The ethnic origin of Ukrainians and Byelorussians in the modern Russian historiography

Abstract

Such researches seldom remain academic and always cause the heightened public interest. Now the „centre of gravity” of similar researches is in Ukraine and in Belarus; in Russia the given plots until recently were not a priority. Therefore it is possible to ascertain absence of precise approaches to a problem of ethnic origins in the manuals on domestic history intended for the mass reader.
The task of scientific research of the problem set in 1953 have not been realized, and appearance of Byelorussians and Ukrainians gradually „moved” for more later time – from XII – to XVI century.
„Byelorussians”, in V. V. Sedov’s opinion, originally had no any ethnic meaning and it was applied to name various areas of east Slavic peoples. Only in XVII century the name „White Russia” was fixed to the Western Russia.
In M. V. Dmitriev’s opinion, the correct approach would be not to dispute wheather a slavic population of the Kievan Russia in X–XIII centuries a Ukrainian language, Russian or Belarus, but to find out how, based on what factors the ethnic characteristics.
A reference point in development of ethnic consciousness in B. N. Floria’s opinion, became the Russian-Lithuanian wars of the end XV and the beginnings of XVI centuries when the first proofs of aversion Lithuanian nobility and petty bourgeoises „tyrannical authority” of the Moscow sovereigns became evident. But only in the last quarter of XVI century acknowledgement of distinctions has led to changes in character of ethnic consciousness character of east Slavs in territory of Rzeczpospolita. However the begun of ethnic differentiation has not been completed. In XVII century the name „Small Russia” was used to determine territory Kievan Metropoly, i.e. all Russian territories of Rzeczpospolita. In first half of XVII century the term „White Russia” was the regional name for of some the grounds of modern East Belarus, and inhabitants of modern Ukraine were named as „belorustsy” in the Moscow documents also.
M. V. Dmitriev has supported opinion, that the concept of „All-Russian” People was born in Ukrainian-Belarus culture XVI–XVII centuries.
Discussions on the listed questions have revealed; now we can speak about definite increase of interest displayed by Russian scientists to the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.