How to change the name of Belarus: Antanaitis would not reject the Gudia variant

After receiving a letter from S. Chichanouskaya, Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis addressed the VLKK a month ago with the intention of starting a discussion between historians and linguists about changing the name of the country. According to him, such a discussion would be “significant, contributing to the formation of the self-awareness of the Belarusian people.”

Irena Smetonienė, professor at the Vilnius University Faculty of Philology, in the program Delphi Day He assured that the linguistic system must be respected.

“Generally speaking, linguists and I have emphasized to politicians in the last ten years of my work on the commission that we are not a political organization. If you are deciding something politically, decide it and we will see how things go with language. In 2010, we received a formal request from Belarus to change something similar. (…) Even so, the linguistic system must be respected, there is no tradition of transliteration, names are always adapted, both the names of countries and countries ”, says I. Smetonienė. “A linguist has no right to look beautiful or ugly, he has to look at the system. When we change the name, the biggest problem is always what we call population. (…) Whatever the name, we will go back to that, so we basically do not solve anything, what remains is basically not the right one for them, we only talk about the name itself. Linguists look at the system, many other things, ”says I. Smetonienė on the show.

The rector of Vilnius University, Professor Rimvydas Petrauskas discussed on the show why the changes would be important not only politically, but also historically.

“It just came to our attention then. First of all, it is a political and historical question. In fact, we could have started our discussion without waiting for Svetlana Cichanouskaya to address it. First of all, we could emphasize that we do not treat Belarus as part of Belarus Belarus and Belarus are a linguistic tradition introduced by Tsarist Russia in the 19th century and later established during the Soviet era, which later came into force in the Lithuanian language. (…)

Now, in many countries, and in Germany itself, Sweden, that tradition of consumption began to change very soon after the events of August. I think that when we change in Lithuania, my proposal is on the one hand a one-letter proposal, on the other hand fully in line with the self-esteem of the Belarusians themselves. Belarusians now call their country Belarus, which means Belarus in Lithuanian. I think we would make a politically correct decision, let’s hope that our neighbors will also meet the expectations of that society ”, says the professor.

The interlocutor of the program also recalled a little more the historical context.

“Such a decision would be important in the historical and political sense, since the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) was once made up of several parts. One of those parts was Lithuanian ethnic lands, the other important part was the so-called Russia, in this case has been very strictly separate from the state of Moscow since the 16th century, in which the name Russia finally took root. In this case, if we do not treat Belarus as part of Russia, it is natural to go back to the correct and historically reliable name of Belarus, “says the professor as well.

As VLKK president Audrys Antanaitis told BNS, the commission informed the Foreign Ministry, which sent S. Cichanouskaja’s request a month ago.

We recall that VLKK emphasizes that it is willing to participate in the discussions and “evaluate all the arguments that would help to make a decision on this issue.”

However, when S. Cichanouskaja asked to consider the Belarus option, VLKK emphasizes that “due to old historical ties” in Lithuanian the name Russia has become the basis for the names of two countries: Russia (from the Russians) and Belarus ( Belarusians). . The transliteration of the names of the states according to the languages ​​of these nations, according to the commission, is “undesirable in both cases”, because then the names Rosia and Belarus would have to be used, and the names of the Rosian and Belarusian nations.

A. Antanaitis himself says that of the three variants proposed without support White Russia, because it has a tradition in Russian and Latin, but not in Lithuanian, where the name Gudija is traditionally used.

“If there were enough convincing political and historical reasons to change the name of the country, I, as chairman of the language commission, would support the Belarus option, but I would not reject Gudia’s option,” added A. Antanaitis.

In its letter, the Commission notes, among other things, that the name Gudija dates back to the 17th century in Konstantin Sirvyd’s dictionary, which has been one of the two traditional or short variants of the country’s name since 1995 and was even the first until 2007. Belarus and became an alternative.

In the opinion of the VLKK, it would be possible to return to this name, which was especially used in the interwar period and in the diaspora, as the main one “to emphasize the lasting communion of the lands”. Among other things, it is noted that Latvia and Estonia have also retained the distinctive names of Belarus (Belarus and Belarus).