk variant of Belarusianization in the 1920s

Abstract

In 2021, the Smolensk historians Yevgeny Kodin and Olga Kobets published the first monograph in Russian historiography on the processes of Belarusianization in the RSFSR in the interwar period. In the book, on the example of the Smolensk region, the issue of extending the decisions of the 12th Congress of the Bolshevik Party (1923) on the korenization to the border regions of the Russian Federation with the Byelorussian SSR is touched upon, which is extremely relevant for the national policy of the first years of Soviet power. The authors drew on significant and valuable material from local archives and tried to find out whether the views of modern historians on the problem of the content and results of the Belarusianization policy correspond to the realities of the era. The monograph significantly corrects existing ideas about the practical implementation of the Belarusianization course and in particular, convincingly shows the tactics of the Smolensk authorities to interpret the instructions from Moscow on the introduction of the Belarusian language into the school system as secondary and temporary.