Maintaining Belarusian Identity in Exile

Russia: The Suburb of Hell is a pamphlet by Wiktor Ostrowski originally published in September 1961 by the Byelorussian Central Council in London. It purports to be a history of the Russian state from the time of Ivan III of Muscovy (1462-1505) to the time of Nikita Khrushchev (1953-1964). However, the content of this pamphlet is not by any means objective or academic in character. (Indeed, some of the claims made by the author are questionable from a historical perspective.) Rather, it is a polemic text which aims to expose the sordid crimes of the Russian state throughout its existence, with a particular focus on the other two East Slavic nations, Belarus and Ukraine. 

It is worth noting that the organization which published this pamphlet, the Beylorussian Central Council, was founded in 1943, during the period of German occupation in Belarus. Its stated objective was to lobby the Nazi government for the creation of an independent (or at least autonomous) Belarusian state. In practice, however, its primary functions were to facilitate Belarusian collaboration with the German army. When its members were forced into exile as the Soviets re-established control over the country, the council continued its activities in exile, and remained the primary organization of Belarusian emigres until the 1990s. 

The author, Wiktor Ostrowski, is somewhat of an enigma. Born to ethnic Polish parents in Yekaterinoslav, modern-day Dnipro in Ukraine, he moved to Warsaw at a young age and enlisted in the Polish Army, and served in the famous II Corps (under Wladyslaw Anders) during the Second World War. Following the war, Ostrowski immigrated to Buenos Aires, Argentina, and began to write prolifically. Although his true passion seems to have been mountaineering, a number of his publications are concerned with Belarus, including pamphlets entitled “Spotlight on Byelorussia and her Neighbors,” “Anti-Semitism in Byelorussia and its Origin,” and “About the Origin of the Name ‘White Russia-” all of which were published under the aegis of the Byelorussian Central Council in London. It is unclear what accounts for Ostrowski’s involvement with Belarus and the Byelorussian Central Council in London, seeing as how he was an ethnic Pole, born in Ukraine, and who was living in Argentina at the time these works were written. 

The title, “Suburb of Hell” refers to specific localities within the former Soviet Union that were the sites of repression of non-Russian minorities, such as Katyn, Vinnytsia, Minsk, and Kyiv. Throughout the pamphlet, the author attempts to make the case that a through-line in terms of both domestic and foreign policy can be drawn straight from the origins of the Russian Empire in the 15th century, through the Tsarist and Imperial eras right up to the Soviet period. In the conclusion, the author writes: “As it is seen from historical facts, the changes in regime never did change the methods of terror. The practice of cruelty used in ruling by the Romanov dynasty did not differ from that carried out by the Rurikid dynasty, and that used by the Lenin-Stalin-Khruschev regime, which is known for even greater terror and mass genocide. There are also no changes in the foreign policy of the Muscovite Empire.” Ostrowski charges that the Soviet Union is bent on complete world domination, and would stop at nothing, not even the use of the ‘neutron bomb’ to accomplish this. 

This pamphlet is very much a product of the Red Scare of the 1950s, although Ostrowski seeks to put a racialized spin on the typical anti-communist rhetoric that was prevalent in the Western bloc at that time. He alleges that the Russians are “to a great degree, not Slavs but rather an unhappy and unbalanced Mongolic-Slavic hybrid.” He juxtaposes the “semi-Slavic” Russians with the “purely Slavic” Belarusians and Ukrainians, and is interpreted as the root of their “hatred towards all other peoples without any exception.” Needless to say, this assertion pushes back strongly against the popular perception of Belarusians as being “Russians by another name.” Although the racial views expressed by the author are antiquated and rather problematic by modern standards, this pamphlet can be seen as an attempt to assert the existence of a unique Belarusian identity separate from, and in this case oppositional to Russia.