Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 20 March (BelTA) – One should know the history of creation of the Belarusian People’s Republic (BNR) but should not take pride in those events. Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko made the statement as he met with young creative Belarusians on 20 March, BelTA has learned.

The head of state pointed out that those events are still poorly researched while the available information is quite controversial. On the one hand, the founders of the Belarusian People’s Republic wanted independence for the country. On the other hand, they were ready to seek anyone’s assistance with reaching the goal, however, they would have been once again oppressed in the end.

Alexander Lukashenko stressed that smart people should know the truth about those events. “The events should not be taken out of context or plastered over. Yet one should not take pride in it. It was a sorrowful page in our history and the history of many nations contains many pages like that,” noted the president.

“The history of any country is full of various events. Let’s talk about Germany, for instance. They experienced a dreadful event, which all the generations will remember — they were the source of a war. They eliminated millions of innocent people. It was a holocaust not only for the Jews, but the entire world, particularly our Slavonic world,” said Alexander Lukashenko. “What did they try to achieve by doing that? They did it in the name of happiness of the German people. They came here in order to get resources, technologies, and so on. They probably believed back then that they were doing the right thing. From our point of view it was barbaric and they were wicked people.”

The president pointed out that time had passed and Germans are no longer proud of that period in the country’s life. “They don’t take pride in the fact that in Hitler’s time magnificent motorways were built, that a most powerful economy was created, that our people, Ukrainians, Russians, and Poles were forcibly moved to Germany and forced to work as long as they could drag their feet,” said the head of state.

Alexander Lukashenko noted that the Belarusian history probably contains certain errors, too. “The people, who tried to create an independent Belarus, didn’t know what policy they should follow. Bolsheviks dispersed [the First All-Belarusian] Congress because they feared that this part of the empire could break away. Belarus was a precious territory for them. They were afraid of losing it,” explained Alexander Lukashenko.

Bolsheviks were happy to give certain independence to Belarus and even permitted the organization of that congress, however, as soon as they heard calls for genuine separation, they dispersed it. “Not because they didn’t want to give some freedom to Belarusians. They were scared they could lose Belarus and Germans or other enemies would be near Smolensk or even Moscow,” said the president.

Yet according to the head of state, the decision of the BNR founders to seek Germany’s assistance could not secure Belarus’ complete independence. “Due to domination from the east they ran westward to be dominated by the German emperor. One can look at it like that. But I don’t want you to judge them harshly because we were not there and we didn’t live through it. We don’t understand what was going on there. The passionate desire to make Belarus independent could force them into the Kaiser’s embrace or god knows who else. There were people like that there, too. Was it a good page in our history? Maybe but not entirely,” believes Alexander Lukashenko.