The Belarusian question in the political idea of Jozef Pilsudski

Jury Kiturka

Jozef Pilsudski was the most influential politician of the II Rech Paspalita and his opinion on the Belarusian question was decisive for contemporary Polish authorities in respect to the Belarusians. The main postulates that served the base for Pilsudski's relation to Belarus and the Belarusian people have been formed much earlier. In 1890—1900s yet when he was the leader of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS). In 1890s, the main problems in Belarus that most interested him were the fight against rusification and rivalry with Bund and Russian revolutionaries for the influence on the local workers. The first thorough assertions of Pilsudski are related to 1899. He considered the Belarusians to be short of national self-consciousness but he viewed the Belarusian movement as a natural ally of PPS against the Russian tsarism. The future of Belarus Pilsudski saw in restored democratic Rzecz Pospolita in which, as he thought, all the nations are to be provided with equal rights — the Poles, the Belarusians, the Ukrainians, the Lithuanians and so on. Some other leaders of PPS — L.Vasileuski, S.Wojcechowski, K.Keles-Krauz — had similar opinion concerning Belarus.