Polesie^[a] was a cultural association whose aim was the recognition of the local residents of West Polesie (called "Yotvingians" by the group^[1]) as a separate national minority and the autonomy of Western Polesie within Belarus.

Nikolai Shelyagovich created the public-cultural association "Polesie" (Полісьсе) in April 1988 on the Belarusian Culture Fund. Its goals were the revival of the Western Polesie language,^[2] and recognition of the local residents of as a national minority, with some further supporting national and cultural autonomy or even independence of Western Polesie. The organization caused great interest among the intelligentsia of Minsk and Brest, attracting many well-known scholars, researchers, philologists, historians, writers and poets. In 1988, the newspapers "Balesy Polіssya" ("Voices of Polesia") and "Zbudіnne" ("Awakening") began to be published. These publications were popular among the Belarusian intelligentsia, and besides the historical Polesian concept, also reflected various aspects of modern life of the Polesians.^[1]

Some Belarusian public figures and writers such as Nil Gilevich, Oleg Trusov and Zianon Pazniak, opposed Polesie, regarding the movement as a threat to the territorial and national integrity of Belarus.^[5][2][6] Some even suspected the movement of being a provocation by the KGB, akin to the creation of Transnistria.^[7][2] In 1993, Our Word published an article claiming that “imperial forces in the former USSR” sought to incite ethnic hostility in newly independent states and use groups like Polesie to destabilize Belarus. According to the article, in the event of a national-democratic victory in Belarus, the movement’s leaders, particularly Shelyagovich, would serve merely as a temporary façade for a Bolshevik-backed coup in the western Polesie region. Scholars P. F. Lysenko and V. A. Poluyan published an open letter in People’s Newspaper and Zarya in 1992. The letter cited statements in the newspaper Zbudinnya, whose authors speculated about various options for the political future of Polesie, including autonomy within Belarus or Ukraine, or even independence. Lysenko and Poluyan emphasized what they saw as the Ukrainian influence on the movement, pointing to proposals for cooperation with the People's Movement of Ukraine and calls for the region to join a “Western Ukrainian state.” Historian G. Grechishkin expressed a similar view in Pinsky Vestnik, arguing that autonomy or statehood for western Polesie was unrealistic, saying that union with Ukraine was the only logical outcome for the movement.^[8]

With the referendum in 1995, and the changing political situation in Belarus, the activities of the association gradually tapered off. In the last years of its activity (1993–1995), the Polesie association supported a policy aimed at cooperation with Russia within the framework of Pan-Slavic development and opposing Belarusian nationalism.^[1] Aleksander Lukashenko used to speak in support of the association during a meeting of the Belarusian Supreme Council. However, he later became opposed to it, claiming responsibility for preventing the division of the country and the establishment of a Polissian Republic.^[5]

The group claimed that the Poleshuks are direct descendants of the Baltic tribe of Yatvyags, emphasizing a significant cultural distance between the residents of the western regions of the Brest region and other regions of Belarus.^[9] Its official goals were the revival of the Western Polesie language,^[2] recognition of the local residents of as a national minority, with some factions further supporting national and cultural autonomy of the West Polesie region.^[4][3] In April 1990, a scholarly conference was held in Minsk, where the group also declared the territories of the Brest and Pinsk regions of Belarus, the Volhynia region of Ukraine, and the Podlachia and Chełm regions of Poland to be a part of their Yotvingian ethnic area.^[1][5]

In June of 1991, the group considered a proposal to more actively promote the development of the culture of the Polesie region of Belarus. Shelyagovich proposed adopting a law on the Western Polesie ethnic group, and the creation a Western Polesie cultural and educational center. The deputies made the decision to support and approve the desire of the members to study the folk culture, folklore, dialect of the Polesie region, but considered the creation of any autonomies, scientific centers as inappropriate, as, according to them, the residents of Belarusian Polesie were an original part of the Belarusian people.^[3]

According to the results of a sociological study of interethnic relations in the Belarusian border area based on materials from Western Polesie done by Engels Konstantinovich Doroshevich, It was noted that 81.8% of the total number of respondents did not advocate for any autonomy and considered themselves Belarusians 61.7% considered it inappropriate to allocate Western Polesie into an independent cultural and linguistic region in the Republic of Belarus, 7.3% supported the idea of autonomy, concluding that "the problem of a separate Polesie ethnicity is not present in the national ethnic consciousness." The divide in the group was seen in the Kobryn district, where a confrontation between pro-Ukrainian Poleshuks and those in the association supporting the independence of Western Polesie as an administrative, linguistic, and economic unit happened.^[3]

• Litvinism