Poland or Rus? Lithuania in the Russian Empire

The history of Russia's formation as an empire and the dominance of nationalist discourse within it is clearly reflected in the policies the country pursued regarding its "outskirts." Among them are the lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, referred to in the official nomenclature of the 19th century as the Northwest Territory. The state ideology that created an image of these territories as inherently Russian trapped itself in a "discursive trap": the ethnocultural reality of the region was different. Darius Staliunas's book analyzes the national policy towards each of the most numerous ethnic groups in this region — Belarusians, Lithuanians, Jews, and Poles. His research shows that in Lithuania, most measures aimed at "Russification," "correction," "merging," or "closeness" of the non-Russian population were either ineffective or led to completely different outcomes than those hoped for by the authorities. The reasons for these failures were primarily related to the prevailing ideological stereotypes that hindered the perception of the complex configuration of social reality.

Darius Staliunas is a leading researcher at the Lithuanian History Institute