We watch a lot of Polish and independent Russian news on cable television, as they offer segments not seen on the Western European channels. Last night, the Polish channel was showing the latest Belarusian propaganda coming out of Minsk. Not one to miss out on a current trend, the commentator noted sardonically, President Lukashenko has urged citizens to make trench candles. No doubt the wily president had seen all the attention Ukraine was getting in supplying trench candles to the front line and thought he might seize on the initiative.
Lukashenko has a habit of stealing from others and trying to call the spoils his own. For years, he was happy to be spearheading the effort to push Belarus into the 21st century by modernizing Minsk. He was very proud of the "rhombicuboctahedron" national library that was built in 2006. Yes that is a word. This was going to be the new face of the capital city.
However, people began yearning for a bit of historicism that wasn't Stalinist and so Lukashenko decided to claim the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as his own with this captivating video suitable for Eurovision. He had also adopted the Vytis symbol as his own.
He needed some help of course. Norman Davies was all too happy to oblige, devoting a chapter of his Vanished Kingdoms to the Grand Duchy, which you can buy separately. Davies even began the long chapter by paying homage to Lukashenko. Needless to say I was thunderstruck, as were my Lithuanian colleagues with whom I shared this book. If that wasn't enough, Davies even intimated that Lietuva was a cognate taken from the Slavic Litva, noting some marsh in the northeast corner of the country that bore a similar name.
Davies seemed oblivious to the fact that the etymology of hydrographic names usually stems from earlier cultures presiding in the area. Balts had settled in this region long before the Slavs. Lithuanian predates Russian or any other Slavic language. Being a historian of notable repute, Davies should have known this but unfortunately his Slavic bias got in the way.
Unfortunately, Minsk had been thoroughly destroyed in World War II, forcing Lukashenko to look outside the capital for historic sites. He undertook massive rebuilding efforts of former Grand Duchy sites like the Mir Castle and Nesvyžius Palace in an effort to claim these monuments as his own. I traveled to some of these sites with my colleagues in 2014. This was when Lithuania and Belarus were on relatively friendly terms. My Lithuanian colleagues could travel visa free. I of course had to pay up front for a visa, which was thoroughly examined at the border post to make sure it wasn't fake.
We were all struck by how hasty the restoration efforts were with a lot of liberties taken at these historic sites dating back to the 16th century and earlier. The Lithuanian guide, a historian whose specialty is the Grand Duchy, said that Belarusian historians and architects had explicitly refused any assistance from their Lithuanian peers, I suppose under threat of the tyrant himself. All we could do was gaze in wonder at how Lithuanian culture had been so brazenly appropriated.
Not to be outdone, Norman Davies defended his thesis when confronted by Lithuanian historians. He said "Lithuanians must realize they are not the only heirs to historic Lithuania." No one ever said that but to read Davies' account, Lithuanians played virtually no role in the Grand Duchy other than as some kind of mercenary army for the Slavic noble families, although both Belarus and Poland like to claim Vytautas as their own. He led the grand army against the Teutonic Order at the Battle of Žalgiris, Grunwald, Zelenshchik (take your pick) successfully defending the Grand Duchy in 1410. Anyway, we've come to expect such nonsense so no one took it too harshly. The book was hardly a bestseller and probably had little impact beyond a few reading groups.
The Polish news segment went onto show how Lukashenko was mobilizing the nation toward war by introducing "patriotic clubs" for preteens. The segment showed kids swimming in fatigues with plastic machine guns strapped over their shoulders. Putin has similarly been introducing such programs across Russia.
We already knew Lukashenko liked to surround himself with children. He singled one boy, Nikolai, out in particular, whom he claimed to be his son. However, no mother is ever mentioned. For years "Kola" palled around with Alexander and when the uprising took place in 2020 was there to protect his father from the unruly masses. Kola is now 18, conscription age.
This is more disquieting because it made us wonder what Lukashenko's plans are. Is he simply going to be part of Russia's northern front on Ukraine or does he have wider ambitions, such as claiming all of the former Grand Duchy as his own?
Months prior to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Lukashenko had been transporting so-called "refugees" to the border of Lithuania and Poland and pushing them by gunpoint into the neighboring countries. He had teamed up with the Kremlin on this as the refugees were supplied by Russia from camps in Syria and Greece. Yet, somehow Lithuania and Poland were supposed to take them in, according to Ylva Johannson, who is the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, refusing to provide any assistance.
Angela Merkel, who was no longer German chancellor, offered to step in to calm matters. In the end, Lukashenko made a big show of taking back those refugees that Lithuania and Poland had refused to admit, as if he had the kindest heart in the world. For whatever reason Merkel seems to have a soft spot for Slavic tyrants. A friend of mine says it is her East German roots. After all, she grew up under Soviet influence.
The idea was and I imagine still is that if Russia can break apart the EU, it can lay claim to its former Soviet territories and former satellite Eastern European countries. The Duma not so long ago passed legislation making Russia the rightful heir to the Soviet Union and all its former possessions. It is even mulling over the idea of revoking recognition of Lithuanian independence. Basically a return to 1989.
What Lukashenko seems to forget is that Belarus once was part of the Soviet Union and it is doubtful that Putin would award the Belarusian president in any significant way if he were able to carry out his long range plans. For now, Lukashenko simply serves the purpose of keeping Belarus in the Russian sphere of influence.
These are the kinds of neighbors we have so it is not surprising that Lithuanians are very concerned about their future. Something their Western European allies don't seem to fully appreciate. Today, most Lithuanians feel that Poland is the only country they could turn to if Belarus decided to become more aggressive. Ironic given the uneasy relationship Lithuania has had with Poland over the centuries but the war in Ukraine has brought the two countries closer together.
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