Historian explained how Poles treated Western Belarus residents

The Doctor of Historical Sciences, Dean of the History Department at the Belarusian State University, Professor Aleksandr Kokhanovsky, explained what the recently celebrated National Unity Day is historically based on

“National Unity Day is a quite young holiday for Belarus, but it has already become a landmark date for a significant part of society,” Mr. Kokhanovsky said. “When the world's political forces are trying to divide us, we need a unifying force, and this holiday is among its manifestations. The decision to declare it state-wide has also become a symbol of the restoration of historical justice. The reunification of Eastern and Western Belarus was a natural process, which the people were happy about.”

The Riga Peace Treaty was concluded in 1921, but earlier events need to be recalled in this regard: in 1913, during the years of the Russian Empire, the territory of the present Grodno Region (it was the Grodno Province then, which was later fully joined to Poland), was the richest, industrially developed area. "By 1939, the time of reunification, it was used as a raw material appendage. The same situation developed in the Brest and Minsk regions. Polish authorities humiliatingly called those areas ‘eastern kresy [lands]’, and their residents were not actually viewed as people with full rights. They were just a cheap labour force for them, that needed to be Polonised as soon as possible," Mr. Kokhanovsky said.

The desire of Belarusians to fight for their independence became natural. “My grandfather Piotr Belko, for example, headed one of the Komsomol underground organisations operating in Western Belarus,” the historian said. “For that work, the 20-year-old activist from the village of Domashi of the Molodechno District was imprisoned in the Vileika political prison and the infamous Vilna (Vilnius) Lukiski prison. My father's uncle, Yakov Kokhanovsky, was a head of the Communist Party of Western Belarus in the Molodechno Region. Fortunately, he managed to escape the persecution of the Polish authorities and continued his career in Soviet Belarus. Meanwhile, many people still had to stay in Bereza-Kartuzskaya: about 10 thousand prisoners were sent to punishment cells, suffered beatings and humiliation of Polish guards. At the same time, ordinary villagers dreamed of what it is now impossible to imagine the life of a Belarusian without: their own land, bread, their native language in schools, the opportunity to work and earn money.”