Between the ethnographic Belarus and the reestablishment of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: how the Belarusian nationalism created its "national territory" at the beginning of the 20th c.

In this article the most attention is devoted to the discursive practices of Belarusian nationalism in constructing the geo-images at the beginning of the 20th c. This article first of all raises the questions why and relying on what criteria did the leaders of the Belarusian national movement form the image of the "national territory", was this image used in the processes of the nationalization of the masses, how was the territory of "Belarus" and "Lithuania" defined, when in the Belarusian political discourse was the idea of the restoration of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania raised. For the analysis of the raised issues not only documents of a political nature were invoked, but also the periodical press, fiction and educational literature, in which the processes of the creation of the space of Belarusian nationalism also took place. This research showed that in the Belarusian discourse at the beginning of the 20th c. the image of the "national territory" of Belarus was constructed on the basis of the ethnolinguistic and ethnographic criteria. Belarus was primarily considered that territory in which the Belarusian speaking population dominated. The Belarusian intelligentsia used earlier scholarly works in which the primary attention was devoted to the Belarusian language and relying on this criterion the living space of the Belarusians was determined. The geo-images based on the concept of ethno-linguistic nationalism were considered an important part of modern Belarusian identity. The "national territory" of Belarus was metaphorically called "ancestral land", but in historical works it is primarily associated with the inhabited area of the tribes of the Krivichians. [...