A characteristic feature of the eastern reaches of Poland and, in particular, of the borderlands between Poland and Belarus, is the impracticality of making any distinction between religious and national identity. In common sensibility a Greek Orthodox person is necessarily a „Russian”, regardless whether he/she declares himself/herself as Belarusian, Ukrainian or Polish.

It follows from the research of professor Sadowski that in the Białystok province (voivodship) about 60% of the Greek Orthodox population identifies itself as Polish and only 28% as Belarusian. Among the Roman Catholics there is hardly any Belarusian self-identification (out of 526 respondents only one person opted for Belarusian national identity), even though the research was conducted in ethnographically Belarusian territory (the vicinity of the town of Sokółka). Sadowski does notice the difficulties connected with national self-identification among the Orthodox population of the Białystok province. Taking as his point of departure those 28% who declare their Belarusian national affiliation, he notes that „in the Białystok province there live an estimated seventy five thousand Belarusians conscious of their national identity”.[2] These estimates should be treated cautiously. After all, during the last national census only 46.6 thousand persons declared their Belarusian nationality. An even more meager testimony of Belarusian national consciousness is provided by the results of the national parliamentary elections and elections to the local administrative authorities. During the 1991 parliamentary elections only four thousand five hundred Orthodox voters opted for the Belarusian list, while another thirteen thousand voted for the Greek Orthodox Election Committee. Most Greek Orthodox voters actually preferred SLD (Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej — Alliance of the Democratic Left, the reformed post-Communist movement).[3] A similar situation repeated in other parliamentary and local elections.

In this area, on both sides of the border, national identity tends to overlap with civilizational identity. Civilizational identity, however, dominates. It is difficult to measure empirically by means of standard questionnaires and even more difficult to verbalize in political terms. In Belarus a Roman Catholic, who identifies himself as a Belarusian, promptly adds „Polish Belarusian” or „Belarusian Roman Catholic”. Similarly, the specification „Greek Orthodox Pole” on the Polish side of the border (i.e. the vicinity of Białystok) does not simply mean a Pole affiliated to the Greek Orthodox denomination, such as Michał Klinger in Warsaw or Kazimierz Nowosielski in Cracow. Here, a Greek Orthodox Pole could well be an atheist (that was a frequent case in the Communist party committees in the Communist past, when members of the party apparatus would be often divided into Catholic and Orthodox comrades who often would get involved in feuds). „An Orthodox Pole” is a Pole who feels in some measure to be a member of the Greek Orthodox civilizational community. Thus, it does make a difference to be an „nonbelieving Orthodox” and a „nonbelieving Catholic”.

Since civilizational identification in this region does not correspond to any adequate categories in the official (and also sociological) language, it tends to disappear from sociological observations often replaced by imprecise and volatile terms pertaining to national identity. But here Orthodoxy is not just a religion, as it undoubtedly might be in France or Australia, for in the borderlands Greek Orthodoxy is a type of culture which underlies the very foundations of a unique Eurasian civilization.

Summing up, we may state that Podlasie province, in its present boundaries, is populated by Roman Catholics of Belarusian origin (in the ethnographic, „tribal” sense), who identify themselves as Poles, and by Greek Orthodox Poles and Greek Orthodox Belarusians displaying different modes of self-identification, either with Belarusian national values or with „Russian” (Ruthenian) civilizational values. Both popular consciousness, as well as the political culture of the region, are still dominated by a conflation of religious identity and „national” identity (which in this case must be written with inverted commas).

I believe that the paradigm of the civilizational borderlands also offers a better framework for achieving an improved understanding of the history of Central-Eastern Europe as delimited by the borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (known also as the First Republic) and of the place of the Polish identity and heritage in this region. This is a history of the formation of a separate Slavonic civilization. It was in large measure initiated by St Cyril and St Methodius, who laid the foundations for Slavonic literature raising Old Church Slavonic to the status of a third liturgical language in Christian Europe supplementing the theretofore dominating Latin and Greek. This bold move was followed by an attempt to create a separate Slavonic rite, which in turn had to lead to the emergence of a distinct civilizational formation in Central-Eastern Europe. The whole history of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth is largely woven around these circumstances: the growing awareness of a fundamental unity of the different ethnic groups populating the region and a growing internal estrangement of the Latin and Byzantine worlds. The same ideas echoed in the abortive attempts to forge a confederacy of nations of the original Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth within the Second Republic, as envisioned in the ideology of Piłsudski’s Belweder formation, and they continue to pervade today the vision of a commonality of these ethnic communities expounded in the writings of Mieroszewski, Giedroyc and Miłosz. The whole sphere of this never realized Slavonic civilization disintegrates, in consequence yielding separate nations: Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Belarusian, with a legacy of problems and conflicts emerging from the remnants of a common civilizational heritage. This disintegration was rendered inevitable by the final acquiescence of Poland in Latin Christianity of the West and by the emergence of a new Russia, Muscovy, which constituted an ethnic and ideological amalgamation of the Slavonic element with Ugro-Finian and Mongolian-Turkish components, and which led to the formation of a Russian Empire as a distinct Eurasian civilization.

Summing up we might say that the notion „Belarusian” refers in Białystok province to the local citizens belonging to the Greek Orthodox denomination, understood as the „religion of destiny”. The notion religion of destiny” is contrasted in sociology with the notion of „religion of choice”. Religion of choice, as the term suggests, is chosen consciously. Not so with religion of destiny to which a person is formally prescribed by an act of baptism, but in reality by the religious affiliation of the parents. Therefore an Orthodox person may be an „Orthodox atheist”, or even an „Orthodox Baptist”, and even after marrying a Roman Catholic and formally embracing Roman Catholic rite (thereby being formally labeled a „convert”) everyone will know anyhow that he/she is a Greek Orthodox. Thus understood Orthodoxy is not a religion in the strict sense of the word. It is not a religion in the canonical sense that would demand the phrase „nonbelieving Orthodox person” to be interpreted as a contradiction of terms. Thus understood Orthodoxy is a form of ethnic consciousness, of ethnic distinction.

Therefore in common awareness a Greek Orthodox person in Białystok region is a Belarusian. Being a Belarusian is as irrevocable as being a Greek Orthodox. It is given in an ontic sense, „by divine decree”, like being a man or a woman, like being black or a hunchback. No tricks can change that. One may fill out forms with „Polish nationality” but everyone knows anyhow that this is just an attempt to hide one’s own Belarusian identity that one is ashamed to admit. That is precisely how the results of the last national census were interpreted, when it turned out that most Greek Orthodox persons chose the option „Pole” as national affiliation: Belarusians are ashamed to embrace openly their national identity.

Due to the predominantly cultural character of Orthodoxy in Białystok province, it makes more sense to talk of civilizational rather than religious diversity of the region. When I talk of civilizational diversity I obviously do not have in mind material commodities but spiritual goods: distinct visions of the world and life, distinct „symbolical universa” and, consequently, distinct identities.

Sociologists tend to downplay the process of assimilation of Belarusians in Poland. I believe this is not the best interpretation of the existing state of affairs. One may talk of assimilation when members of one nationality accept the values of another nationality thereby joining this new national community. However, the majority of Polish Belarusians never really belonged to the Belarusian national community as such, though they have and do belong to the civilizational community of the Orthodoxy. Orthodox Belarusians from the Białystok province do not and even cannot share a sense of attachment to Belarusian national values (i.e. to the Belarusian literature, national ideology) because these were shaped by members of the Roman Catholic communities, furthermore by representatives of small landed gentry and, therefore in the folk paradigm, by Poles.

In the wake of the political thaw in Communist ruled Poland, Belarusian Socio-Cultural Association (Białoruskie Towarzystwo Społeczno-Kulturalne — BTSK) along with Niwa, its press organ in Belarusian language, was established in 1956. The Association has been active since then for almost fifty years, organizing cultural and educational events: annual festival of Belarusian songs, festivities, competitions of drama groups, conferences, courses for activists, etc. In 1958 Belarusian Literary Association „Białowieża” (Białoruskie Stowarzyszenie Literackie „Białowieża”) followed suit. Its members have always taken to be their particular duty to participate in cyclic readings for the local communities. Popular music group „Lawonicha”, established and funded by BTSK, has also done much to promote Belarusian national identity. The group had its concerts in practically all Orthodox villages of the Białystok province. The activities of the BTSK covered communes with Orthodox populations. However, timid attempts to include Belarusian language Roman Catholic communities met with very little local interest. In linguistic terms, the Orthodox population of Białystok region in the vast majority uses a dialect which linguists classify as north Ukrainian, and more specifically as the dialect of western Polesie. And though Belarusian language is not recognized by the locals as „their own language”, not even as the literary sublimation of their dialect, being perceived as something artificial if not altogether alien, it has been largely accepted as a symbol of sorts of the distinct ethnic status of Belarusians in Poland and a guarantee of their further existence.

Educational institutions which use Belarusian language have also played a decisive role in the consolidation of the Belarusian ethnic group in Białystok province. Already in 1949, a network of schools with „Belarusian as the principal language of instruction” has started to operate in the whole region populated by the Orthodox minority group. In Roman Catholic communities which used Belarusian dialects no such schools were established. At the outset the educational authorities wanted to make Belarusian the real language of instruction in these schools. Translation of textbooks on physics, geography and other subjects was initiated. But these plans were soon dropped as unrealistic, primarily because of a lack of adequately prepared teachers, as well as because of the apprehensions of local populations, which feared that graduates from minority schools would have worse prospects for further education in institutions of higher learning. As a result, „schools with Belarusian as the principal language of instruction” were such only in name for Belarusian language was just one of the subjects in their curriculum. Two secondary schools with instruction in Belarusian were also established and at the University of Warsaw a Chair in Belarusian Philology was created to educate specialists with an M. A. in Belarusian language and literature. This resulted in the emergence of a fairly numerous group of teachers with interests vested in the Belarusian educational institutions. This group would later play a decisive role in the defense of these institutions, and consequently in the propagation of Belarusian national objectives.

Summing up, as a result of the impingement of diverse didactic and ideological factors from the fifties onwards a clearly Belarusian ethnic group started to take shape in the Białystok province. This group has been officially known as „the Belarusian national minority”. This has been a new phenomenon in this region. Earlier, any questions about identity were answered by the local citizens: „Russian” (Ruthenian), „Orthodox” or „local”. „Local” was an ethnographic form of self-identification, „Russian” or „Orthodox” was a term referring civilizational identity. For improved clarity I will present a rather trivial example from my own experience. When in 1962 I returned from a vacation in Bulgaria in my home village of Ryboły I was showing neighbors pictures which I made there. Uncle Wasyl asked: „and those Bulgarians, are they Russian or Polish?” „Russian”, I answered in accordance with the truth. The logic of this folk self-identification is as following: we are „locals” because we live here, but the world consists of two parts, a „Polish” part, i.e. those belonging to the Latin rite, and a „Russian” part, i.e. those who are Orthodox. Consequently locals may be either „Russian” or „Polish”. Now, after being subjected to fifty years of educational and cultural influences from Belarusian national elites, the „Orthodox locals” identify themselves as Belarusians.

I would prefer to call the thus formed ethnic group an ethnic minority rather than a national minority. This last term is usually reserved for groups which constitute a fragment of some nation. A national minority attempts to cultivate the values of its nation and is a minority as long as these values constitute a living substance of its life. For the Belarusians living in Poland Belarusian national values are completely immaterial and largely unknown. If national categories must be used at all, I would suggest that it would be worthwhile to adopt the option suggested by Sokrat Janowicz, the unquestionable leader of Belarusian idea in Poland, who claims that there is taking shape now in Poland a separate Belarusian mini-nation, distinct from the one beyond Poland’s eastern border. Janowicz states:

And out there (i.e. in the Republic of Belarus) there is practically a Russian speaking nation. While here there will be a Polish-Belarusian speaking tiny European nation, very dynamic, practically rooted in intelligentsia.[4]

* * *

A minority formed in the above outlined fashion, regardless whether we call it a national or ethnic minority, could emerge only in the conditions of Communist Poland. Belarusian identity was the only available mode of self-identification for this group. Belarusian identity was imposed on it by administrative fiat, by political decisions made at a rather high level where decisions shaping global policy were made. Probably by decision of Stalin himself the domain subjected to the authority of the Communist Party of Western Belarus was stretched all the way to the River Bug. The territory to the south of the river was left by the Communist International to the Communist Party of Western Ukraine. We may speculate about the reasons for these decisions, but regardless what the experts may think the net result was that after the Red Army entered in 1939 eastern territories of Poland the Orthodox citizens of Białystok province became by default Belarusians.

This scheme of things remained in force until the demise of Communist Poland. It pertained to indigenous Orthodox population of the Białystok region. Two facts prevented a wholesale incorporation of this group into Belarusian national community. First and foremost, a vast majority of so defined Belarusians came from regions which linguistically and ethnographically could not be included in Belarusian domain. No serious etnographer or linguist ever treated this region as in any sense Belarusian. Michał Fedorowski wrote his excellent work Lud białoruski (The Belarusian People) to provide a testimony of the spiritual life and folklore of Roman Catholic Sokółka region, today solidly Polish in terms of national self-identity, a region whose population in the twentieth century steadfastly defended its Polish affiliation.

This is one thing. But the other reason is that Belarusian national traditions were shaped by small landed gentry, predominantly Catholic and with strong anti-Russian sentiments, and therefore in terms of the traditional peasant world view they emerged from the midst of the „Polish” communities.

In spite of these obvious obstacles it is an equally obvious fact that in the postwar years the Belarusian minority was shaped within the Orthodoxy rather than within Catholicism, though the logic of history seems to have pointed otherwise. In the place of traditional self-identification labels such as „Russian”, „Orthodox” or „local” there surfaced a modern term, more palatable to the educated elite and officialdom: „Belarusian”.

Putting aside the political circumstances which favored such an outcome, this process would have been impossible without the titanic efforts of artists, writers and activists working within BTSK. I will just mention here the most notable names: Sokrat Janowicz, Aleksander Barszczewski, Jerzy Turonek, Wiktor Szwed, Jerzy Wołkowycki. The tried to surmount the above mentioned obstacles, transforming merely ethnic consciousness into national minority consciousness. They even tried to draw Belarusian speaking Catholic groups to the Belarusian movement, but without any visible results due to the emerging stereotype that Belarusians are by definition Orthodox and also because of the suspicious attitude of the official authorities which constantly were on the lookout against the danger of Belarusian „nationalism”.

I will pass now to the present day situation. From what I have written earlier it clearly seems to follow that a minority shaped in the above circumstances cannot survive any overall transformation of the political and economic system and everything this change brings with it. First and foremost, it is now possible and maybe even necessary to become the subject of the national and local political life, to participate in the political process and to take positions of political power. This leads to the necessity of a fundamental „redefinition” of the very notion of „Belarusian” as a notion designating religious-ethnic commonality, into a strictly national commonality with all due consequences. A Belarusian ceased to be just an apolitical „local”, „Russian”, „Orthodox” and started to take on the mantle of a political being. Being a Belarusian started to mean being a member of the Belarusian nation, who ought to be proud of its legacy and past, who should defend its honor, who should engage in the struggle for its sovereign existence and glorious future. Being a Belarusian imposes now a commitment to commonality not only on the local scale but also in European and world terms. It’s obvious that the Belarusian nation had a chance to win full sovereignty, to live in happiness and prosperity. This was however precluded by the scheming of Moscow and by the tyrant Łukaszenka, who subjugated the nation and consigned it to abject poverty. Freedom of the Belarusian nation is the objective of the democratic opposition in Belarus and it is the duty of all Belarusians in Poland to support this struggle. This is, perhaps somewhat exaggerated, the vision of Belarusian matters presented in the Polish press and largely dominating in the Polish public opinion. This is also the version embraced by „political Belarusians” active within Belarusian Democratic Union (Białoruskie Zjednoczenie Demokratyczne), Center Poland-Belarus (Centrum Polska-Białoruś) and Belarus Radio „Racja” (Białoruskie Radio „Racja”).

„Local” Belarusians, let us use this term in reference to those under the sway of BTSK, have reacted to these suggestions with indifference, if not with disdain and downright rejection. As a result the political option failed to win any large scale support in successive national and local elections.

This also found its confirmation in the results of the national census where most Orthodox citizens of Białystok province answered the question about national status with „Pole”. This fact has been explained by the possibility that Belarusians are either afraid to disclose their identity or are ashamed of it, or by the inroads made by the ever swifter process of assimilation. I suspect that both explanations somewhat simplify the issues involved. In local communes populated by close-knit Orthodox groups concealing one’s real identity would be both ridiculous and impossible. I already mentioned in passing assimilation. The notion itself is hardly applicable to the analysis of the circumstances of Belarusians living in the Białystok region. Assimilation involves giving up one’s own national values for the sake of values of the assimilating nation. Belarusians from the Białystok province, those „local Belarusians” by declaring Polish identity in the national census do not give Belarusian national values, because they are quite indifferent to them, and even alien. On the contrary, they defend themselves in this way against loss of national affiliation. The term „Orthodox Pole” is for many respondents closer to the truth than the label „Belarusian”, which in today’s circumstances took on a political significance. In the census forms there was no blank space for „religion”, if it had been there maybe we would know better, whether what is really happening here is an attempt to conceal one’s own identity, or maybe whether this is really the most adequate expression of one’s real identity.

Political Belarusians enjoy the support of the authorities and the media. Their activity geared towards the boosting of Belarusian national consciousness is intended mainly „for export” to the Belarusian Republic. Local Belarusians, on the other hand, are considered by the local authorities to be a liability. Always leaning to the left they constituted a stable electorate of SLD and minister Cimoszewicz, while the regional authorities have been traditionally dominated by right wingers. Central authorities are not very eager to help them either. BTSK meets numerous financial restrictions and the head of the Association, former member of the Polish parliament Mr Jan Syczewski has met with unanimous animosity of both the authorities and the media for his contacts with Minsk and pro-Łukaszenka statements.

* * *

The split of the Belarusian minority into political Belarusians and local Belarusians is not the only symptom of the present transformation. When Belarusian identity ceased to serve as the only option for the Orthodox community to manifest its distinct status, conditions developed for a more in-depth reflection on the adequacy of the local cultural tradition. First and foremost, the region has witnessed an unprecedented birth of a Ukrainian national movement. There have also been, as yet rather sheepish, attempts to forge a local identity pertaining to Podlasie region, which involved upgrading of the local dialect of the region of Bielsk and Hajnówka to the status of a literary language. Zosia Saczko publishes her poems in this dialect and Irena Borowik wrote her often reprinted poem Wineć (Wreath) in the same medium.

Global processes, which we now witness and in which we have been participating, such as the transformation of the system, our entry into the European Union, globalization, favor gradual blurring of the old opposition: Pole-Catholic and Orthodox-Belarusian (or maybe somewhat less precisely Orthodox-Russian). These conceptual blends are each other’s mirror reflections. It would be impossible to maintain in the long run the stereotype Orthodox-Belarusian if it hadn’t been for the functioning of the corresponding stereotype Pole-Catholic. If changes in the religious habits of Poles will continue to emulate more and more strongly the models shaped in other countries of the union, which are often referred to as the process of the privatization of religion, or its „de-ecclesiastization” (and this seems more than likely[5]), then Catholicism will become the private business of each individual Roman Catholic, and not an element of national ideology.

Another factor which will favor the fading of civilizational stereotypes will be contacts with other countries of the union, if for no other reason than the pursuit of work or better work. It will be difficult not to notice that Orthodoxy is not an ethnic religion, a „Russian” religion, and that there are Orthodox Swedes, Englishmen and Frenchmen who have their own temples in which they pray in their national languages. Today Orthodoxy is becoming fashionable in many countries of the West.

Other factors which will exert their influence on the molding of a new ethnic constellation in the Białystok region are the changes in the mutual relations between Roman Catholic Church and Greek Orthodox Church, and the changes in social mores typical for „postmodernism”.

After the celebrated meeting between pope Paul VI and patriarch Atenagoras of Constantinople and the mutual lifting of the anathema both sides hurled at each other in the eleventh century, validity of the sacraments in those two largest trends in Christianity has been mutually recognized, as has been the opinion that ritual differences between both denominations deserve respect as different paths towards the same salvation. And even if these ideas only slowly trickle down to the parishes, and theologians of the two churches still have lingering doubts about which of the two paths offers a shorter path to heaven, it remains a fact that there are no canonical obstacles for an Orthodox person baptized in an Orthodox church to participate in the Eucharist in a Roman Catholic church and vice versa. Numerous ecumenical gestures made by pope John Paul II toward the Orthodox Church are also significant. Therefore it is not any more an abnormal situation when a well known painter from Białystok is a Roman Catholic and her twelve year old daughter (baptized in a Roman Catholic church) is Greek Orthodox. The girl changed her religious affiliation when she was ten because she preferred the teaching of the Orthodoxy and its liturgy. Nobody made a fuss about it, no one was shocked. Did the girl cease to be a Pole, did she become a Belarusian? The question is absurd. Over time also in Poland Orthodoxy will cease to be the religion of destiny and will become the religion of choice. The complex web of national and religious identity will then start losing its sense.

The blurring of religious distinctions is also favored by changes in social mores, which I had already mentioned. As we all know, in many European countries most families have an informal status or constitute cases of formalized concubinage. This „postmodern” trend, associated with reluctance to accept long term commitments and responsibility, is also sifting through to Poland. For such couples the problems of religious identity and resultant „national” identity are trivial, if not altogether ridiculous. Who are the children from such unformalized, haphazard and religiously mixed unions: Catholics or Orthodox, „Poles” or „Russians”? It is highly likely that the decision will be increasingly frequently left to the children. But it is also likely that this will not be an important decision for them, nor as difficult as it was several decades earlier. Religion becomes one of the determinants of identity, but not the only one and frequently not the most important one. Religion of destiny is gradually changing into religion of choice with all the due consequences for the ethnic group which was founded on Orthodoxy as a religion of destiny.

Decomposition of the ethnic structure of the Białystok province may be also connected with changes in the community of „Catholics of Belarusian origin”, as they are sometimes called. Tomasz Bakunowicz estimates the size of this population at about one hundred fifty thousand,[6] in other words not fewer than the local Belarusians. Bakunowicz bases his estimate primarily on the size of the Roman Catholic population in Belarusian dialect areas. This is primarily a peasant population. It moved into its present location from beyond the Niemen River in the 16th-17th centuries and settled in the Sokółka district, to the north of Biebrza River, in southern fragments of Augustów district (commune Lipsk and partly Sztabin) and the majority of Białystok district, as well as the eastern reaches of Mońki district (part of the communes: Jasionówka, Jaświły and Knyszyn).[7]

The folklore and culture of this rural population is largely documented in the six volume work by Michał Fedorowski Lud białoruski. The first half of the twentieth century has witnessed concerted efforts of Catholic Belarusian activists, more often than not Catholic priests, who worked hard to spread the Belarusian national ideas among simple folk. Tomasz Bakunowicz in the already quoted here text presented an impressive array of outstanding activists of the Belarusian national movement who were al born in the Sokółka district or its vicinity. Let us go through a roll call: Franciszek Hryszkiewicz from Suchowola — a Belarusian poet and literary scholar, Father Franciszek Hrynkiewicz from Nowy Dwór — the organizer of Belarusian national movement in the Grodno province, dr Stanisław Hrynkiewicz, also from Nowy Dwór — a psychiatrist and translator of medieval theological literature into Belarusian, another Stanisław Hrynkiewicz — a member of the émigré Council of Belarusian People’s Republic, Dominik Aniśko, born in Słojniki near Sokółka — officer in gen. Anders’ army during World War II who later worked as a folklorist collecting pieces of folklore of his native lands, Władysław Kozłowski born in the village of Zalesie in the Sokółka district — editor of the Belarusian journal Nowy Szlach published in Vilnius, Bolesław Grabiński born near Dąbrowa Białostocka — an activist of Belarusian Christian Democracy (Białoruska Chrześcijańska Demokracja), Adam Byczkowski born in Tołoczki grange in Sokółka district — the editor in chief of the Belarusian Catholic magazine Biełarus published in Vilnius, Jan Czepurka born in Nowy Dwór — A Belarusian national activist and diplomat of the Bielarusan People’s Republic, Father dr Józef Reszeć, a Belarusian activist, theologian of patristics at the Batory University in Vilnius, who for his convictions was banished to the Tryczówka parish in Białystok, where working as the parish priest he continued to promote Belarusian ideas among the parishioners.

The list is long but certainly anything but complete. But even in this abridged form it tells us much. The biographies of the listed activists deserve closer scrutiny not only on account of local concerns. They all have an element of the cultural superhero, but they also epitomize a concatenation of the tragic and the sublime. Not only the tragedies of political harassment but also (and perhaps primarily) those incurred by the muted response of the communities to which these ideas were addressed. Belarusian consciousness is often kindled in these illustrious characters suddenly and has the filaments of a mystical illumination: it is tantamount to finding a sense in life which determines the further course of one’s whole life. Those who remained steadfast in the face of challenge would after numerous problems end their lives in banishment or even as martyrs.

It is truly paradoxical that during the same period the Orthodox community in Białystok province failed to produce a single „martyr” of the Belarusian cause, not even a spokesman for Belarusian national concerns. The Belarusian idea remained mute and alien for this community. During the period between two world wars political activism in the area concentrated on social issues, on class ideology and as such it was this brand of activism which had its ideologues and martyrs. The principal political force was the Communist Party of Western Belarus and its close ally the Belarusian Peasant-Worker Hromada (Białoruska Włościańsko-Robotnicza Hromada). The „national” ideas of these organizations boiled down to a struggle for the liberation of Western Belarus from Polish occupation” and its incorporation into Soviet Belarus. True, the leader of Hromada, Bronisław Taraszkiewicz, was a hero of an almost equally tragic stature to that of the activists from Sokółka district. He was born in a Catholic family in the Vilnius province. His family was closely linked to the Roman Catholic Church and he himself initially hoped to cooperate with Piłsudski’s Belweder faction. Later, disillusioned, he associated himself with the Polish Communist Party, was imprisoned in Poland, in 1933 exchanged for prisoners from the Soviet Union and in this role expatriated to the USSR where in 1937 he was arrested and shot in Minsk.

To sum up: the Belarusian national idea took shape in Białystok region between the two world wars in the Catholic community located in Sokółka district. However, the honorable title of „Belarusian” was appropriated (somewhat „undeservedly”) by the Orthodox population of the region, without the essential awe or decorum. Without the imperative sense of pride, often with apprehensions about the handicap of such ethnic affiliation. They adopted this identity out of necessity because there was no other option which would allow them to specify their own religious and civilizational identity in national categories. Even worse so, this honorable identity label was thrust on them with all due consequences, including the constantly reiterated charge that they are incapable of meet this challenge, or at least to meet it in an appropriate manner. Such promotion from the status of „locals” or „simple folk” to that of „Belarusians” was always perceived by the group in question with a distinct feeling of discomfort, for they could not respond with dignified affection to Belarusian literature, national symbols and the „Belarusian national idea” as such. Today they do not know what to do with this legacy and continue their search for a more appropriate definition of their ethnic identity.

A cursory glance at the list of outstanding activists of Belarusian national cause, who emerged from the Catholic community of Belarusian origin suffices to justify the thesis that it is they, rather than the heroes of the Communist Party of Western Belarus, who are the real role models for today’s political Belarusians. A review of magazines such as Czasopis (Chronicler) and Białoruskie Zeszyty Historyczne (Belarusian Historical Notebooks) seems to confirm that political Belarusians are well aware of this. However, the point is that there can be only one addressee of the political Belarusians’ agenda: the Orthodox community, i.e. the local Belarusians. Only in this community Belarusian politicians of the region can canvass support and votes, albeit on a modest scale. The consequences of this state of affairs for political Belarusians are rather dismal: they tend to lose in all the elections. Local Belarusians have heretofore consistently voted for SLD in keeping with the spirit of Orthodoxy which tends to favor communitarian ideas, thereby rejecting the ideology of individualism. Hence the apparently exotic local coalition of activists from the Greek Orthodox Church and post-Communist SLD.

Let us return, however, to the community of Catholics of Belarusian origin which continues to populate some parts of Białystok province. The exploits of the „superheroes” of Belarusian national cause, which were briefly recounted above, failed to bring any visible results. The historical roadroller was inexorable and divisions were absolutely clear-cut: in accordance with the civilizational affiliations rather than the boundaries of ethnic communities. All the consecutive regimes, the tsar’s, Stalinist and that of Communist Poland, also preferred a clear situation: Orthodox population is „Russian” or „Belarusian”, which in the circumstances seems to boil down to the same thing, and therefore trustworthy, while Catholics are to be treated with a degree of suspicion. The incorporation of the Catholic community of Belarusian origin into a Belarusian nationality was in this state of affairs impossible. This community had other heroes: those who were active in anti-Communist resistance movement and opposition, the heroes of anti-Communist ideology, and also, rather unfortunately, of „anti-Russkie” sentiments. From Suchowola in the Sokółka district hailed Franciszek Hryszkiewicz, a Belarusian poet and national activist, who died in a Soviet jail for „serving the imperialistic Belarusian idea”.[8] But from the same the same Suchowola and the same close-knit community hailed also Father Popiełuszko. In a moving poem written after the martyr priest’s death Wiktor Woroszylski wrote that in the afterworld when the priest met God he talked to Him in Belarusian. This is a delightful concept. But here, on earth Father Popiełuszko spoke Polish and defended the Polish cause, not Belarusian.

Is, thus, the Belarusian status of Catholics of Belarusian origin a foregone issue, closed once and for all? I am not quite convinced this is the case. Transformation processes and our presence in European Union may favor the rebirth of Belarusian identity in this region. The premises for this conclusion could be outlined thus:

1. Religion is gradually being transformed from religion of destiny into religion of choice. The complex intertwining of religious and ethnic identity will undergo differentiation into two separate types of communities: religious and ethnic. This process is already unfolding in the Orthodox community. It may stimulate similar processes in the Catholic community. Sooner or later Poland will become a religiously pluralistic country, like other European countries, and old rifts along religious lines will lose their significance.

2. The so-called third generation syndrome may also manifest its presence. Sociologists have described this phenomenon in reference to immigrants in the United States of America. The first generation of immigrants does its utmost to blend into the new social context and to emulate it, the second generation is already pretty much at home and assimilated, while it is the generation of grandchildren which seeks anew the identity of the grandparents. Of course, any comparisons here can be only metaphorical because in the eastern reaches of Poland no one is an immigrant. Nevertheless, the urge to discover the ethnic identity of one’s grandparents and grand-grandparents and the need to inscribe one’s own person into thus regained legacy are today rather widespread.

These are not purely theoretical hypotheses. Working at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Białystok I met a group of Catholic students with freshly recovered consciousness of Belarusian national affiliation. During the pope’s visit in the Ukraine they went to Kiev with a banner displaying a message in Belarusian: Belarusians from Poland greet the Holy Father.

An obvious manifestation of the decomposition of ethnic relations in the city of Białystok is the group of artists and intellectuals which formed around the magazine Kartki (Pages) published in the city. The magazine is a literary-artistic enterprise fashioned to present the achievements of the artistic community of Białystok, both Polish and Belarusian, and of the literature and art of modern Belarus.

The magazine is like many others of a similar vein and as such would not demand any special attention if it hadn’t been for the fact that the group formed around it and the numerous cultural events it promotes and organizes every year in Białystok testify to the emergence of a new civil society which has an interdenominational and interethnic character. The magazine itself is not an institution in the traditional sense of the word: it has no office, does not employ anyone on a fulltime basis, does not even have a telephone (the contact telephone is the private cell phone of Bogdan Dudko, the editor in chief and principal animator of the group’s activities). Without a fixed and permanent budget, it relies on short-term subsidies from different donators and on volunteer work carried out by the members of the group. It does not represent any organization, does not officially embrace any ideology of multiethnicity or the borderlands, for it is by definition a multiethnic phenomenon of the borderlands understood as such without any need to invoke theoretical constructs or justifications.

The activities of students (and particularly of students from the University of Białystok) have been developing along very similar lines taking the form of broadly addressed cultural events in the city.

All these and other similar enterprises are anything but pampered by the local authorities. On the contrary, municipal and provincial authorities often publicly express their aversion to the emerging cultural life of the city. This is in a sense quite understandable: the authorities prefer transparency, clarity guaranteed by the old opposition Catholics vs. the Orthodox, where both groups are understood as two „nations” which have no particular liking for each other.

Therefore, if there do not emerge any unforeseeable historical developments, there is a chance that in Białystok might take shape a unique borderland community, aware of its multiethnic cultural tradition. At this point it might be worthwhile to remind that at the beginning of the twentieth century Białystok was actually a Jewish city located in ethnically Belarusian territory. At the end of the nineteenth century Jews constituted over 80% of the its citizens. During World War II this whole community was exterminated on a mass scale and the city was largely destroyed. Rebuilt in Communist Poland, it was populated by people migrating from the local villages, both Catholic and Orthodox, and to a lesser extent by migrants from other parts of Poland and persons resettled from the Soviet Union. Hence the rather unique mixture which manifests itself in family situations, neighborly contacts and occasionally at workplaces. Almost everyone, regardless of religious affiliation, has grandparents in some village like Suchowola, where quite recently local people still spoke and sang in Belarusian. Even those repatriates from „beyond the Bug river”, from the Soviet collective farms, where they would often „starve and shiver” but always to the accompaniment of dance and song (for such was the character of Soviet Communism), even they have some fond memories of the old times. Even those who had to suffer in Siberia and Kazakhstan became to some extent enamored with the east. But this sense of pluralism did not go beyond the home and the neighborhood. In the external, official world everything was divided, Belarusians had in this world their own place and time, their own separate little universe: their parish, their Orthodox church building, their BTSK club on Warszawska Street, their magazine Niwa, their own organization closely monitored and controlled by the security services, and even their own local organization of the Polish Communist party.

The authorities of the Third Republic (i.e. of the present-day Poland) are doing their utmost to preserve and even consolidate this situation. In the official anniversary celebrations in Białystok, in the regional festivities there are never any Belarusian elements. On the other hand, Belarusian cultural events are totally ignored by the local authorities. The annual festival of Belarusian songs was once visited by prime minister Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz, who even greeted the participants in Belarusian. On another occasion Jacek Kuroń, as the head of the parliamentary Committee for National and Ethnic Minorities, during his visit in Białystok went on the stage to sing and dance with Belarusian performers. But no representative of the local authorities ever „do anything so disgraceful” as to be present at an event of this sort. To make it even funnier, just as in the Communist times Belarusian communities and organizations continue to be monitored by ABW (Agencja Bezpieczeństwa Wewnętrznego — Internal Security Agency).

Old interdenominational and interethnic barriers are being obliterated in Białystok by the emerging civic society. The ethnic blend of the borderlands is now transgressing family and neighborhood limits and manifesting its presence in the cultural landscape of the city. Ethnicity is becoming an important element of individual identity and a cultural value of all the citizens of Białystok.

At the end I would like to offer a methodological appendix. The above deliberations are somewhat lacking in a solid empirical foundation. If anyone asked me about the method I had used, I would answer somewhat pertly that it was „participating observation”. I will try to suggest here several recommendations for future research which, if implemented, could well allow to talk about Belarusians in Poland and in other countries in scientifically more sound terms.

1. To be able to write reasonably about things „Belarusian” it would be necessary to first analyze this phenomenon in the purest possible form, i.e. to analyze the very idea of „Belarusianness”. It would have to be not only an analysis of the contents of all forms of pronouncements by Belarusian activists and ideologues of Belarusian independence, but also a biographical analysis of the most illustrious Belarusians, as for instance the mentioned above Belarusian activists hailing from the Catholic communities of Białystok province. Only after such reconstruction would we be able to specify in what sense and to what extent we could label as Belarusian different communities and cultural phenomena.

2. To identify ethnic processes dynamically unfolding in the Białystok province it would be necessary to conduct a detailed study of the large and constantly growing group of „Orthodox Poles”. What does the self-identification „I’m a Pole” really mean in this case? In what sense is this a form of self-identification with the Polish nation: with Poland as a political state (very likely); with a commonality of historical values (somewhat less so); with a commonality of feelings and judgments about current events (this is least likely)? How do Orthodox Poles react to sport, cultural, political events when one of the sides happens to be associated with the Orthodox community? For example in case of the war in Yugoslavia? Or tragic events in Russia in the aftermath of terrorist attacks? Polish media tend to display in such instances a barely concealed or even blatantly overt glee while politicians try to capitalize on these misfortunes. Such programmatically „anti-Russian” (or perhaps more properly „anti-Ruthenian”) sentiments seem to constitute the principal barrier on the path towards full identification of Orthodox Poles with Poland and Polish socio-cultural legacy. Another method of verifying the contents of this group’s consciousness would be to create a local ranking of illustrious historical characters (cultural, political, military) rooted in the Polish, Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian memory.

3. It would be interesting and highly informative to conduct research with the help of the I-sort method on national self-identification in the four discussed groups: local Belarusians, political Belarusians, Orthodox Poles, Poles of Belarusian origin. This method, which relies on selecting the most appropriate self-identification out of a dozen or so (and sometimes even more) possible options, facilitates the measurement of the intensity of national self-identification and allows to establish correlations between self-identification traits in the investigated sample. Such research had been conducted in numerous countries in Europe, as well as in other regions of Poland, and the application of this method would offer interesting data for comparison.

4. And the final suggestion with rather practical implications. According to prevailing folk theories self-identification of Orthodox Poles is a consequence of apprehensions about being discriminated. This is rather likely, as Elżbieta Czykwin’s research seems to indicate. It is, however, beyond any doubt that the force of inferiority complexes and fear of negative discrimination depends on the extent of actual discriminatory practices. This could be investigated on the basis of the example of Białystok itself and several other towns (Bielsk Podlaski, Hajnówka) by means of comparing the proportion of religious populations with the proportion of their involvement in public life. My hypothesis is as following: negative discrimination is probably present in the official institutions of Białystok due to the nationalistic-Catholic option of the political authorities of the city. There is probably no discrimination in business, private activities, higher education. It is also probably nonexistent in religiously mixed municipal and rural communes. But this would have to be checked.

On the margin of the thus outlined research agenda I would like to mention a delicate although lately fashionable problem of the „social capital” of the region. On the margin, for I do not see any „technical” possibility for conducting any in-depth research on this issue. Nevertheless, it should remain within the scope of interest of sociologists. This issue has been raised by researchers interested in the social premises of dynamic development or in the indemnity against crisis situations. It turns out that apart from different economic and geopolitical factors which favor development or invulnerability to crisis situations, what is crucial is social „cohesion”: the strength of regional, familial, neighborly, tribal bonds, i.e. different not institutionalized mechanisms of mutual support and assistance. A question, which I had already asked, may be now reiterated: is the influence exerted by such bonds also occasionally detrimental to social mechanisms and democratic procedures? Informal transfer of information and values inevitably leads to the formation of coteries and negative modification of democratic procedures. How do such phenomena manifest themselves in the Białystok region within the different ethnic-religious groups attested there? Do they facilitate the emergence of a civic society or do they impede this process? I leave this question open.

Translated by Wojciech Kubiński

РЭЗЮМЭ

Польскі арыгінал гэтага тэксту мае загаловак „Białorusini – polityczni, tutejsi i ci inni”. Аўтар канцэнтруецца на спэцыфіцы тоесамасьці беларускай нацыянальнай мяншыні ў Польшчы, асабліва ў Беластоцкім Краі як этнічнай яе сядзібе.

Няма тут сьвядомых беларусаў каталіцкага веравызнаньня, хоць адсюль паходзіць шэраг нацыянальных дзеячаў, у іх ліку і духоўнага стану. Сынонімам беларускасьці на тутэйшай двухрэлігійнай беларускамоўнай тэрыторыі лічыцца праваслаўнасьць. Аднак усяго няцэлая траціна праваслаўных прызнае сябе менавіта беларусамі. Набывае тэмпаў палянізацыя, у выніку якой зьнікае данацыянальная самаідэнтыфікацыя „тутэйшы” (некалі папулярная). Зьвяртае ўвагу стабільнасьць дэкляраванай беларускасьці, (28%). І, адначасна, хуткая рэдукцыя – акаталічваньне – этнасу т.зв. праваслаўных палякаў.

Wodzimierz Pawluczuk was born in Ryboły. A sociologist, anthropologist, expert in religious studies. Professor at Jagiellonian University in Cracow and the University of Białystok. Author of numerous books, essays and articles. Recently he published a novel Judasz, for he received the Wiesław Kazanecki Literary Award.