Sparysh went to Lithuanian radicals to attack Tsikhanouskaya. As a result, he heard about "Belarusian Nazism" and "Orthodox rabble"

Sergei Sparysh on the air of Ramanauskas' and Čyvilis' talk show. Video screenshot

What started as a convenient platform for criticizing Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya's Office quickly turned into public mockery of Belarusian national identity, before which the guest disgracefully capitulated. 

Sparysh lives in Lithuania after being deported from Belarus. In the Belarusian opposition field, Sparysh joined a movement that radically criticizes Tsikhanouskaya's Office for its moderation. In addition, Sparysh entered a coalition with Volha Karach. 

The Lithuanian platform seemed an ideal tribune for public criticism of rivals. But the studio hosts had other plans.

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Algis Ramanauskas. Video screenshot

Ramanauskas immediately set the tone for the entire conversation, introducing his interlocutor Čyvilis as a young and passionate fighter against "Belarusian Nazism, known as Litvinism".

For Ramanauskas and Čyvilis, the entire Belarusian diaspora is either pro-Lukashenka "vatniki", or hidden KGB agents, or inadequate "Litvinists" who seek to steal Lithuanian history.

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Ramanauskas and Čyvilis gladly listened to Sparysh's accusations against Tsikhanouskaya. Video screenshot

Ramanauskas and Čyvilis gladly listened to Sparysh's accusations against Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya. But as soon as the topic shifted from internal Belarusian disputes to historical questions, the trap closed: the hosts began methodically testing the guest's endurance.

Conquered mass and "Orthodox rabble"

Čyvilis considers the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to be an exclusively Baltic state, in which Belarusians were merely a conquered mass. The Lithuanian host literally demanded that the guest admit that all this "Litvinist nonsense", starting from Navahrudak as the first capital and ending with a peaceful union of equals between Ruthenians and Lithuanians, is a lie and Kremlin disinformation.

In Čyvilis' interpretation, the Gediminids came with a sword and conquered the ancestors of modern Belarusians.

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Dominikas Čyvilis. Video screenshot

To top it off, Čyvilis stated, citing a lecture by Adam Mickiewicz, that in Lithuanian culture the word "lyankas" (Pole) was always associated with a noble knight, while the word "hudas" (Belarusian) historically evokes only disgust in Lithuanians.

"And this is a very good example of who Lithuanians were,"—Čyvilis explained.

To explain why the Orthodox population was discriminated against in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Čyvilis quoted Lithuanian historian and Seimas deputy Valdas Rakutis. The Lithuanian host suggested, as Rakutis once did in their studio, that Sparysh imagine himself in the place of a proud nobleman who suddenly has to share his rights with some "Ruthenian Orthodox rabble, whose name is Nalyvaika" (in the original, the undisguised "Ruthenian Orthodox scum" was heard).

"We cannot be silent about the fact that the political elite in the main institutions were Lithuanians. And all Ruthenians, or proto-Belarusians and Ukrainians, who wanted to get there, had to convert to Catholicism, marry into Lithuanian families, buy Lithuanian lands, have a myth about their Latin or Lithuanian origin, like the Khodkevichs."

Čyvilis believes that such a system of discrimination against the conquered Slavic population became the cause of the country's demise, as the Ruthenians, in response to the pressure, began to associate themselves with Moscow. 

British historian Robert Frost was mentioned as Western corroboration for some of the theories.

Capitulation under "Black Square"

Sergei Sparysh directly called such an approach chauvinism, but did not defend the right of Belarusians to a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania's heritage or mention the Statutes in Old Belarusian, but hid behind abstract left-radical discourse.

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"Black Square" by Malevich—a symbol that Sparysh, for whom history has no meaning, is ready to replace Belarusian national symbols with. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

To the accusation that Lithuanians were occupiers of Belarusian land, Sparysh calmly replied that for an ordinary peasant of that time, it made no difference who ruled them, because they were all oppressors. 

"You were occupiers at first, but then you were just landowners… They are all enemies—whether they are from Lithuania, or they are from Russia, and so on, they are enemies. Class struggle,"—explained the former political prisoner, describing his approach to national history.

The Belarusian activist agreed that the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was founded by Balts, and the Baltic nobility was at the very top. He tried to derive complex arithmetic, stating that Belarusian heritage is forty percent Kyivan Rus', also mentioning Vikings.

Sparysh stated that he does not need national myths at all, because the future can be built even without history, citing the USA as an example.

"I don't want to be proud of symbols. I don't want to be proud of history. This is not my way of thinking… Perhaps it would be great to have Malevich's black painting, the Black Square,"—Sparysh proposed as an alternative to "Pahonia".

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What kind of book by Frost was Čyvilis referring to?

Čyvilis in his talk show refers to the British researcher Robert Frost, author of "The Oxford History of Poland—Lithuania". 

However, the Lithuanian radicals probably read this work diagonally, because Frost explicitly writes that the expansion of the Gediminid rule to the south and east was a complex process that cannot be explained by military force alone. For Čyvilis, however, Belarusians are a "conquered mass".

The British scholar describes the state of that time not as a unitary empire, but rather as a dynastic condominium, which relied on a complex system of compromises. He emphasizes that Slavic and Baltic populations mixed and assimilated for centuries, and the success of Lithuanian princes was based on their ability to protect these lands from the Mongol invasion.

Frost's positions are close to the modern mainstream of Belarusian historiography. He argues that the desire to maintain power over Russian lands led to the rapid Slavization of the Gediminid dynasty. This acculturation manifested itself in the adoption of the Slavic language as the language of state administration, which allowed local elites to successfully integrate into the new system.

In fact, the Oxford professor describes the interpenetration of cultures and dynastic marriages, as in the case of Algirdas in Vitebsk or Liubartas in Volhynia, and certainly not the subjugation of one ethnic group by another.

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On the map from Robert Frost's book: Lithuania Propria (Native Lithuania) 

According to Frost's book, "Lithuania Propria" (Native Lithuania), marked on the map by a bold line, covers most of Belarus, including Brest, Minsk, Navahrudak, Vitebsk, and Polatsk. From the point of view of Lithuanian ultranationalists, this is pure radical "Litvinism". But, if one wishes, one can ignore inconvenient moments in the works of authorities one references. 

In any case, disputes of this kind, as aired by Ramanauskas, Čyvilis, and Sparysh, do not lead to understanding. These are disputes for the sake of disputes.

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