An Attempt to Establish a Diplomatic Mission of the Belarusian People’s
Republic in Finland in 1919-1920
Alina Belskaya
Table of Contents
3. What is the Belarusian People's Republic?
4. The Attemptsto Establish
a Diplomatic Mission of the Belarusian People's Republic inFinland
4.1 From Riga to Helsinki
4.2 In Helsinki
4.3 Finnish friendliness
as perceived from the Belarusian side
4.4 The second visit to Finland
5. Finnish Interest in Belarus
5.1 Buffer Nationalities' Club
5.2 Holsti and the Belarusiancause
6. The Belarusian Representative to Finland
1. Introduction
March 25 is the date that still causes political turmoil in Belarus -- demonstrations are held in many cities and towns and are later brutally dispersed by the police. On that date in 1918 the Belarusian People's Republic (BPR) was proclaimed an independent state. Many people come to celebrate Belarus' historical independence day on that day. However, the Soviet and President Lukashenka's government as its successor view year 1919 when the Soviet Socialist Republic of Byelorussia was created as the beginning of Belarusian stateformation. From the legal standpoint none was a legitimate republic as such.The survival of both at the time depended to a very large extent on the developmentson the international scene after the First World War, and the representatives of the Belarusian People's Republic turned to the international players for the support for their creation. Neither the countries of Entente nor Germany were unwilling to express their support for the separate Belarusian Republic and the representatives turned for the support and lobbying to the states newly created after the collapse of the Russian empire, since they were in more or less equal position regarding the recognition of their independence.
Finland was one of the few countries that recognized the Belarusian People's Republic de facto, some of the immigrant historians claim that there wasa Belarusian consulate in Finland . However, the documents of the FinnishForeign Ministry do not seem to record the existence of the Belarusian consulatein Finland in that period. This discrepancy aroused my interest. Inthis paper I have tried to trace down the development that surrounded theattempt to establish a Diplomatic Mission of the Belarusian People's Republicin Finland. Besides, the Finnish archives of the Belarusian People's Republichad been lost and I thought it might be possible to find some of the lostmaterial in the archives of the other side .Lastly, I try to answer the questionwhy the Belarusian diplomatic mission had never been established in Finland.
1.1 Sources
My main source is two published books of the Archives of the Belarusian People's Republic. The two books include the documentation of the Rada of Ministers of the BPR preserved mainly in the Lithuanian State Archive and are by no means complete. Because of the personal history of the representatives of the BPR the archives are scattered around the world. Many are not yet found or open to researchers. Another limitation is the availability of published material in Finland. Scientific journals and books published in the earlier periods are not available here. Besides, I had no access to the private archives of the main formulators and participants of the policy in the region (K.Ezavitaw and K.Duzh-Dushewski).
From the Finnish side, the private archives of the people mentioned by the Belarusian representatives have been used. They included the archives ofYrjö Jahnsson and Rudolf Holsti. The archives of the main state institutionssuch as the Foreign Ministry and the Eduskunta have been used. However, nothing from that period was filed under the name Belarus or any of its variantsand information had to be picked by pieces which are basically non-existent.Main Finnish newspapers of the period (Helsingin Sanomat, Hufvudstadtsbladet,Suomen sosiaalidemokraatti, Maakansa and Uusi Suomi) were checked for articlesmentioning the Belarusian People's Republic.
No wider research has been done concerning Belarusians in Finland . To my knowledge, no wider research has been done on the topic of the formulation and implementation of the foreign policy of the BPR in the region. Some research has been done on the issue of Belarusian statehood in the European politics of the time. There are several reasons for this lack of research. First, is the absence of a Belarusian community in Finland, second, unavailability of the archival material on the BPR for a long time, third, absence of interest in the topic on either side.
2. The Confusion of Concepts
Name "Belarus" for the former Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic came into international use in the early 1990's. However, many countries continue to use the name White Russia (Valko-Venäjä, Vitryssland, Weisrussland, etc.) in their respective languages. This translation has caused lots oftrouble for the Belarusian national movement, because people tend to seeit as naming a part of Russia. In the period which is the focus of the essayanother confusion of concepts crept in, the name White Russians was alsoused to describe the anti-Bolshevik movement on the territory of Russia.This confusion was also obvious in Finland in that period.
The newspaper Maakansa which later became the voice for the Belarusian independence in Finland began a series of articles on Belarus by announcing that "taas suur-ryssiä Helsinkiin" . After a short announcement about the arrival of the North-Western government of Russia, in the second paragraph the article goes on to quote "Russkaya zhizn'" about the arrival from Tallinn of therepresentative of White Russia K. Jezavitaw. But probably as a result ofthe memorandum which he delivered to the press, already by mid-November themistake is corrected on the pages of Maakansa and other main newspapers.
The confusion of concepts persists in other reports and is also used by the White Russian military groups in Finland. In May 1920 Holsti receives a secret report about the activities of white Russian military groups on the territory of Finland under the name "Yhteenveto allekirjoittaneelle tulleista tiedoista koskeva Valko-venäläista uutta anti-bolshevistista liikettä" 19.05.1920. The report itself deals with the military group of YrjöElfvengren, a White colonel, who is described in a different reportas general Wrangel's military representative or by the Valvontapoliisias "serving on a committee that handles the applications of the white officeswho want to return to Russia" . However, by the time of the report to Holsti,Elfvengren was also connected with General Vasilkovski who under the mandateof the Belarusian People's Republic was organizing troops to fight, accordingto the mandate, on the territory of Belarus. Besides, by late June 1920 A.Vasilkovskireceived an official mandate as a representative of the Belarusian People'sRepublic in Finland and Yrjö Elfvengren became his official adviser. However, he entered the printed Finnish history as a member of whiteRussian military groups in Western Europe from 1920 to 1926 .
3. What is the Belarusian People's Republic?
There is no consensus among the Belarusian historians for the answer to this question. Some historians view the BPR as a state with all its attributes, others view it as an national idea which was not carried out successfully to the end. There is also no agreement on the chronological framework ofthe existence of the BPR either. One group of historians defines the existence of the BPR from January to December 1918 when its Rada (government) acted in Minsk, another group prolongs its existence to year 1921 when the Treaty of Riga was signed by Poland and the Soviet Russia in which both states recognized each others borders, and dividing Belarus in two. The third group considers the dissolution of the government of the BPR by the group of Cvikievich in favor of the government of SSRB in 1925 to be the end of the BPR. The fourth group still writes off the BPR as dead together with the death in 1943 of Ja.Varonka the last president of the BPR elected by Rada.
Below the main developments of the BPR in the period 1917 - 1921 are briefly outlined. Following the main revolutionary developments in Russia, the Congress of the Belarusian National Organizations and Political Parties took place in Minsk in March 1917. The Congress elected the Belarusian National Committee who called for the Belarusian autonomy within the Russian democratic republic. In October-November 1917 Bolsheviks took power in Minsk, but the Belarusian National Committee refused to recognize their power. In November 1917 the Committee issued a proclamation announcing the all-Belarusian Congress to be assembled in Minsk on December 5-17, 1917. The Congress called on the Bolsheviks to surrender their power to the Rada, in response the Congress was violently dispersed. Rada, however, met secretly in Minsk, and elected the executive committee which proclaimed its aims to be the organizationof the military support for the Belarusian statehood as well as sent a delegation to Brest where a peace treaty between Germany and the Soviet Russia was under negotiation. The delegation was not allowed to participate.
The German Army continued its offence and occupied Minsk on February 21.Rada revived its active participation in the administration of the countryto the extent possible at the moment. On March 3, 1918 the Germansand the Bolsheviks signed the peace treaty which divided the territory ofBelarus as well as the Germans promised not to support any national stateformations on the territory of Belarus . In response to this act the executivecommittee issued the second Founding Charter which proclaimed the BelarusianPeople's Republic, and in two weeks on March 25, the third founding Charterfollowed proclaiming the BPR to be an independent and free state.
However, after the revolution in Germany the Bolsheviks annulled the Treaty of Brest-Listovsk and attacked the territory of Belarus and Poland. In December 1918, Rada of the BPR was forced to leave Minsk under the threat of the Bolshevik occupation. Abroad it concentrated its efforts on getting recognition ofthe Belarusian independence by the countries of Entente, when it seemed notto bring immediate results, the government turned to the neighboringcountries for help. Latvia, Estonia, and later Finland were the countrieswith the most favorable attitude toward the idea of Belarusian independence.
4. The Attempts to Establish a Diplomatic Mission of the Belarusian People's Republic in Finland
4.1 From Riga to Helsinki
The government of the People’s Republic was forced to emigrate under the pressure of occupation from the Soviet troops by the end of March 1918 from Minsk and later under the pressure of the Polish occupation from Hrodno. Abroad the government quickly separated and established several locations as places where the ministers resided. Some of them resided and worked from Vilnius, others, like the Minister for Foreign Affairs A. Luckevich, from Warsaw, and still others from Berlin. Diplomatic Missions were established in the newly independent countries rather quickly, however, the main powers refused to recognize the diplomatic status of the Belarusian People’s Republic's government’s representatives, which would have been of a great importance for pushing the question of Belarusian independence through at the conference in Paris. The first Diplomatic Missions were established in Riga and Kiev. The politicians in the newly established countries probably felt solidarity and sympathy with the Belarusian cause since they were more or less in the same position internationally, unrecognized by both Entente and the Soviet Russia.
Belarusian ministers and representatives had very little administrative or political experience. Most of them were workers of the second wave of the Belarusian Renaissance (1905-1918) and were the representatives of intelligentsia or military after the North-Western front was dissolved. After the occupation of Minsk Rada left abroad, however, most of the members of the Constituent Assembly stayed in Belarus. Apart from the fact that the representativesand ministers were inexperienced, there was a great shortage of active people. Many important countries for the Belarusian People’s republic weresimply not covered, like Great Britain and the United States, for example. Besides, the representatives often were the ones who developed the policies toward respective countries and informed the government about it after. It explains a number of discrepancies particularly in dates between the reports of the representatives and the proceedings of the government.
From Riga the work of the Belarusian Diplomatic Mission was supposed to extend to the rest of the countries of the Baltic region. The chief of the Mission Kastus Ezavitaw, a former second lieutenant of the Russian Imperial Army, had a mandate to contact and negotiate with the Estonian government, establish a Belarusian community and gather soldiers of Belarusian origin for fighting the Bolsheviks on the territory of Belarus. In the fall of 1919 he decided to take an initiative of his own and extend the relations to Finland. InOctober 1919 the secretary of the Military-Diplomatic Mission Yan Charapukreported that there had been progress in the two Baltic Republics as wellas Finland. Discussions had been held with the Ministers for Foreign Affairsof Estonia and Latvia who expressed an interest in Belarus joining the Unionof the Baltic Countries. Finland was said to have expressed the same interest.
4.2 In Helsinki
The first contact between the Finnish and the Belarusian representativesin Finland happened at the end of October 1919. Kastus Ezavitaw using abouta week’s time before the meeting of the Estonian Cabinet where thequestion of Belarusian Independence was to be discussed, went to Helsinki.He left Tallinn by boat on October 25, stayed in Helsinki for 4 days andleft for Tallinn on the morning of October 29. The four-day visit of thechief of the Mission was very intensive. On October 26, he met the Belarusiangeneral Oleh Vasilkovski. Vasilkovski served in the St. Petersburg’sheadquarters of the Kerenski’s government . Since Jezavitaw had nevermet Vasilkovski before , probably Vasilkovski was looking for the possibilitiesto participate in the Civil War on the white side, and might have contactedJezavitaw on his own initiative. Besides, Jezavitaw talked with theMinister of Trade and Industry of the Northern-Western Government of Russia.In the evening Ezavitaw dined at the General’s house, where he alsomet with the Secretary of the French General Mission.
On October 27, Jezavitaw spoke on the phone with Mikalai Charviakow, a Belarusian worker in Tampere. He characterized him to the Prime Minister A. Luckevich as a good Belarusian who knew the language and history of Belarus. Charviakow was given a task to collect the information about Belarusians in Helsinki, register them and collect their requests for passports of the BelarusianPeople's Republic. By 1921 M. Charviakow left for Estonia and continued workingtheir as a head of the press-bureau . It is possible that the lists of theBelarusians living in Helsinki went with him and were lost later, or arepreserved somewhere in Estonia. There must have been a big number of Belarusianssince the original plan was to support the Belarusian Diplomatic Missionin Helsinki from the issuing of passports .
On October 27, at 12:00 Ezavitaw met with the Minister for Foreign Affairs Rudolf Holsti. During their meeting Kastus Ezavitaw informed the ForeignMinister about Belarus, the Belarusian People’s Republic and the inspiration of the Belarusian people to achieve their independence. However, becausehe did not have a mandate to negotiate about anything with the Finns, hesimply stated the case for the independent Belarus. He also informed theminister that a Belarusian representative was on his way to Helsinki, butwas delayed by the attack on Riga by Bermondt-Avalow, a White Russian-GermanGeneral. The representative was to be professor Tarashkevich, the creator of the Belarusian grammar, and was supposed to cover Swedenand Finland with the location in Sweden .
Foreign Minister R. Holsti expressed interest in knowing more about the Belarusian People’s Republic and Belarusian aspirations to independence, and probably, their possibility to achieve it, very likely in military terms. Ezavitaw, however, budged and only agreed to write a memo about the historical development of the Belarusian movement for independence. Though the text of the memohad not been preserved (it is known that right after the meeting Ezavitawwent to the chancellery, found a Russian typist and dictated a three-hourmemo to her), because of the unestablished ministerial and archival practicein Finland, it is possible that the memo reminded the earlier book published in Kiev by Cvikevich. The aim of the book was exactly to inform the public about the Belarusian political and cultural developments in the second half of the 19th century – till 1918. One copy of the memo went to the Foreign Ministry and the other one to the press. After the visit he again met with Vasilkovski who invited him and an English journalist for lunch.
In the evening Vasilkovski and Jezavitaw had a discussion about the affairs of the Republic and Ezavitaw issued a mandate for him as a Belarusian citizen and a general to look for the ways to get money to form Belarusian divisions on the territory of Finland with Finland’s permission. Similar divisions were forming already in the Baltics. According to Jezavitaw, the mandate was very carefully drafted not to give the General a chance to act in other ways in the name of theBPR. However, there was nobody to control it and probably the mandate wasused for the General's own purposes as well. Only after issuing the mandatehe requested its authorization by the Rada. Two weeks after the visit Ezavitaw wrote an report to the Prime Minister A.Luckevich requesting him to senda representative to Finland and Sweden as soon as possible. On October 28,in the morning Ezavitaw gave advertisements in the press about the registration of Belarusians for the next half month and after that left Finland.
The original news item about the visit of the Belarusian representative appeared in the Russian-language newspaper Russkaya zhizn only after the departure of Jezavitaw . The short article was reprinted by Maakansa a day later .The advertisement about the registration of Belarusians appeared only threetimes instead of half a month in Russkaya zhizn , Jezavitaw's memorandumwas not used by the press, and during the period between the first and thesecond visit of the Belarusian representatives most of the news concerningBelarus were reprints from the Estonian or Swedish newspapers in Maakansa.
4.3 Finnish friendliness as perceived from the Belarusian side
Next time the question of representation in Finland was discussed at an irregular meeting of representatives in the BPR who met in Berlin on November 17, 1919. Ian Charapuk, the secretary of the Military-Diplomatic Misssion in Riga informed the representatives about Mission's work in the Baltics and Finland. He described Finish reception as friendly and Foreign Ministry as interested in BPR establishing a Diplomatic Mission in their country. Charapuk also mentioned two passport issuing departments in Finland one in Tampere and one in Helsinki. However, the Archives of the Foreign Ministry contain no mention about any, the archives of BPR specifically mention such a section only in Tampere.The secretary must have interpreted Vasilkovski’s mandate to look forways to establish Belarusian divisions in Finland as being the same.
Several days after the meeting Yan Charapuk sat down to write a letter to the Prime Minister in which he expressed his views on the politics in the Baltic region. He advised the Prime Minister to downsize all the missions and concentrate the effort on the territories of Latvia and Estonia, mainly because they didn’t have any territorial demands on Belarus to interfere with the Belarusian activity. As a result of Polish-Soviet war the territory of western Belarus had been occupied by the Poles, who played a good host to Belarusian People's Republic's government at the beginning, but played with the recognition of independence as it suited their purposes. Lithuanians demanded the territories of Hrodno, the eastern parts of Belarus were occupied by the Soviet Russia, which had proclaimed the soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus on January 1, 1919.
Unlike on the Ukrainian territory there was no consistent nationalist fighting on the territory of Belarus, the Belarusian divisions were gathered all around Europe from the soldiers of the former imperial army, not only on their own initiative, but also with the help of France. However, it was very difficult to attack from the side of Poland. The only suggestion was to attack from the territory of Latvia. For that purpose about 2000 Belarusians were mobilized in Estonia, Latvia, and Finland, and about 2000 men of Bulak-Bulakhovichpartisan formation agreed to join in the operation . I couldn't locate anynames of participants from Finland, but probably mobilization was the resultof the work of the General Vasilkovski, and some of the participants wereof Finnish origin.
In the meantime Finland expressed its friendly disposition toward Belarusian aspirations also on the diplomatic front. During one of the session of the Tartu conference, the Conference as a whole recognized Belarusian independence, and the representative Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary in the Baltics Klawdyush Dushewski received an official recognition of the BPR from Finland.
4.4 The second visit to Finland
The second visit of a Belarusian representative to Finland occurred at the end of November – beginning of December 1919. The representative Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary K. Dushewski left Tallinn for Helsinki on November 29, 1919. During his two weeks in Helsinki he met with the Foreign Minster, Finnish diplomats and politicians. Though from the names that he mentions (Jahnsson, Juutilainen, Mansikka, Maitu (Maila) Mikkola, Ahtinen, a student of J.J.Mikkola) most of them were members of Buffer Nationalities' Club(Etuvartiokansojen klubi (see below)). Dushewski gave two speeches in theEduskunta at which several ministers, the Prime Minister and the Speakerwere present. However, the head of the Eduskunta archive has not been ableto locate any mentioning of the speeches. After the speech the Prime Ministercame to talk to K. Dushewski and promised him that Finland would recognizeBelarus. The de facto recognition by Finland came on December 12 when MinisterHolsti "introduced a suggestion about the recognition of the government ofthe Belarusian People's Republic as a de facto government of the mentionedcountry, and the President of the Republic saw it fit to agree. After thatthe council decided that the acts of the Foreign Ministry should become knownin writing to the government of the Belarusian Republic" The Belarusianside learned about the Finnish recognition from the press and the ForeignMinister of the BPR who was in Warsaw was informed by the Finnish ambassadoronly at the beginning of January.
5. Finnish Interest in Belarus
Though Dushewski complained that nobody knew anything about Belarus in Finland , certain activity about this issue had been going on for some time. The Foreign Ministry of Finland had sent J.J. Mikkola, a professor who spoke the languages of the area, on a trip to Poland in October 1919. In Warsaw he met with the Foreign Minister of the BPR A. Luckevich. Mikkola's conclusions were that Belarusian national movement had little chance of success, because there was no united Belarus. The part of the population that was Catholic had been polonized, the part that was Greek Orthodox had been russified,besides part of it was working with the Lithuanians. He also reproduced Pilsudski's opinion, which was to treat the question of Belarus very carefully. In the interviews that he gave out after the trip to Hufvudstadtsbladet and Uusi Suomi about his trip he did not mention Belarus at all.
5.1 Buffer Nationalities' Club
R.Holsti, J.J. Mikkola, and other personalities described as helping theBelarusian cause, Yrjö Jahnsson, a professor at the and AnttiJuutilainen, the editor-in-chief of Maakansa, the paper of the Agrarian Union, belonged to the Club of the Outpost nationalities of the former RussianEmpire (etuvartiokansojen klubi). The club was founded in 1919 and its aimwas " to be a link between all those people who in order to strengthen thestate independence of Finland, attempt to bring closer the outpost nationalities,who together with Finland have an interest to secure their state existence."The club focused its attention on bringing about cooperation between Finland,The Baltic countries and Poland. During the late 1919 - early 1920the club paid particular attention to the situation in the Baltic area, buttheir focus had also been to the Finno-Ugric and Turkic peoples of Russia.
Yrjö Jahnsson, who was the Vice-President of the club, had developed a view on how to secure the position of independent Finland. The idea was to support the independence movements of the national minorities on the territory of the former Russian empire in order to downsize Russia to its core Russian population. Such a development would have weakened Russia and safeguard Finland from an attack by the Russians. For this reason, he was an ardent supporter of the Union of the Buffer States which would have been important also to the peoples of Poland, Romania, and the new states of Caucasus as well as the Tatars. He saw the possibilities of the Union to be high since Estonia and Lithuania were freed from the Bolsheviks completely and Latvia, Belarus and Ukraine to a large extent.
Yrjö Jahnsson expressed his views in the newspaper of the Agrarian Union "Maakansa", the editor-in-chief of which Antti Juutilainen was also one of the more radical supporters of the Union of the Buffer States which should have included all the countries from Finland to the Ukraine. And by late1919 Alkio, the chairman of the Agrarian Union, demanded that the participants of the Buffer States Conference to be arranged in Helsinki should include the Belarusians. The Belarusians however, never came.
Besides, Yrjö Jahnsson suggested that similar Buffer nationalities clubs be organized on the territories of the Buffer States, Belarus, however, was excluded from the list as well Minsk was excluded from an advised place for a Finnish consulate. The only initiative of Yrjö Jahnsson that seemed to include Belarus was his call on the Finns in the United States to acton the side of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian independence, and createa joint effort of all the peoples on the territory of former Russian empire who strive for their independence. The answer came quickly. Maakansa published a short news item on December 28, 1919 where it announced that "a small nationalities' society with members from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Belarus had been established in the United States. The society has sent a petition to the US Congress that demanded that recognition of the independence ofthe new states." The Belarusian Institute in New York and the bookBelarusians in America in Belarusian have not provided me with further informationon the subject.
Maakansa was the loudest voice for Belarus when Dushewski was in Finland. The newspaper reprinted a larger number of articles from the newspapers of the Baltic states concerning Belarus together with Uusi Suomi. It also printed two large articles about Belarus during the visit of Dushewski to Finland. The articles " Tietoja Valko-Venäjästä" dealt with the basic information about Belarus, talked a lot about the anti-Bolshevik character of Belarusian people, and proved why Belarus was a part of the Baltic region economically. Maakansa was the only big paper to publish first-hand articles about Belarus.
5.2 Holsti and the Belarusian cause
Though Holsti didn't mention anything about Belarus in his unpublished memoirs, probably because the initiative did not succeed, it seems he was one of the main supporters of Belarusian independence to the extent that his office allowed. The big idea he believed in was the right to national determination and the big plan that he supported for the security of the region was tocreate a buffer zone between Russia and Germany that would include the smallnewly created states from the Arctic Sea to the Black Sea and Holsti workedhard to fulfill the design before it collapsed due to the difference in the international standing of the players.
Holsti took a role in promoting Belarusian statehood at the conference in Helsinki in January 1920. In a memo before the conference he wrote that Belarus has advantages, rather big ones, for creation of statehood. However, since both of the capitals are occupied, Belarus cannot expect to be taken as a partner in the area... The conference should be given an understanding that Finland is willing on the basis of serious consideration in each special case support the creation of state independence by other nationalities that try to separate from Russia and their joining a possible agreement between Finland, Estonia, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania...Finland should also express a wish that Poland and Lithuania pay more attention to the development of state circumstances in the western part with Belarus... The conference should try to arrange for an objective introduction about the general situationin Belarus and Ukraine.
Maakansa rushed to announce that the Belarusian delegation had arrived to the conference, though it was not the case. Holsti's plan to invite the representatives of Belarus and Ukraine was not approved of by Britain and France. The British consulate sent a telegram saying that the approval of His Majesty's Government for any action taken at the conference "does not extend to the treatmentas separate states of the Ukraine or the so-called White Russian Republic.I assume," the telegram continued," that the Representatives of these unrecognized countries will neither attend the Conference nor come into contact with the representatives of the Great Powers while the Conference is sitting"
Being a good follower of Entente's advise Holsti probably backed down. However, he continued to support the idea for a little while after. In the "Yleiskatsaus tärkeimpiin poliittisiin tapahtumiin koskevaa aikaa 5/1-29/1 20" hewrote that "it is very profitable from the Finnish point of view that Belarusand Ukraine become independent and become part of the plan" to createa buffer zone. However, quickly after that the Baltic States signed peacetreaties with Soviet Russia which led to the collapse of the plan and in1921 the treaty between Poland and Soviet Russia were signed establishingthe borders and recognizing the Soviet Socialist Republic of Belarus.
6. The BelarusianRepresentative to Finland
It was understood by the government of the BPR that the absence of a Belarusian representative was doing lots of harm to the Belarusian cause in Finland. Finland who had a favorable attitude toward Belarus was perceive by Belarusians as being influential in the dealings with the East. However, the Baltic States were perceived as more important and Finland was to be covered from there. The second representative to Finland was appointed on January 29,1920 in Minsk. Alaksandr Cvikievich, the former representative in the Ukraine, was to represent Belarus in Latvia, Estonia and Finland. Cvikievich, however, never made it to Latvia, because the Polish side it seems refused to give him a traveling document.
The third appointment was made on a recommendation of Vasil Zakharka in June 1920 in a letter to the deputy Foreign Minister V. Lastouski. Zakharka recommended to appoint general Vasilkovski, who had been given a mandate to gather Belarusian troops to fight the Bolsheviks. He seems to have gathered troops, but more under the banner of White Russians rather that Belarusians. Vasilkovski was described in the letter as "standing firmly on the position of Fatherland, fighting the enemy and illuminating our question before Entente for eight months already without taking any monetary reward." Zakharka believed that the general deserved to be the representative by all the work he had done for the cause. I have not been able to identify exactly what else he had done except possibly collecting troops. Yrjö Elfvengren was to be appointed the general adviser despite the fact that he didn't speak Belarusian, but claimed to be born in Belarus (though not true ). More or lessthe same recommendation came from the secretary of the Diplomatic Missionin Tallinn Yan Charapuk.
In a couple of days on June 25, 1920 the head of the Rada of Ministers issued a charter appointing General Vasilkovski the Representative Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Finland, and Yrjö Elfvengren as his adviser.However, it seems that the representative again never made it to Finland.Vasilkovski came to Tallinn on June 14, 1920 to help the government of theBPR receive the de jure recognition from the Estonian government and to settlea possibility of Estonia mediating between the governments of the SovietRussia and the BPR about the territory and independence. Vasilkovskistayed in the Baltics and next time he seems to have tried to leave for Helsinkiin November 1920, he couldn't do it. The documents offer no explanation,but I presume, because his passport was no longer valid, or there were otherproblems with him entering the territory of Finland as a White General. Thelast mention of Vasilkovski and Charviakow -- the two active participantsof the Belarusian cause was them being in Tallinn in July 1921. Theactivities of Yrjö Elfvengren for the Belarusian government have remaineda secret for me.
7. Conclusions
Though several attempts had been made to found a Belarusian Diplomatic Mission in Finland, simply because nobody from the Belarusian side came, the initiative remained unfulfilled. The Finnish side would have welcomed the established of the Mission on its territory. Finland in general showed interest in Belarus becoming independent. In my opinion, there are two broad reasons for that. First, Holsti idealistically believed in the principle of national self-determination, an idea that very well intertwined with the second reason. Belarus was perceived to be an essential part of the Buffer Zone States plan which the ForeignMinister strongly supported.
The other goal of collecting the missing Finnish archives of the BPR have not yielded good results. No memorandums have been found, only the ad ofK. Jezavitaw and a couple of articles dictated by Dushewski.
Bibliography
Primary sources
Published Sources
Archives of the Belarusian People's Republic (Archives), introduction,
v1.b.1-2. Belarusian Institute of Arts and Sciences, Inc., Belarusian
LiteraryAssociation, Nasha Niva, Minsk- New York - Prague - Vilnius
1998.
Unpublished Archival Sources
Kansallisarkisto (KA) Helsinki
Hilma ja Yrjö Jahnssonin kokoelma (HYJK)
Rudolf Holstin kokoelma (RHK)
Valvontapoliisin kortisto (Valpon kortisto)
Ulkoministeriön Arkisto (UMA) Helsinki
12 A 2 Helsingin konferenssi 15/1-22/1 1920
Ulkoministeriö. Pöytäkirjat 1919 Valtioneuvoston istunnoista.
Fb:55 Ulkovaltain konsulivirastot Suomessa (UMA Fb: 55).
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Newspapers
Helsingin Sanomat (HS) 1919-1920
Hufvudstadsbladet (Hbl) 1919-1920
Maakansa (Mk) 1919-1920
Suomen Sosialidemokraatti (SSd) 1919-1920
Uusi Suomi (US) 1919-192
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of articles presented at the cpnference The Tradition of Belarusian
Statehood 27-28.11.1999 in Homiel. Jaravit, Homiel 2000, 112-125.
Naidziuk Jazep, Ivan Kasiak, Belarus: Yesterday and Today, in Belarusian.
Navuka i tekhnika, Minsk 1993.
Pietiäinen Jukka-Pekka, Rudolf Holsti. Lehtimies, tiedemies,
politiikko (1881-1919).Weilin-Göös, Espoo 1986.
Roiko-Jokela Heikki, Ihanteita ja reaalipolitiikkaa. Rudolf Holstin
toiminta Baltian maiden kansainvälisen de jure-tunnustamisen
ja reunavaltioyhteistyön puolessta 1918-1922. Studia historica
Jyväskyläensia. Jyväskylän yliopisto, Jyväskylä
1995.
Zaprudnik Jan, Belarus. At a Crossroads in History, in Belarusian.
Backaushchyna, Minsk 1996.
Zetterberg Seppo, Yrjö ja Hilma Jahnsson. Arvi A.Karisto:n kirjapaino,
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Interviews
Interview with the head of the Belarusian Institute of Art and Sciences,Lavon Yurevich 31.03.02. (writer's private collection).
Kirjoittaja Alina Belskaja on Helsingissä asuva poliittinen pakolainen, Valko-Venäjän Kansanrintaman nuorisojärjestön aktiivi ja opiskelija.
Teksti on hänen Helsingin yliopiston poliittisen historian laitokselle keväällä 2002 tekemänsä proseminaarityö.
