This is an article dedicated to the history of Belarus and its people. Belarus has aquired a reputation of being ruled by “The last dictator of Europe” and unlike some of her neighbors, it still struggles to gain true independence. Suppressed by a brutal regime, this “Police State” run by a president (lower-case letters in the word president are used on purpose) Lukashenko, hopes to further eliminate any chance of hosting a “color revolution” by erasing Belarussian history from people’s memories. It is called, russification of a nation, a process where some pundits scream that there is no difference between Belarus and Russia, but instead, it is one ‘Great Russia’. And since wrongways.com consider such approach to Belarussian history as unacceptable, our Web site will run a feature where we will collect any Belarus relevant material to support our opinion. This is the first article translated from Belarussian into English and it concerns the origins of the name “Belarus” or “White Russia”. As soon as I have some free time, I will update and correct the translation of this article.(Islander, wrongways.com)

Until recent time, many thought that the very first mentioning of “White Russia”(old name for Belarus) could be found in Polish and German historical accounts dated in the second half of the XIV century. From time to time, the name “White Russia” surfaced in some business and historical-geographical manuscripts of the Western-European origins written between XV-XVI centuries. However, a hundreds years ago, V.Lamanski, a famous researcher, while elaborating about sense and history of this name, came to a conclusion that: “She (White Russia) even older than the times of Algerd and Gedimin; She existed at the end and even middle of the XIII century.” The researcher’s words turned out to be true.

Relatively not far ago, in 1979, “Speculum”, an American magazine dedicated to the history of Middle Ages, published an article about European history and geography in the XIII century. Public had not known sources used in this article prior to that moment and their discovery belongs to an American scientist M.L. Kolker. The research conducted by him is based on a manuscript from XIII century. This manuscript can be found in the library of Trinity College in Dublin.

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The size of this manuscript is 158×113 mm; it counts 406 pages and features various works in Latin: poems, anonymous essays and so on. Mister Kolker dates this collection of documents to the end of XIII century.

In the beginning, on pages 3-5 of this manuscript, is a short essay titled “nicipiunt descriptiones terrarium” or “Description of the lands”. This essay serves as a pre-face for a main work (which did not survived to this day) about Tatars. Even though an author of this essay does not go in details while describing various European countries, overall his work is a valuable document, shedding some light on European history in the second half of XIII century. This document tells a reader about many fascinating events. For example, there is a unique mentioning about “a discovery of a very big island, where people dig gold from sand and where people regularly sail from the ‘Old World’”. Welcome to America! His words, once again prove the fact that Europeans sailed to Americas long before Columbus.

Understandably, the words that mention our country in the “Dublin manuscript” cause an enormous interest. They come not from an outsider who received information from somebody else but a direct witness, a missioner and traveler, who lived there(White Russia) in the middle of XIII century. This person was a preacher who lived among Yatcvigovs and Litovtcev for a prolonged period of time and even witnessed a rare mentioned moment when King Mindoug was knighted. He also left some very important information regarding geographical location of some specific “Lands” in the Baltic region. Specifically, he writes “…neighboring with Rusia (Russia), Litva (Lithuania) stretches to the West from Zhamocy. His words can be supported by old-Russian historical accounts.
However, the most valuable words for the Belarusian history come when the American scientist sensationally acknowledges “White Russia” in his article.

One of them,(missionaries) listening to brother Vayslan, my friend who preached in White Russia ( in Alba Ruscia ), called him to go with him….

In conclusion, the fact of mentioning Alba Ruscia (Belarus) needs to be stressed because it is the earliest acknowledgment of our land.
Вячаслаў Чамярыцкі, Аляксандр Жлутка, Гістарычны альманах. Вып. 1. Мн., 1995. С. 143-152
Vyachaslav Chamyaricky, Aliaksander Zhlutka, Historical Almanac, 1995, p.143-152

Translated from Belarussian.

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