DISINFO: In 1921, Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were inhabited mainly by the Russian-speaking population
SUMMARY
The Treaty of Riga, signed on March 18, 1921, resulted in a significant change of the Soviet-Polish border. According to this Treaty, the territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, inhabited mainly by the Russian-speaking population, was passed under the control of Warsaw.
RESPONSE
This message is part of the Kremlin’s policy of historical revisionism and imperialism – it promotes the old imperial idea that the Belarusian and Ukrainian languages do not exist but are simply the “Russian” language.
The claim that in 1921 Western Ukraine and Western Belarus were inhabited mainly by the Russian-speaking population is incorrect. There is solid historical evidence that at the beginning of XX century, on the territory of contemporary Western Belarus and Western Ukraine, the Russian language was spoken by a minority of the population in large cities, as the dominant languages of these regions were Belarusian/Ukrainian, Polish and Yiddish (for example, see the results of the Russian Empire Census of 1897). According to the Polish Census of 1921, there were only 48 thousand Russians living in Poland (including the territory of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus).
The Russian language started to be increasingly used in these regions in the second half of the XX century, under the influence of the harsh Soviet policy of Russification. Read more about the Russian Empire and Soviet policy of Russification, which caused the spread of the Russian language in present-day Belarus and Ukraine.
Read more about the Ukrainian and Belarusian People’s Republics born in 1918. Read other examples of the Russian “imperialist” claims: Poland and Ukraine have a “slave syndrome” towards Russia, trying to harm their former Master; Belarus will either become part of Russia or the West's poor colony and Myth about Ukraine as a separate nation was created in the USSR.