Et­no­ge­ne­za Bia­ło­ru­si­nów w świet­le us­ta­leń Wac­ła­wa Łas­tow­skie­go

In 1910, the first monograph in the Belarusian language on the history of Belarus „Кароткая гісторыя Беларусі” [A Short History of Belarus] was published on the pages of the newspaper „Наша Ніва” (Nasha Niva), and then as a separate publication. The author Vatslaw Lastowski based his work on the publications of the famous journalist, local historian Adam Honory Kirkor in the publication „Живописная Россія” [Picturesque Russia] (St. Petersburg 1882). The article examines the views of Vatslaw Lastowski and Adam Honory Kirkor on the ethnogenesis of Belarusians. Vatslaw Lastowski believed that the ancestors of Belarusians were Slavs who came to the territory of present-day Belarus „from the Danube”: Krivichs, including Polochans, Radimichs, Dregovichs, and Sudovians, whom Lastowski, following Kirkor, located „between Mazyr and Pinsk”. The article also touches upon the question of the formation of Belarusians as a separate nation (nationality, tribe) — as seen by Lastowski and Kirkor and their contemporaries.