Talk:Western Belorussia

Moved from Talk:Western_Belarus after merging the articles

the last sentance doesnt sound very npov: "This explains why many people decided collaborate with Germans during Nazi occupation of Belarus".are you sure thats the reason, and how many is "many"? i think it needs an improvement. BL kiss the lizard 11:08, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

-I agree. It should say something like "A conflict broke out between those that favoured democracy and the NKVD. There are reported incidents of locals collaborating with the German's during their occupation, because some locals favoured them over the NKVD. However, not all locals collaborated with the occupying German forces." Cheesejoff 20:15, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

the Belarusian minority in Poland was repressed

Facts, please.Xx236 12:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Look for Biaroza kartuska concentration camp build by Poles in Western Belarus, Pinsk pogroms, Vilna pogroms, look into Polonization aricles. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.184.225.113 (talk)

Numbers

"Belarusians formed 3.1% of the populations" - In whole Poland or in Western Belarus? --Vulpes vulpes 11:09, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

"West Belarus" or "Western Belarus"?

Isn't "western Belarus" the more literal translation of "Заходняя Беларусь / Западная Белоруссия/"? I think the latter is also more natural-sounding English. I know there are colloquial "East Germany" and "West Germany" (besides the two Koreas, north and south), but there are 20,000 more Google hits for "western Belarus" than "west Belarus," even with the Wiki mirrors shwowing up in searching for the latter... Anti-Nationalist (talk) 22:22, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Administrative division of the Belorussian SSR in 1939-1944

Polish POV is - it was Eastern Poland. Please explain when did the Western superpowers accept the German-Russian treaty and its results. Certainly not in 1939 or 1940. Maybe the UK did in 1941, but UK wasn't a majority. So the caption presents Soviet POV. Xx236 (talk) 09:22, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Belarusian representation in the Polish parliament was reduced

Which means that before the 1930 the Belarusian representation was considerable.Xx236 (talk) 08:00, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

26 July 2016

Massive copy-paste without attribution: (+12,759) using summary (More on Polonization). Please follow policy guidelines and reveal source. If material is used without attribution, it violates the licensing terms under which it has been provided, which in turn violates the Reusers' rights and obligations clause of Wikipedia's copyrights policy. You can use Template:Copied if you like; other methods are explained at WP:RIA. Thanks, Poeticbent talk 17:21, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Earwig's

• 72.0% confidence » violation possible » en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Belarusian_minority_in_Poland
• 26.5% confidence » en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Polonization
• 10.7% confidence » en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Belarusian_Peasants%27_and_Workers%27_Union

POV

Some of the subjects are mentioned in the section Poland, but some details aren't.

Soviet partisans and terrorists (Siarhei Prytytski) led the war in Western Belarus. Soviet spies and terrorists were trained in Eastern Belarus, in the Internationale school in Moscow. Soviet raid on Stołpce. Border Protection Corps was created to stop the Soviet terrorism.

Poland exchanged Tarashkevich toward Belarus activist Frantsishak Alyakhnovich imprisoned in Solovki.

West Belarus activists who moved to the SU were murdered by the Soviets or imprisoned in Gulag camps in much worse conditions than in Bereza.

Poland Polonised and Soviet Union Russified.

Poles in Western Belarus were imprisoned, murdered or deported.

Peasants in Eastern Belarus lost their lands and become sklaves in kolkhoses.

Western Belarus was occupied by the Soviets 1939-1941. Belarus people lost their feelings toward Communism.

Hramada was dissolved in 1927.

Xx236 (talk) 12:54, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

It is almost homogeneous

The majority of Poles live in the Western regions including 230,000 in the Grodno oblast. Sapotskin region is ethnically Polish.Xx236 (talk) 13:20, 1 August 2016 (UTC)

Hostile commentary

Mironowicz, whose book is made available in full by Belarusian Kamunikat.org, is a hostile commentator concerned only with damning everything that happened in the Second Polish Republic. However, even Mironowicz cannot deny the facts. The Soviet agents among the Belarusian communist made attempts at liquidating TSzB in West Belarus (Towarzystwo Szkoły Białoruskiej) – the organization that run Belarusian schools in prewar Poland – practically causing the shut down of facilities owned by TSzB. They did that in order to eliminate the influence of the non-communist, moderate faction of Belarusian society (centred around BChD) interested in cooperating with the government. The moderates were called by the delegalized KPZB agents as Polonophile fascists and kulaks. After 1919 the government began the programme of setting up Belarusian schools. The communists from KPZB infiltrated the schools, as well as other social and cultural organizations, and used them to agitate for breaking away from Poland and for joining the Soviet Union. By all means, it was a treason against the state.

Eugeniusz Mironowicz is a respected scholar and professional historian specializing on Belarusian-Polish relations and the history of West Belarus--Czalex 09:22, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

• I never said that he is not a respected scholar. I made an observation based on reading the book with little relevance to this Wikipedia overview of what West Belarus is. You, User:Czalex, are deleting what I write from reliable sources (which you also delete), and you replace them with improperly formatted anti-Polish generalizations based on first-party little notes. However, Mironowicz does not make these generalizations; you do. Quote from our article: "A major part of the West Belarusian population received the annexation of West Belarus by Poland with apathy and scepticism." It is a lie! Mironowicz never said that (page 37). He quoted one 1921 report by local Polish starosta complaining about military requisitions during the ongoing war. Quote in Polish: „zupełna rezygnacja i apatia ludności wiejskiej doprowadzonej do zupełnej nędzy przez bolszewików i wojsko polskie ciągłymi rekwizycjami i rabunkami." The "apathy and scepticism" of peasants in the 1921 report was not about Polish "annexation" of West Belarus, but about two armies including Bolshevik Red Army making requisitions. This is but a single example of a constant manipulation by Wikipedia's editors driven by historical revisionism. The original meaning from the book is being reversed in order to prove an anti-Polish attack point, Poeticbent talk 15:31, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

West Belarus is a historical region and an internationally recognized part of Belarus, while Polish nationalistic edits at the article are aimed at presenting West Belarus as a so-called today's West Belarus where all social activity in 1920s and 1930s was inspired by Soviet spies and where the local population loved what the Polish authoritarian nationalistic regime was doing to them - and this exactly is a lie.

Mironowicz's book is absolutely relevant to the topic of the article because it deals with Polish policies towards the Belarusian population of West Belarus. If you see some additional valuable info in it, please do add it to the article, as well as please correct any wrong interpretations of what came from the book - the quotes are all correct. --Czalex 19:37, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

" Wikipedia's editors driven by historical revisionism" + "Polish nationalistic edits" - there is nothing unusual that editors from different sides of the fence have different worldviews and as a result may be reading the same text differently. Don't make drama out of this, just work toward fixing misinterpretations and presenting both points of view and don't make grotesque misinterpretations, such as "aimed at presenting West Belarus as a so-called today's West Belarus where all social activity in 1920s and 1930s was inspired by Soviet spies ", while the op.side wrote " przez bolszewików i wojsko polskie ", i.e., both forces acted not in best interests of local population. In other words, comment on article, not on editors. Staszek Lem (talk) 20:39, 3 August 2016 (UTC)

Poor Mirinowicz is being misquoted. I have checked two sentences. First - he quotes the opnion of Kresy Poles, not of all Poles. Second - Studnicky acted 191-1920, later the Red Army invided, murdered and robbed and later different Poles ruled there.Xx236 (talk) 11:41, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

West Belarus has Polish minority, rights of which are not respected in the same way as the rights of Belarus mibority in Poland are. Xx236 (talk) 11:48, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

According to Polish Wikipedia Skulski was politically active till 1922, so I have removed in late 1930s. An interesting manipulation - nationalistic opinions expressed before 1926 are assigned to Sanacja of late 1930. Xx236 (talk) 12:36, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Western Belarus today: Grodno University repressions

A number of Belarus academicians have been expelled from Grodno University. The question - does the Belarusian government influence historical research? Xx236 (talk) 12:03, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

What happened in Western Belarus since 1941?

Why the page describes the facts till 1941 only? The Holocaust, expulsion of Poles, Sovietisation and Russification - very exceptional history of the area has its roots in WB. Xx236 (talk) 12:26, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

The langauages of Belarusians

Belarusians of the West Belarus spoke:

• South-West dialects;
• Centfral dialects;
• Poleshuks dialects;
• standard Belarusian.

I don't know the opinion of Belarusian nationalists, but I assume they wanted to teach standard Belarusian (what was the opinion of Poleshuks ?). At the same time Belarusian was deveoped/Russified/Sovietised in BSSR, later Soviet Belarusian activists were murdered or imprisoned. Xx236 (talk) 13:17, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

• If you want your valuable comments to become workable, please always (I mean, always; not just here) add the source for your claim. Otherwise, you can be (and will be) accused of lacking evidence. We are dealing here with the Belarusian "victimhood" myth.

Quote: The Russocentric narrative propounded by the Lukashenka regime holds that Belarusians were oppressed by the Poles and Lithuanians (conceived in ethnolinguistic terms) throughout premodern history, until the Russian Empire intervened at the end of the eighteenth century. In this account, the process of Belarusian self-realisation began in harmonious union with Russia, and truly fourished in the Soviet period. — Simon Lewis, Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society [1]

Poeticbent talk 14:31, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

The same subjects are being described in several pages. It's much more difficult to edit four pages than one and the same facts may be presented differently in the same project, on the basis of the same methodology. Xx236 (talk) 06:19, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Communist Party of Western Belarus has been mentioned only in the context of Hramada, which was only one form of the party's activities.Xx236 (talk) 06:25, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

I would be glad to help out with the improvements you suggested, User:Xx236, but would you be interested in defending such improvements from blanket reverting (with false summaries) by Belarusian nationalists? Poeticbent talk 16:51, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

I have a source Bezpieczeństwo wewnętrzne w polityce państwa polskiego na ziemiach północno-wschodnich II Rzeczypospolitej (Google Books), Warszawa: Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN, 2007 by pl:Wojciech Śleszyński. It says that the CPWB opposed taxes in Poland. (It didn't oppose taxtes in the SU.) The activists were trained in GPU Minsk. I'll read and quote the source. The author has published a number of books about Western Belarus.Xx236 (talk) 08:05, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

The structure of the page

The structure

• 2 Second Polish Republic
  • 2.1 Polonization
  • 2.2 Hramada

should be rewritten, Hramada existed 1925-1927, the another years should be described. West Belrus was multiethnic so the Belarus POV is not the only one.Xx236 (talk) 07:19, 8 August 2016 (UTC)

Ahistorical approach

The most common Wikipedia approach to places and regions of the world is generally known as the ahistorical approach, meaning, the factor of time is rejected in order to assure the young reader that they (the phenomena) were always there ... only with a different name, like Istanbul and Constantinopole, or like rivers that began in the Pleistocene epoch. The territory termed "Western Belarus" (according to this theory), preceded time. Belarusians were there always and just like today, there was nobody else who could call it a home (here's where the ahistorical approach comes in). Meanwhile, only the real historians say it like it was: 274,200 Poles were expelled before 1948, and only 37,000 ethnic Belarusians (from Poland) were allowed to settle there.

• Belarus: A Denationalized Nation by David Marples – Western Belarus began in September 1939 when – according to official Soviet version –

  the Red Army decided to take these territories under its protection once the government of Poland had collapsed. Some see the incorporation as a machiavellian act carried out under the auspices of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Treaty. — (Marples, page 12)

Inconvenient truth

In the period 1947-1950 wrote Marples, which became known as

"Zhdanovshchina", any remaining manifestations of Belarusian nationalism or Belarusian culture was eliminated. As one source has noted, the intellectual elite of the republic was destroyed, a repression that evoked memories of the purges of the 1930s. In fact any token manifestation of a separate Belarusian identity was branded as "bourgeois nationalism" and equated with collaborationism during the war. As the intellectual leadership was removed, it was replaced with Stalinist appointees." — (Marples, pages 18-19)

Poeticbent talk 00:17, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

I will not go into detail, but Marples is quite confused here. Staszek Lem (talk) 01:07, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

The book is about modern Belarus, not about the history.Xx236 (talk) 08:14, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

http://belarusdigest.com/story/1939-belarus-national-reunification-or-soviet-occupation-eastern-poland-19403 Xx236 (talk) 08:16, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Quote: Belarusian society is split on what happened on 17 September 1939 when Soviet troops entered what was then Eastern Poland. For some this day signifies the unification of western Belarus with the rest of the country. Others underscore that that all Belarusians effectively ended up under Stalin's totalitarian rule. Positive and negative attitudes toward 1939 unification exist throughout the political spectrum. — (Siarhei Bohdan)

High treason. The activity of The Communist Party of Western Belarus in Vilnius in 1930–1935 [2] Xx236 (talk) 08:22, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Quote: Founded in 1923 in Vilnius, the Communist Party of Western Belarus was a branch of The Communist Party of Poland... Although the name of the party could indicate a desire for independence of Belarus, in practice it was for the removal of the north eastern provinces of the Second Republic of Poland to the USSR. — (Sergiusz Łukasiewicz, JoECaS No. 1_2012) [3]

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/belarus Xx236 (talk) 08:24, 9 August 2016 (UTC)

Quote: According to the Treaty of Riga (March 1921), western Belarus became part of Poland. The 1926 census of Soviet Belorussia (the BSSR) recorded 407,000 Jews (8.2% of the total population)... In 1931 Polish western Belarus had a Jewish population of 283,300 (8.8% of the total)... With the outbreak of World War II... through February 1941, 10,333 Jews from Polish territory annexed to the BSSR in 1939 were sent to the Gulag. In early 1940, 65,796 Jewish refugees from Poland were in the BSSR, 12,798 (19.5%) of them within the 1939 borders. — (YIVO)

Rewrite

I would like to ask all participants in our discussion if, in your opinion, we have enough new material now to attempt to edit the article for compliance with the academically supported content. — Should we begin with the Treaty of Riga? Because there was no concept of "east" and "west" before that... Poeticbent talk 19:23, 9 August 2016 (UTC) — Here's a good map of that particular timeframe. http://a133.idata.over-blog.com/2/88/72/07/Europe-Centrale-et-Orientale-1918-1923.jpg

Requested move 26 September 2017

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved to Western Belorussia. The consensus is that that is the most common name in English sources.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:33, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

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West Belarus → Western Belarus or Western B(y)elorussia – more natural wording in English, better translation of Заходняя Беларусь or Западная Белоруссия and more common in sources (5090 hits vs 2000 hits in Google Books — "Western Belorussia" is even more common but can be considered deprecated). Various forms can be compared in this Google Ngram where "West" is much less common than "Western". —  AjaxSmack  01:55, 26 September 2017 (UTC) --Relisting.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:41, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

Google Books hits for "Western Belorussia" and "Western Byelorussia" are 11,700 and 5070, respectively. Together these are far more common than "Belarus". (New Ngram here.) —  AjaxSmack  01:30, 29 September 2017 (UTC)

• Support move to Western Belorussia, even though the way this land was stolen from Poland in the aftermath of WWII was not really legitimate, that is the most common name in English sources, and thus should be used. Academicoffee71 (talk) 02:14, 28 September 2017 (UTC)
  • After thinking about it, the fact that the article deals with only the period of roughly 1918–1945 makes your suggestion attractive. The region was the (putative) western part of the Soviet Byelorussia, a subset of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (note the y). "Western Belarus" could refer to the western portion of the post-1991 state. Since there have yet to be any other participants, I will add this as an option in the proposal above. —  AjaxSmack  01:30, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
    • If the article is mostly about the land when it was under Polish control, the article should be titled accordingly. It wasn't "Western Belorussia" at the time, it was "Northeastern Poland". The land never should have been taken from Poland and given to Belorussia to begin with, and articles written about the time when it was under Polish rule should have Poland or Polish in their title. Academicoffee71 (talk) 02:22, 29 September 2017 (UTC)
• Relisting comment - there is a suggestion above that because the region was under Polish control during the time in question, we should use a Polish name for it. "Northeastern Poland" doesn't seem to cut it though, as that would refer to the northeast part of the modern state of Poland. Any other suggestions? Or do we just stick to "Western Belorussia" for now?  — Amakuru (talk) 10:41, 3 October 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose. Long established title in Wikipedia. Indiscriminate use of google searches is misleading. "West Belarus" is a descriptive name, Western parts of Belarus. There was no administrative entity with proper name "Western Belorussia". Modern name of the country is Belarus. Its western part is "West Belarus". Staszek Lem (talk) 16:22, 3 October 2017 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Commenting

User:Staszek Lem (who opposed move) mentioned that there was no administrative entity with proper name "Western Belorussia." This is not true. There was a Belorussian political entity with that exact name; called the National Assembly of Western Belorussia, which was formed by the Belorussian communists on October 28, 1939, two months after the Soviet invasion of Poland. Led by the Soviet emisaries, the Assembly decided that Western Belorussia should be incorporated into the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.[4] That is why the phrase Western Belorussia is four times as popular in books.[5] The result of the move request therefore was quite justified by policy. Poeticbent talk 18:21, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, you are a bit mistaken. It was not "Western Belorussia", but "western Belorussia", i.e., an informal territory. [6]

Только в составе Белорусской Советской Социалистической Республики народ западной Белоруссии сумеет залечить глубокие раны, нанесенные ему долгими годами порабощения, и с помощью великого Советского Союза поднять и преобразовать хозяйство, развить свою народную культуру, достойную свободного народа, и обеспечить расцвет благосостояния всех трудящихся западной Белоруссии.

Да здравствует Белорусская Советская Социалистическая Республика!

Да здравствует наша могучая Родина — великий Союз Советских Социалистических Республик!

Народное (Национальное) собрание западной Белоруссии.

Staszek Lem (talk) 01:13, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

• Wow! I'm really impressed with that quote. Here's what that long document says in the following paragraphs beginning with № 50:

ЗАКОН СОЮЗА СОВЕТСКИХ СОЦИАЛИСТИЧЕСКИХ РЕСПУБЛИК О ВКЛЮЧЕНИИ ЗАПАДНОЙ БЕЛОРУССИИ В СОСТАВ СОЮЗА ССР С ВОССОЕДИНЕНИЕМ ЕЕ С БССР
г. Москва
2 ноября 1939 г.
Верховный Совет Союза Советских Социалистических Республик, заслушав заявление Полномочной комиссии Народного собрания Западной Белоруссии, постановляет:
1. Удовлетворить просьбу Народного собрания Западной Белоруссии и включить Западную Белоруссию в состав Союза Советских Социалистических Республик с воссоединением ее с Белорусской Советской Социалистической Республикой.
2. Поручить Президиуму Верховного Совета назначить день выборов депутатов в Верховный Совет СССР от Западной Белоруссии. (etcetera... down to the very end)

In this PDF document from the Belorussian State University for example there's no lower case at all: [7]

And the Russian Wikipedia says: Народное Собрание Западной Белоруссии all in capital letters. Poeticbent talk 23:32, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Well, I did see it. My version comes from the Assembly itself, so I guess it has higher priority. In any case, all we can say is that different documents offer different capitalization, which IMO is telling (i.e. if there were a "Western Belorussia" polity, no one would decapitalized it in official documents). Therefore what we are doing here is a guesswork about the officialness of the status of Zapadnaya Belorussia based solely on capitalization. P.S. which is irrelevant for this article anyway; just a contest of minds. :-)Staszek Lem (talk) 00:52, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

As for ru:wikipedia, don't you know it sucks in terms of referencing? Staszek Lem (talk) 00:55, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

P.P.S In any case, I changed my opinion about the name of the article, since it actually about historical Western Belorussia, rather than about the western part of the modern Belarus. Staszek Lem (talk) 00:59, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Surprising silence

The transference of Poles from Western Belarus to Poland (1944-1946) is more or less referenced, but not a word is said about the transference of Belarusians from Poland to Western Belarus, having place simultaneously and by the same pacts. I wonder why.Joan Rocaguinard (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:57, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

Republic of Belarus but Belorussia?

Xx236 (talk) 12:04, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Great Soviet Purge

This revert, beyond sourcing issues and V issues vs. the cited sources (which are to those taking responsibility for the content to address), is simply off topic and WP:SYNTH to this article. Western Belorussia was part of the Second Polish Republic and was not subject to the great purge (and the Polish and other national operations conducted by the Soviets) which took place in the USSR. The cited sources don't seem to address Western Belorussia and nor does the text. Icewhiz (talk) 06:18, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

The section contrast the Polish part of Belarus with the Soviet part and explains the political background for both parts. So yeah, it's relevant.Volunteer Marek (talk) 07:51, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

This is under a section title of Hramada - or Belarusian Peasants' and Workers' Union - a Belarusian political party in the Second Polish Republic - suggesting that the Belarusian minority in Poland (who themselves were in quite challenging circumstances) had anything to do with the great purge by the Soviets in another country - is beyond being off-topic, a severe NPOV issue. Icewhiz (talk) 08:37, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

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• Belorussian SSR in 1940 after annexation of eastern Poland.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 15:40, 28 April 2023 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Socialist Soviet Republic of Lithuania and Belorussia which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 02:32, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

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Requested move 20 July 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: no consensus. (closed by non-admin page mover) CLYDE ^{TALK TO ME}/_{STUFF DONE} 19:10, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

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• Western Belorussia → Western Belarus
• Eastern Belorussia → Eastern Belarus
• Soviet annexation of Western Belorussia → Soviet annexation of Western Belarus

– Per WP:CONSISTENT with Belarus, as well as the fact that Western Belarus and Eastern Belarus are still-existing geographical, political, and cultural areas not limited exclusively to the interwar Polish-Soviet separation of Belarus (see Grigory Ioffe's Understanding Belarus: Belarusian Identity). Therefore, using a term like "Belorussia" is inappropriate, even if the current text of the article relates primarily to the interwar period. Additionally, Google Scholar states that there are more results for Western Belarus than Western Belorussia by a margin of 2.5:1. Mupper-san (talk) 17:56, 20 July 2023 (UTC)— Relisting. —usernamekiran (talk) 16:41, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose. This area was known as Belorussia or Byelorussia in the Soviet era, not Belarus. These are historical not modern place names. So, the WP:CONSISTENT argument runs the other direction. Similarly, we are not going to rename Soviet Union to something like "Russian Union" just because the modern state is named Russia.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:17, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  @SMcCandlish The existence of western Belarus as a cultural region is, as I stated, not limited to the Soviet era. The fact that the article currently limits itself to the Belarusian portion of the Kresy does not make this fact less true, so I don't see why it being called as such historically is relevant.

  Mupper-san (talk) 10:12, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  We don't name articles for what they might someday scope-change into. The article we have is about a historical region, and I can't see any reason that an article about the modern western part of Belarus (if such coverage is actually warranted – I'm just taking your word for it that "Western Belarus" is treated that way, like "the American South" or "the North of England" are well-defined cultural subnational regions that are articleworthy) would have to be shoehorned into the same article as the historic Soviet-era coverage. It might actually be better to keep them separate, and use WP:SUMMARYSTYLE to briefly summarize the one in the other. By way of similar reasoning, many traditional counties of the UK have merged into (or even been split across) modern administrative areas of various sorts, and we have separate articles for each of them; we do not try to force all the historical coverage of an area into the article on the modern geographical unit that contains it. E.g. Argyll AKA Argyllshire, the trad. county, is a separate article from Argyll and Bute, the current "council area"; even Argyllshire (UK Parliament constituency) is a separate article, because the context and boundaries were a bit different from traditional Argyll[shire].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:49, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  @SMcCandlish Conversely, the Western Belarus/Belorussia article as it is now does not refer specifically to the western half of the Byelorussian SSR or "Belorussia", which, as you state, is a Soviet term, but rather parts of the Kresy in which the Belarusian cultural and political movement was active. Therefore, I would argue that it isn't particularly appropriate to use "Belorussia", a Russian-language term used largely in reference to the Byelorussian SSR, given the content of the article is more focused around the Belarusian minority in the Second Polish Republic than the portion of the BSSR from 1939 to 1945. Another instance of this is the article for the Belarusian Democratic Republic using "Belarusian" in the title, rather than "Belorussian", as well as the Belarusian Peasants' and Workers' Union.

  Likewise, Eastern Belarus/Belorussia referring to the portion of Belarus which was not under Poland during the interwar period is already covered at the BSSR's page, and as such, simply covering it as such is redundant. I have expanded the article to include sources and further information in order to differentiate it from the BSSR's page, though please let me know if such a thing is not ideal given that it significantly changes one of the articles requested to be moved.

  Mupper-san (talk) 19:39, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  I'm not persuaded. Any tidbits of stuff that is not from the interwar era can be moved to a more general article on the region.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:32, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  But why, again, should an article on the history of the Byelorussian SSR between 1920 and 1939, or the Belarusian minority within some voivodeships of the Second Polish Republic, use the terms Western/Eastern Belarus/Belorussia, when such a term is used to refer to a region in eastern Belarus in general? If we truly want to make an article about the history of Belarus during the interwar era, east or west, it should not use a broad-reaching term which refers to an existing Belarusian region. To use your own example of other historical regions within the Anglosphere, the page for the American South does not exclusively discuss the history of the Confederacy, nor does the page for Scotland purely discuss the Kingdom of Scotland nor Scottish devolution.

  I fail to see how "Eastern Belorussia" or "Eastern Belarus" serves as an unambiguous primary topic for the Byelorussian SSR as it existed during the interwar period, or how "Western Belorussia" or "Western Belarus" serves as such for ethnically-Belarusian parts of the Kresy. Such an article for the former would be better covered at something like history of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (1920–1939), as there is no evidence (and, in fact, evidence to the contrary, as shown in the current Eastern Belorussia article) that "Eastern Belorussia" unambiguously refers to the Byelorussian SSR during the interwar period, or that "Western Belorussia" unambiguously refers to parts of the Kresy which were annexed into the Byelorussian SSR during the Soviet invasion of Poland.

  Mupper-san (talk) 20:46, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  I've already made my argument and am not inclined to repeat it. These articles are not about the east and west of the current nation-state, but about the historical B[y]elorussia. If you don't understand this, then I don't know what to tell you.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:18, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

  @SMcCandlish I again repeat that eastern and western Belarus are existing cultural and historical regions of Belarus, which both predate and succeed historical "Belorussia" as it existed from 1920 to 1991. The BSSR from 1920 to 1939 or the Soviet period of western Belarusian history are not definitive geographic or purely historical terms which are uniquely, definitively, or commonly referred to with the term "Eastern/Western Belorussia" - and there is evidence against this, which can be seen in the current form of the "Eastern Belorussia" page. Furthermore, the article for "Western Belorussia" does not refer specifically to the western part of the BSSR, but rather to, again, a geographic area formerly part of the Belarusian Democratic Republic which had significant Belarusian political activity during its existence. Articles specifically referring to the history of the BSSR between 1920 and 1939, or the history of Belarusians under the Second Polish Republic, should go under articles which are named as such, not articles under the broad names of "Western Belarus"/"Belorussia".

  Of additional note, only two of five sections in the "Western Belorussia" page discuss the area within the Soviet Union. The remaining portion, making up ~63% of total text in the article, discusses the region either under the Belarusian Democratic Republic, the Second Polish Republic, or present-day Belarus. It is therefore incorrect to place the article's scope as being exclusively or primarily part of Soviet history. As I originally stated, "western Belarus" also dominates over "western Belorussia" on Google Scholar, and in both cases, there is no evidence that the term refers exclusively or even primarily to the region of the Second Polish Republic annexed into the BSSR. Together, these facts illustrate the claim that using "Belorussia" is ideal, so as to be WP:CONSISTENT with the BSSR article, is not a strong argument.

  Mupper-san (talk) 04:11, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

  See WP:BLUDGEON. I'm not sure how to be clearer that I decline to argue circularly with you to the death. You've made your point, I've made mine, it's time to be quiet and let others participate now.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:14, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support: the nation is currently known as Belarus; the usage shifted accordingly as shown in the nomination. The entities existed in the interwar period and are not necessarily related to the Soviet period. -- K.e.coffman (talk) 14:03, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  Um, the interwar period was a subset of the Soviet period.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:35, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  Western Belarus was part of the Second Polish Republic at that time. --K.e.coffman (talk) 22:40, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

  And was not generally called "Belarus" then; "Belarus" (in English, anyway) almost entirely post-dates 1991.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:13, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

  The concept the cultural and geographical region is not limited to the period between the two wars. The name of the nation continued to be Belarus; compare Second Polish Republic and Poland; Russian SSR and Russia, etc; also see: Western Ukraine. The change from "Belorussia" to "Belarus" in English-language sources post 1991 is the result of Belarus becoming an independent state, with the new official name being the "(Republic of) Belarus". Hence the shift in English transliteration from the Russian-derived "Belorussia" to Belarusian-derived "Belarus"; see Belarus#Etymology. -- K.e.coffman (talk) 05:41, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

• Comment. The Western Belorussia and Eastern Belorussia articles refer to the territories that were under Polish and Soviet rule in the interwar period, this is the current scope and it seems this is used in historical contexts. The article for this period is Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic so the consistency argument is weak. Mellk (talk) 14:35, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support: WP:CONSISTENT with Belarus. Western and Eastern Belarus were not official names like Byelorussian SSR. They are terms naming the West and East of the country, currently known as Belarus. Lucjim (talk) 21:08, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose per scope of the article, which is not about the western part of the contemporary state of Belarus, but a region known as Western Belorussia between the two World Wars. If anyone wants to move it to Western Byelorussia for consistency, that's fine with me. —  AjaxSmack  04:30, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
  • NB that "Western B(y)elorussia" is still more common than "Western Belarus" per this Google ngram. —  AjaxSmack  14:59, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  What about the possibility of moving the current Western Belorussia article to a different name (something like "Western Belorussia (Interwar period)", perhaps), so as to separate it from Western Belarus as a whole? The Google Scholar search, at least, indicates that the term isn't used by any means exclusively or dominantly to apply to Western Belarus/Belorussia (at least one article on the first page for Western Belorussia refers to the environment of the region as the western area of the BSSR, rather than the region as it was under the Second Polish Republic).

  Mupper-san (talk) 16:37, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  There's not really a need. "Western Belorussia/Belarus" is not all that encyclopedically significant except during the interwar period. Glance at the texts of the Russian, Belarusian and Polish Wikipedia articles, and note that all three, while having undisambiguated titles, only deal with the interwar period. —  AjaxSmack  15:41, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  Well, the WP:RS are certainly there to at least justify inclusion on the Western Belorussia beyond 1921–1941. I'll list some here for purposes of clarity, though I do apologise in advance if this comes off as bludgeoning.

  • Ioffe's Understanding Belarus: Belarussian [sic] Identity, mentioned above.
  • Chernyshova, Natalya (March 2021). De-Stalinisation and Insubordination in the Soviet Borderlands: Beria's Attempted National Reform in Soviet Belarus. Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 73, No. 2 (pages 392–394, detailing a 1953 report by Zimyanin on the economy and social conditions of western and eastern Belarus; however, given the content of Zimyanin's report are primarily concerned with then-ongoing Sovietisation, I could understand viewing this as part of .
  • Sabaleuskaya, Volha (December 2006) Changing Conceptions of Leisure Among the Jews of Western Belarus at the End of the 19th Century. East European Jewish Affairs, Vol. 36, No. 2.
  • Sapiets, Marite (1982) The situation of the Roman Catholic Church in Belorussia. Religion in Communist Lands, Vol. 10.

  Additionally, this source discusses the east/west cultural and economic divide (again, apologies if this comes across as bludgeoning):

  • ed. Léo-Paul Dana et. al. Handbook of Research on European Business and Entrepreneurship: Towards a Theory of Internationalization (pages 54–60, discussing how Western Belarus is culturally closer to Poland and Lithuania than eastern Belarus is, noting religious similarities, a comparably-agrarian economy, and the large size of the Polish minority).

  Sources on Eastern Belorussia outside 1921–1945 can also be found on the respective page.

  Finally, while I do know it's not really a point, I will note that both the Russian and Ukrainian versions of the Western Ukraine page also discuss the region primarily in the historical sense, relegating information about the region post-1945 to single paragraphs. This contrasts with the English version of the page, which includes much further information about the region since 1945. So, I wouldn't say that the Russian and Belarusian-language pages for Western Belarus should be necessarily taken as ideal references of what the page's contents should look like.

  Mupper-san (talk) 02:44, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

  As an addendum, I would like to state that this list exclusively includes English-language sources which discuss it as the main topic (save for the final one), so as to demonstrate that there would be room for Western Belorussia/Belarus outside of the interwar era to theoretically pass the GNG in absence of any existing article on the area. To summarise, because I feel that I may not have clearly enough stated this, I would say that this supports the argument that Western Belorussia/Belarus has significance outside of the area of the Second Polish Republic that became part of the BSSR.

  Mupper-san (talk) 02:55, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

• Comment Belorussia redirects to Belarus. If these are in fact just in the scope of the older regions, I don't think they're the primary topic for Western Belorussia/Eastern Belorussia (though the Soviet annexation one is probably fine). Skarmory (talk • contribs) 20:15, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
  • It's a little like a less extreme version of "East Germany", which refers to a specific historical period. "Western Belorussia" doesn't have much application outside of the interwar period. —  AjaxSmack  14:59, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support per WP:CONSISTENT for consistency with the main article. Rreagan007 (talk) 00:14, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose as inaccurate. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 20:30, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose, anachronism. 162 etc. (talk) 21:37, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.