Aleg Latyshonak: I Am Writing A Book About The Old History Of Padliashsha

• 21.08.2025, 19:07

Doctor of Historical Sciences, head of the Belarusian Historical Society in Poland, dissolved his plans.

45 years ago Oleg Latyshonak, a student from Belarus, graduated from the Department of History and Philosophy of the Jagielonian University in Krakava. And so began his career as a historian. Today he is a doctor of histological sciences, the head of the Belarusian Histological Society in Poland. Author of many books published both in Polish and Belarusian. "Radio Racyja" talked about his books and favorite historical topics.

- As we begin to talk about your books, let us first guess your first book. What kind of book was it? What topics interested you at that time?

- It was the book "Belarusian Vayskiye Pharmavanni 1917 - 1923". It was the highlight of my longest research on the history of Belarusian military affairs of that time. The first May investigative work started, one might say, on the public interest, because the early leader of the Belarusian student movement in Poland Pyatro Bagroŭski said: the soldiers need a hero! Everyone knew about Bulak-Balakhovich. And I started with Bulak-Balakhovich, and later it turned out that a lot of people were fighting for independent Belarus.

- I understand that the first stage of this book was in the next ones, in such books as "Nationhood - Belarusian". Were the next books with completely different messages?

- No, it was different. I was still writing about military affairs, but it's still, you might say, when something new came into my hands, or something I hadn't read before. All of this was found in my book, published in Belarusian, "Belarusian Popular Revolutionaries". And "Nationality - Belarusian" is another book, as I thought to write a book about the Belarusian national movement, as it is today, about the beginning of the Belarusian national movement. I thought it was necessary to write a section in which it would be investigated how Belarus and Belarusians came to be called Belarus. For how the Belarusian national spirit can exist, if it is not clear how it is to be. When I started research, it took me five years. It turned out that from that time a new book about the Middle Ages and the early modern period was born. I didn't get there until the 19th century. But it was a bad time for me. It was a good time for me to study you, your country, your brothers, all your fellow citizens. It's a big deal. Let me say at once that I don't know what it is. But the name is very old, dating back to the 13th century. Often we still think it is something the tsar or the tsarina thought up, but if the science goes back to that, it is a very old name.

- I recently took an interview with Professor Andrei Matsuk, who was born in Polatsk and graduated from Polatsk University, and he told me about it, that he had found a lot of historical documents, he even found documents where the Polack nobility appealed to "our princes", i.e. to the Ragvalodavichs, when there was a discussion about motherhood. There was a lot of documents called "Belarusian" - vyskovye addzels and etc.

- There was, for example, Belarusian currency, as if it was its own currency. There were a lot of such names.

- And how long ago can you guess that the name Belarus appears in documents?

- Since the end of the 16th century. Earlier there was such an apparent Belarus Rus. It could be found in different places. Although I think that the first clue about Belarus was just in our village. But in fact in the 16-17th centuries this name was reserved for the descendants of Belarus. Although some people attributed it both to Navahradchyna and to Transcaucasian Pales. So, it's an old name. My research about the 19th century was included in the book "Nationhood - Belarusian". The first book about the name of Belarus is "From White Russians to Belarusians". I think it was worth dedicating so much time to it. I was not the only one to do it, Ales Bely did it with no less enthusiasm. Nowadays, scientists do not know the origin of this name and what it was related to.

(...)

There is a public interest in the history of Poland in the Middle Ages. This is what I think to do in the near future. This is the 11th - 14th century. Since in the 15th, when Poland enters the Great Lithuanian Principality, a new period begins. So, not later than the end of the 14th century.

- Interesting. I thought that such a topic is widely spread in Poland, that a lot of books have already been written about the history of Padlash.

- There is no new book. That's why I'll write the first one. There were some interesting articles, but this period, from the end of the 14th century, when Padliasha was a part of Russia, is not often remembered, today's historical books have 3-4 articles, but it could be hundreds.