Litvin (surname)

Litvin may refer to:

• Belarusians or Lithuanians (usually in old contexts)
• Any person from Grand Duchy of Lithuania
• Someone with surname Litvin, mostly from former lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. E.g. Volodymyr Lytvyn, a Ukrainian politician

see also: Litvak

Curt F. Woolhiser Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures Calhoun 415 University of Texas Austin, TX 78713-7217 USA

Tel. (512) 232-9133, (512) 471-3607 Fax: (512) 471-6710 Email: [log in to unmask] Slavic Department Home Page: http://www.dla.utexas.edu/depts/slavic/

As an ethnonym referring to the inhabitants of the entire

Belarusian ethnolinguistic territory, the term "Belarusian" is of quite recent origin. In fact, before the late 19th century, Belarusians were usually called by their neighbors, and sometimes called themselves "Litviny" (based on their long association with the historical Lithuania, this is not surprising), as well as "rusiny" (particularly those of the Orthodox and Uniate as opposed to Roman Catholic faith). The Old Belarusian/Ruthenian language that functioned as the official chancellery language of the [[Grand Duchy of Lithuania]] from the 14th to the 17th centuries was called by its users "prosty ruski jazyk"/"prostaja ruskaja mova" (the simple Rus' language, in contrast to Church Slavonic, the language of the Orthodox church), although 16th-17th century Muscovite sources refer to it as either "litovskii jazyk" or "beloruskij jazyk." Interestingly, a Russian diplomat who visited Vilnius/Vilnia in the early 18th century noted in his memoirs that in the surrounding villages, some peasants spoke a "separate Lithuanian language" (osobyj litovskij jazyk), evidently not Polish or the Belarusian dialects that Russians were accustomed to calling "Lithuanian." Incidentally, as recently as the early 20th century, ethnic Russians and Ukrainians in border regions like Smolensk and west Polesie referred to neighboring Belarusian dialect speakers as "litviny/lytvyny" and their speech as "po-litovski/po-lytovs'komu". Dal's dictionary also has an interesting example of this use of the word "litvin" by Russians to refer to Belarusians: "[[tol'ko mertvyj litvin ne dzeknet]]" ("only a dead Litvin won't say it with dzekan'e" -- dzekan'e: a fairly salient (evidently, at least to Russians) feature of Belarusian pronunciation: the pronunciation of palatalized alveolar affricates in place of palalized dental stops, e.g. Belarusian [dz"ec"i] 'children' vs. Russian [d'et'i]).

       The form "Belorusec," alongside "Litvin", also shows up in

17th-century Muscovite documents in reference to the Belarusian merchants and craftsmen (both prisoners of war and voluntary emigres) who were resettled in Moscow's "Meshchanskaja sloboda" in large numbers during and after the 1654-1667 war between Muscovy and Poland-Lithuania. While Belarusian-speaking (and after the mid-17th century, mainly Polish-speaking) elites in the GDL often referred to themselves as "Litviny/Litwini", most Belarusian-speaking peasants simply identified themselves as "tutejshy" (local), and after the abolition of the Uniate Church in 1839, may have added that they were "ruskaj very" (of the Rus' faith) or "pol'skaj very" (of the Polish faith) if they happened to be Roman Catholic. The use of the term "Belarusian" for self-identification by Belarusians appears to have become common only since the early 20th century with the establishment of Belarus as a political entity (the [[Belarusian Democratic Republic]] (1918) and the BSSR (1922)). Significantly, in those parts of the Belarusian ethnolinguistic territory that lie outside the borders of the modern Belarusian state, for example the southern Vilnius region in Lithuania, the western Smolensk and Brjansk regions of Russia, and the Bialystok region of Poland, the percentage of Belarusian dialect speakers of local origin, whether Orthodox or Catholic, who identify themselves as Belarusians is quite small, probably less than 10% in the first two regions, and no more than 20% in the latter.