The Belarusians Self-Russification of in the RussianBelarusian Border Area in the Late 19th – Early 20th Centuries: the Dynamics, Causes, Results

Since the late 19th century, the tendency of a significant decrease in the Belarusian part of the population of Russian regions has become apparent in the Russian-Belarusian border area. At the same time, it was not about physical reduction in the number of Belarusians, but about their self-inclusion in the Great Russian ethnic group or their choice of Russian as their native language. This process of self-Russification of Belarusians became even more intense in the 1920s. Comparative analysis of the national population censuses of 1897, 1920 and 1926 shows this in full. The main motive for the transition of Belarusians to the Great Russian nation and preference of Russian language for Belarusian were the powerful modernization processes that unfolded in the central Russian regions during this period and created new social lifts for the Belarusian peasantry, primarily among the youth. The policy of Belarusization of the 1920s in the regions of the RSFSR with a compact population of Belarusians, including in the Russian-Belarusian borderlands, did not affect the dynamic processes of self-Russification in any way.