Talk:Litvinism

Recent addition is with a reference to an example of ignorant Russophobic paranoia, so I am not sure whether it belongs here. Pahonia is not "a disinformation spread by Russia". It comes from the times of the Belarusian Democratic Republic and in post-soviet times it was "resurrected" in modern Belarus under the influence of Zianon Pazniak, a rabid Russophobe, and his Belarusian Popular Front, although under the brief rule of inept Stanislav Shushkevich. --Altenmann >talk 20:59, 26 February 2025 (UTC)

General rhetoric on the page reflects appeasement of right-wing modern Lithuanian nationalism. Romanticization of a homogenized vision of the Grand Duchy is pathetic attempt to sanitize and curate historical past of multiethnic state.

Lithuanian nationalism promotes the idea that “lost lands” were colonized by genetically distinct populations and historically belong to Lithuania. This entire framework is flawed—genetic essentialism has no place in territorial claims. These ideas belong to policies of etnostates and are straight out inhumane.

While Lithuanian elites played major roles in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, historical narratives that deny Ukrainian or Belarusian national identities are racist. Such claims reveal ignorance and political bias.

The modern Republic of Lithuania is not the same political entity as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The Duchy ceased to exist in 1795.

Most modern lithuanians are descendants of lithuanian peasants, not nobility. Past was not full of flowers and happiness. 46.53.241.43 (talk) 22:50, 4 September 2025 (UTC)

Gentle reminder that this page is intended to discuss improvements for the article, rather than for sharing personal thoughts on the topic. Respublik (talk) 02:21, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

I agree that this isn't very good article, the bias is obvious. Marcelus (talk) 09:45, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

What kind of bias? Why not discuss point by point? --Altenmann >talk 18:59, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

@46.53.241.43: If you claim that "Most modern lithuanians are descendants of lithuanian peasants", so who are the modern Belarusians? Are you saying that the modern Belarusians are 9 million of King Mindaugas and Gediminids descendants who in a referendum refused a coat of arms with a horse rider and for unknown reasons never use historical Lithuanian monarchs names for their children, unlike nowadays Lithuanians where there are many people with names Mindaugas, Gediminas, Kęstutis, Vytautas and others? Per Constitution of Lithuania nowadays Lithuania is officially a continuation of historical Lithuanian statehood entities (see its preamble where it is written "the Lithuanian Nation, having created the State of Lithuania many centuries ago, having based its legal foundations on the Lithuanian Statutes and the Constitutions of the Republic of Lithuania, having for centuries staunchly defended its freedom and independence, having preserved its spirit, native language, writing, and customs, embodying the innate right of the human being and the Nation to live and create freely in the land of their fathers and forefathers – in the independent State of Lithuania, fostering national concord in the land of Lithuania, striving for an open, just, and harmonious civil society and a State under the rule of law, by the will of the citizens of the reborn State of Lithuania, adopts and proclaims this Constitution"). Nowadays Lithuania is as much historical Lithuania as nowadays France is historical France, etc. This is internationally and scientifically recognized. Just because Russia destroyed Lithuania in 1795 it does not mean that the same ethnos, who originally created it, cannot recreate its statehood later.

This article (as of 18 August 2025 version) do not contain WP:OR and was written by many authors (e.g. truly neutral user Altenmann, who clearly is neither Lithuanian, neither Belarusian) based on online inline citations, so anyone can easily check if the written text in the article properly reflect the supporting sources provided in the references list. Moreover, this article reflect both the Belarusian representatives (Lukashist + diaspora) and Lithuanian representatives points of view towards this question. Just because the theory of Litvinism that "Belarus is historical Lithuania, while nowadays Lithuania is not historical Lithuania" sounds like an absurd when jointly analyzing historical sources (e.g. maps included in the article, etc.), Belarusian, Lithuanian, German and other sources it does not mean that anybody try to insult Belarusians. Nevertheless, we must respect the historical and scientifically recognized truth that Lithuania was created by a Baltic ethnos (not Ruthenian ethnos) in Lithuanian (not Belarusian) lands. The Belarusian statehood foundations are in the Principality of Polotsk and Kievan Rus', not in the Duchy of Lithuania, Kingdom of Lithuania and Gediminids period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as these foundations are non-Ruthenian. Yes, many Ruthenians (modern Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians) indeed lived in historical statehood entities of Lithuania (in nowadays Lithuania as well), however just because the majority of inhabitants of the "multicultural" British Empire were Indians it does not mean that the British history is actually Indian and I never heard that the Indians claim that they are "more British than Englishmen" or that the Republic of India is a continuation of the Kingdom of England and "multicultural" British Empire. Respect your real history instead of calling others peasants and find your true way. -- Pofka (talk) 22:01, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

@Pofka:: you do not have to waste your time on unreferenced opinions of drive-by anon IPs. Not to say that their rant is off-topic. Not to say that the only answer to the claim "this is all bullshit" is "No is is not", and done with it. --Altenmann >talk 22:16, 5 September 2025 (UTC)

That what we talking about, every time, when you trying say that "GDL was multicultural and multireligious state, we need to respect each other" there pop-up some Lithuanian nationalist, who trying to prove, that this was a fully Lithuanin state, everyone talking in modern lithuanian, have as\is names and have Lithuanian passport. That so childish. 46.56.230.194 (talk) 10:28, 2 October 2025 (UTC)

The lead, which is supposed to be article summary, now is in a haphazard state. Major issue is excessive name-throwing and refbombing. --Altenmann >talk 18:48, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

@Altenmann I tried to repair the lede somewhat, but in general the article is beyond repair in my opinion. It's just a chaotic collection of loosely related facts and statements, written by someone who is very emotionally attached to the subject. Marcelus (talk) 21:56, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Just noticed that be-tarask-wiki is rife with rampant Litvinism. I run into two major pages: be-tarask:Ліцьвіны and be-tarask:Імёны ліцьвінаў. Oh, my... --Altenmann >talk 02:59, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

@Altenmann: You are totally right. The be-tarask version of Wikipedia (with support of sysops) mostly is a manifestation of the borderline WP:NATIONALISM, WP:OR, WP:FRINGE, WP:POVPUSH, conspiracy theories and mostly demonstrates no respect to the WP:NPOV, WP:RS. The Litvinists and some authors of the be-tarask version of Wikipedia live in the pseudoscientific and conspiracy theories fairytales world and claim that all the former territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania are "ethnic Belarusian territories", therefore according to Litvinists and some editors of the be-tarask-wiki somehow Belarus should incorporate parts of neighboring countries territories: eastern part of Latvia (Daugavpils, etc.), eastern part of Lithuania (Vilnius, etc.), eastern part of Poland (Białystok, etc.), western part of Russia (Smolensk, etc.), northern parts of Ukraine and then Belarusify ("Litvinize") these territories. Mostly the bare minimum of the Litvinists territorial ambitions are the claimed and never controlled territories of the Belarusian People's Republic, but some Litvinists even want territories of the GDL at its greatest extent, so even more territories of Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, Russia. Such ideas likely have symptoms of fascism, not just nationalism. What is interesting is that at the first glance the be-tarask-wiki may appear like a Belarusian opposition source, however the Litvinistic territorial ambitions claiming that Białystok and Vilnius are "Belarusian cities" was expressed by Alexander Lukashenko himself, so these positions surprisingly coincide. Anyway, this, of course, is a niche nationalism/fascism of some individuals and it mostly found no support in the mainstream Belarusian Wikipedia. -- Pofka 21:20, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

@Pofka: "according to Litvinists and some editors of the be-tarask-wiki somehow Belarus should incorporate parts of neighboring countries territories" - it's a gravely serious accusation, which makes no sense from the Belarusian PoV (*), so I'm very skeptical. Can you prove this claim about the editors of the be-tarask-wiki?

(*) unlike what it was a century ago, Smolensk had been already completely Russified by now, it's full of people, who can't understand the Belarusian language and don't associate themselves with the Belarusian culture. Incorporating it into Belarus would be a major liability and effectively a trojan horse. The actual Lithuanians should understand this very well, considering that "In the 1950s, Nikita Khrushchev offered the entire Kaliningrad Oblast to the Lithuanian SSR but Antanas Sniečkus refused to accept the territory because it would add at least a million ethnic Russians to Lithuania proper." Likewise, it makes no sense to incorporate Daugavpils, Vilnius or Białystok. --Ssvb (talk) 15:28, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

@Ssvb: You defend the be-tarask-wiki but have you actually checked what is written there? Here is a quote from the be-tarask-wiki article Беласток (about Polish city Białystok): "Беласток — магдэбурскае места гістарычнага Падляшша, на этнічнай тэрыторыі беларусаў" (English: Białystok is a Magdeburg city in historical Podlasie, in the ethnic territory of Belarusians) and a quote from article Вільня (about Lithuanian city Vilnius): "Вільня — другая (пасьля Наваградку) сталіца Вялікага Княства Літоўскага, цэнтар гістарычнага рэгіёну, на этнічнай тэрыторыі беларусаў" (English: Vilnius is the second (after Navahrudak) capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the center of a historical region, on the ethnic territory of Belarusians). So these be-tarask-wiki claims 100% comply with Alexander Lukashenko's claims about Białystok and Vilnius. The be-tarask-wiki article Этнічная тэрыторыя беларусаў (English: Belarusian ethnic territory) is also full of pseudoscientific fantasies about other "ethnic" Belarusian territories in Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Ukraine, Russia.

Moreover, the be-tarask-wiki in a Litvinistic way tries to WP:POVPUSH that "Літва / Litva" is not "Летува / Letuva" (see: be-tarask-wiki article Летува, which is contrary to mainstream Belarusian Wikipedia article Літва), but there are historical sources (e.g. Lithuanian, German, etc.) from the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which use Lithuanian root of the name of Lithuania starting with "LIET" or "LET", not "LIT", so such be-tarask-wiki and Litvinists claims are just nationalistic propaganda/jokes which will never be accepted scientifically.

And so on. The be-tarask-wiki is a basically unreliable source to read about Belarus and neighboring countries of Belarus which is evident from the fact that the be-tarask-wiki even often contradict mainstream Belarusian Wikipedia, not just Lithuanian/Polish wikis and sources. The be-tarask-wiki lack WP:RS and WP:NPOV. -- Pofka 18:08, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

So, basically you invented the claim "Belarus should incorporate parts of neighboring countries territories" and falsely attributed it to be-tarask-wiki. Indigenous ethnic Belarusians still living in the Białystok region even today is an undisputed fact: Podlaskie Voivodeship#Demographics. But how is this linked to the alleged desire of an imperial conquest? Nothing in your wall of text supports that. --Ssvb (talk) 06:54, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

In 1992, during a visit of the European Community delegation, the Belarusian Minister of Foreign Affairs laid claim on Lithuanian territories, claiming "historical rights".

The Belarus–Lithuania border wasn't defined until 6 February 1995, after the election of pro-soviet Lukashenko.

Thank God they didn't follow the Balkan example of an bloody break-up.

Of course be-tarask-wiki doesn't say Vilnius should belong to Belarus, but the rethoric always leads to that unspoken conclusion and they also paint Lithuania as an evil, unhonest, thieving country lying to this day.

I see it possible that Litvinist rethoric like this could reappear whenever necessary to Luka/Putin.

MKW100 (talk) 20:13, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

This border dispute has nothing to do with Litvinism. Claiming a couple villages is not the same as claiming tghe whole GDL. In fact, if you zoom in, the Belarus–Lithuania border is rather crooked and twisted in some swampy areas. For example, read "Dieveniškės" about Stalin's smoking pipe lying on the map :-) --Altenmann >talk 20:41, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

Belarusian Foreign Minister Piatro Kravchanka said "yes" when asked if Belarus’s territorial claims extended to Vilnius.

What are you, a Litvinist? Why are you trying to downplay what he said? Your name sounds German, that aligns with the Litvinist narrative of Litvins beeing the descendants of Germanic Goths. MKW100 (talk) 21:13, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

Please respect our policy of not involviong wikipedians' personaloties in disputes. That said, sorry, I didnt pay attention to the time frame. Yes, during Yalta Conference Vilnius was assigned to Lithuania, but there were talks to assign it to Belarus, I (and probably you) have no idea why. Once again, this has nothing to do with Litwinism, unless you can read Kravchanka's mind (and in the past, too). --Altenmann >talk 21:57, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

Sorry for the bad joke. I want to make clear that there was indeed an incident where a Belarusian official claimed the Vilnius region (including Vilnius) in front of an international delegation, based on presumably Litvinist ideas. MKW100 (talk) 22:19, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

@MKW100: Hanlon's razor: once again, we have no idea what was going in his brain when he blurted this and how exactly he said that and how it was translated and how the non-friendly reporters interpreted this. By the way, the NYT article is beyond the paywall, can you copy the corresponding piece here? I am just curious.--Altenmann >talk 23:49, 15 December 2025 (UTC)

@Altenmann I can't. I only assumed it after summarizing the article with ChatGPT to bypass the paywall. Sorry. A better way to work around paywalls is by putting the article into internet archives: https://archive.ph/AhvCr MKW100 (talk) 08:39, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

@MKW100: Be thankful not to God, but to Zianon Pazniak.

Not so long before the collapse of the USSR, there was a push from the Kremlin to pit the Belarusians against the Lithuanians. The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR issued the following statement with the territorial claims about Vilnius on the 29th March 1990 (ironically published on the 1st April 1990): https://www.geo-by.com/2017/04/29-iv-1990.html But they were not "litvinists", they were communists and the obedient Soviet subordinates of Moscow. The USSR leadership wanted to take advantage of the old Divide and Conquer tactics to prevent separatism and intentionally seeded the "frozen" territorial disputes between different Soviet republics (such as Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan, etc.). This system is only stable as long as Moscow rules everyone.

There were other provocations to instigate hostilities, such as Soviet OMON assaults on Lithuanian border posts (and again, just like the BSSR communist leaders, the Soviet OMON from Riga had nothing to do with "litvinism").

Now the main reason why the war didn't break out in 1990 is that the Belarusian nationalists led by Zianon Pazniak instantly identified USSR as the common enemy of both Belarus and Lithuania and refused to cooperate with the Russians: https://youtube.com/watch?v=VrasFwPW26U

BTW, there was already a similar precedent in the past, see Middle Lithuania. Back then, some naive "litvinist" patriots essentially wanted to revive the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as an independent Slavic state. But only the Polish imperialists benefited in the end. The Belarusians learned their lesson and didn't repeat the same mistake in 1990. --Ssvb (talk) 16:00, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

@Altenmann: Even if you personally don't like the content of the be-tarask-wiki, it still has to follow the rules of Wikipedia. The articles in question link to many external sources. Different points of view are at least mentioned. There may be some pro-Belarusian bias, but this is to be expected and no other wiki is immune to that. The language of the articles seems to be mostly neutral and does not try to insult anyone.

Whereas, as you noticed yourself, English Wikipedia resorts to "excessive name-throwing and refbombing" as if it's "written by someone who is very emotionally attached to the subject". Are you aware that Pofka is permanently banned from Lithuanian Wikipedia: https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specialus:Indėlis/Pofka ? The way it is now, the current English Wikipedia article represents neiher Belarusian nor Lithuanian point of view, but looks like it's written by an aggressive third party pursuing their own agenda. Per Lithuanian State Security Department, this new "Litvinism" thing is largely a psychological-information operation organised by states hostile to Lithuania. --Ssvb (talk) 14:38, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

I was blocked in the Lithuanian Wikipedia due to a conflict with a controversial user, not for editing content. The same controversial user later also blocked me in the Samogitian Wikipedia not for its content editing, but due to my disagreements with him and his personal dislike of me (which is a clear example of abuse of sysop rights).

You claim that "the current English Wikipedia article represents neiher Belarusian nor Lithuanian point of view, but looks like it's written by an aggressive third party pursuing their own agenda", so you are saying that Wikipedia users wrote cited Lithuanian sources and they are pursuing their own agenda? Can you provide proof? The current article present Litvinistic Belarusian views on the history of Lithuania (mostly based on cited Belarusian sources) and Lithuanian sources which criticize Litvinistic claims, so it is properly written in a neutral point of view to reflect both sides. The article do not WP:POVPUSH that "Belarusians are real Lithuanians" like in the fairytale world of be-tarask-wiki, but that is a scientific POV. -- Pofka 18:37, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

No matter how you twist it, the community of Lithuanian Wikipedia editors identified you as a bad actor in 2022. Or do you by chance accuse Lithuanian Wikipedia of being untrustworthy and controlled by a "controversial user"?

I already caught you lying in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Litvin, where you claimed that there are allegedly no distinct words w:lt:Litvinai and w:lt:Lietuviai (both with non-negative connotations) in Lithuania. Making such claim, you arrogantly contradict Lithuanian Wikipedia and the Lithuanian encyclopedia that it uses as the source. The distinction between these words is similar to the distinction between British and English. Your behaviour is similar to a typical behaviour of Russian imperialists, who want to convince the foreigners that there's supposedly no real distinction between Rossiyanin and Russian. Currently "Rossiyanin" redirects to "Russian citizenship law" in English Wikipedia, which just shows that the Russian imperialists are successful at holding the fort and bamboozling the international community so far.

You persistently attribute the claim "Belarusians are real Lithuanians" to others, but this is just a product of your fantasy combined with intentional misinterpreting and twisting the established terminology, as mentioned above. Nobody in their right mind claims that "Scots are real English" and that "Britanism is a fringe pseudohistorical theory of Scots, who want to steal the English history" after hearing that somebody mentioned that "Scots are British". --Ssvb (talk) 06:17, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

This article is a classic example of violation of principles of basic scientific neutrality - hard to tell where to start. In my opinion:

• cz1. It presents a narrowly used derogatory ethnic slur as a scientific term which is outrageous by itself. The purpose of the article is to popularise this slur and to push forward a Lithuanian nationalistic perspective on regional history.
• cz2. It is full of misinterpreted quotes or statements taken out of context - or deliberately framed to fit a narrative. It was even worse in the beginning but remains so in the current version.
• cz3. It completely lacks a pluralist perspective, e.g. fails to present critical views of Lithuanian nationalist mythology.
• c4. From the format point of view, the article has grown into an unreadable endless mass of irrelevant text vaguely related to the topic

My conclusion: it should be completely rewritten or removed altogether. Czalex 11:01, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

• I agree with cz1 that the discussion of the views of fringe Belarusian historians and activists is blown way out of proportions and with c4 that the article is full of WP:SYNTH. Regarding cz3, I dont think that Lithuanian nationalism must be mixed with Belarusian fringe nationalism. About cz2: yes it is part of biased wp:synth. --Altenmann >talk 18:14, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Regarding the rewriting. I agree that the article must be rewritten from scratch, starting from the very definition: "Litvinism is...various currents within Belarusian nationalism that emphasize the historical connection between the Belarusian state and nation and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania". - the historic connection does exist and its emphacizing is nothing wrong. On can cherry-pick a decent research article about Ruthenians in GDL and accuse it of litvinism because yes, it "emphacizes the connectionn". But it does so, because the article in question has a narrowly defined research subject and of course 100% of article "emphacizes" it. - No. In simplified formm, Livinism started with central claims: in GDL there were two ethnosocial groups: zhmudz (Semigalians who became modern ethnic Lithuanians) and Litvins (East Slavs who became Belarusians) and in fact Litvins played central role, because official language of the chancellery in GDL was a strainn of old East Slavic (called Old Belarusian by Litvinists). And therefore since Lithuania shrunk to its minuscule size, the "true" heirs/decendants are East Slavs, i.e., Belrusians. Again, this is my simplified narrative, but it is central to Litvinism. It gained some popularity after the collapse of the USSR during general ignorance unavailability of unbbiased historical info in the USSR, and it was easy for "Neolitwins" to manipulate with facts, but it still remaained fringe. --Altenmann >talk 18:14, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

• One may do it in two ways:(1) rewrite from scratch in draft space) or (2) gradually but mercilessly trim the article from WP:SYNTH, starting with numerous "supporting" ramblings sourced from articles which do not directly discuss "Lintvinism". Also, I am sure there are plenty of "straw man" arguments from the "anti-litvinist" camp. Also, references to "litvinist" sources must be considered WP:PRIMARY, because it is easy for a Wikipedin to cheerry-pick/misquote/put wrong emphasis. The correct way is to rely on neutral secondaary sources and cite the primary ones only in supppoort of secondary - the way commonly accepted by Wikipedia guideliness. --Altenmann >talk 18:21, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

@Czalex:

1. It present the content related with the topic of Litvinism which is described in many cited sources. Yes, it is quite a narrow topic because even the mainstream Belarusian Wikipedia recognize that there is one only Lithuania/Litva/Lietuva which is the same country since 1009 to the nowadays (see: be:Літва). The Ukrainian Wikipedia (uk:Литвинство) and Lithuanian Wikipedia (lt:Litvinizmas) also classify Litvinism as pseudoscientific Belarusian narrative. Non-Belarusian roots of Lithuania's statehood are undeniable, no matter how much niche Belarusian nationalists will try to prove otherwise.

2. It present statements which are related with Litvinism and the statements are properly cited. It is the problem of some Belarusian nationalists that they cannot cope with the fact that Lietuva = Litva or that Lithuanians are not equal to just one of its ethnic groups Samogitians.

3. It present Litvinistic Belarusian claims and Lithuanian counterarguments against them, but yet you are saying that it lacks pluralist perspective. :D

4. We do not remove properly cited articles just because somebody personally do not like their content. The sooner be-tarask-wiki users will acknowledge that Lietuva = Litva, the better will be for them to strengthen a true national identity, not based on nationalistic fairytales. Can you in your next message write that Lietuva = Litva (Літва)? -- Pofka 18:24, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

The article cites a Darius Sutkus profusely, but I failed to find any credentials of this person beyond being "a writer for Karys". Therefore I suggest to remove everything cited to Sutkus. (I admit I have read his articles with interest; they appear to be well-researched and reasonably correct (IMO), but... not a RS I say, sorry, Pofka.) --Altenmann >talk 01:30, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

@Altenmann: You claim that magazine Karys (which has its own dedicated English Wikipedia article) published officially since 1919 by the Ministry of National Defence of Lithuania and Lithuanian Army is not a WP:RS despite the fact that it is a magazine factually published by the State of Lithuania (its ministry and army)? That is an absolutely false claim. The content of the magazine Karys is precisely reviewed by experts and certainly do not include false statements, thus as a source officially published by one of the European Union states official institutions it absolutely is a reliable and notable source. For example, here is a presentation about Lithuanian history by Darius Sutkus (in the video description he is described in Lithuanian language as "Meno istorikas ir karinės periodikos žurnalistas Darius Sutkus", that in English is "Art historian and military periodicals journalist Darius Sutkus") and here Darius Sutkus participate in a discussion as an expert (Darius Sutkus is a man with a beard). Darius Sutkus clearly is an employee of the Ministry of National Defence of Lithuania or Lithuanian Army structures and concentrates to history and military as even his telephone number is provided in this source (online version of magazine Karys). The removal of Darius Sutkus' sources, that is a magazine Karys, which extensively describe the topic of Litvinism would be the most disruptive action in this article history so far and please pay attention that this article is a contentious topic with partially locked editing. Sources written by historian, journalist Darius Sutkus and online versions of magazine Karys (first and second) are undeniably WP:RS and cannot be removed from the article. -- Pofka -- 20:35, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Do not conduse magazine and author. When comes to WP:RS, the author, not the publisher is of primary concern. Now, show me the academic credentials of Sutkus, his a academic publications in which he cites the soources of his wisdom. As I wrote, he appears to be mainly correct, but most amateur historians are; heck, even me :-) --Altenmann >talk 20:51, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

@Altenmann: If you perform Google search "Darius Sutkus, tel. (8 5) 273 5744" you will find a lot of his publications written for the Ministry of National Defence of Lithuania and Lithuanian Army (https://kariuomene.lt is an official website of the Lithuanian Army). Amateur historians do not write content for the official publications of the Ministry of National Defence of Lithuania and Lithuanian Army, especially that many and extensive for 10+ years (Darius Sutkus wrote content for Karys since at least 2013 and still write in 2025). He would have definitely been removed from magazine Karys if he would be recognized as not a reliable historian, journalist. Darius Sutkus credential is a historian, journalist working for the Lithuanian Army, who based on his appearance in this video is likely over 40-50 years old and graduated his historian studies in late 1980s - 1990s, but of course I do not have access to universities databases and archives to find his diploma copy. Moreover, magazine Karys is not one of the Wikipedia:Deprecated sources, so it is a WP:RS and Wikipedians should not question its content, especially in such a controversial topic as Litvinism. So I think that the removal of content of Darius Sutkus and magazine Karys from this article would qualify for WP:AE per contentious topic and honestly I really have no desire to initiate that, but such removal would be totally invalid. -- Pofka 21:44, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, disagreed. This is a contentious subject. Articles by Sutkus, however correct, are opinions rather than scholarly articles. The primary difference is that scholarly articles have references for provided information. Since Sutkus does not provide references, we may only assume it is his original research, and he is not among recognized historians. Amateur historians do not write content for the official publications of the Ministry of National Defence of Lithuania - sorry, this is your opinion, disagreed. Even so, you failed to present any scholarly credentials of Sutkus. Graduation is not an argument; publications do. For example, I graduated in mathematics, but due to collapse of the Soviet Union I didnt have chance to become a famous mathematician :-) I became a "shuttle trader" instead, but by sheer luck I managed to get a position of adjunkt in Poland and from there on I embarked on a career in software ingeneering. --Altenmann >talk 22:37, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

@Altenmann what is worrying that many statements in this article are credited to historian Tomas Baranauskas but they are sourced most of the times with Sutkus article, which as far as I can tell doesn't qoute Tomas Baranauskas at all. Marcelus (talk) 20:44, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Eye candy :-). --Altenmann >talk 07:38, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

For me eye candy was that user Czalex questioned everything, but disappeared when he was asked to write that "Lietuva = Litva (Літва)". :D The denial of this is a bizarre Litvinists theory as there are publications from the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania which use Lithuanian root of the name of Lithuania starting with "LIET" or "LET", not "LIT". -- Pofka 21:53, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

There are Liitvinists and Litvinists and Litvinists. Quite a few of them are harmless dudes whole only claim is that Belarus has roots in GDL and they have a right to be called "Litwins", just like their great-grandfathers were called. This is what my photo indicates: an American football team of Minsk is named Litwins [it]. They even have Gediminaičių stulpai on their logo and flag :-) --Altenmann >talk 22:50, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

@Pofka: Doh, this is a ridiculous accusation of Czalex. You also "disappeared" and failed to address my comments, but I'm not jumping to any conclusions just because of this.

As for the question itself. In the modern Belarusian language, the word w:be:Летува is not exactly the same as w:be:Літва, because there's one little nuance: the word "Летува" specifically means the modern 20th-21th century Lithuanian state, which narrows its scope by definition. But these words are not completely different either, because there's an obvious overlap between them too.

I have to mention that there was an initiative from w:be:Сяргей Шупа and w:be:Вінцук Вячорка to appease those Lithuanians, who are making angry noises, and abolish the use of the word "Летува" (see https://www.svaboda.org/a/30445716.html). But these guys naturally can't enforce it and there are the others, who disagree (see https://www.svaboda.org/a/30464340.html).

Is Russian Empire = Soviet Union = Russian Federation in your opinion? And if the Russians start making angry noises and demand to abolish the use of the term "Soviet Union", substituting it everywhere with just "Russia", would you be in favour of appeasing them? I'm waiting for your answer. --Ssvb (talk) 18:51, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

UrusHyby, to me, this version looks as if it had been made with artificial intelligence. Articles in Wikipedia are never based on bullet point lists, but it's how AI commonly generates responses. I might be wrong, but I wanted to comment it. In any case, the article would need to be rewritten to adopt the standard prose style. I also wonder if this selection of arguments to place on a bullet point list is WP:SYNTH or not, which author has determined that an argument is among the "key" ones, how come we can verify a "key" argument with a single source, under what criteria have been other arguments excluded from the list? Super Ψ Dro 16:08, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

The list of arguments from both sides I've handpicked from longer version, based on the sources that existed and my understanding of the topic itself and importance of those, avoiding original research. Now both POVs Looks balanced for me. Though you ( and Pofka as well) are very welcomed to add to those, if you believe that something I've missed. But I guess, there no need to split those lists into separate subtopics, to avoid the situation that we've had in previous version. Let's keep it readable and WP:NOTNEWS Preferences (talk) 22:05, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

@UrusHyby @Super Dromaeosaurus I also strongly recommend moving away from the bullepoint structure, it's not according to WP:MOS Marcelus (talk) 09:40, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

Another thing I noticed, reference 39 cites the author as being Vytautas the Great himself. Was this really deliberate? Super Ψ Dro 17:35, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

+JMJ+ seems to object the fact that gthe article was rewritten from scratch, reverting with edit summary "No reason to cancel the massive work of so many users by reverting >90 kB of content"

Well, that problem with "massive work" and 90Kb reverted is that it resulted in massive WP:SYNTH of original research noted by several users, and there is no way to cure it by piecewise edits. In such cases WP:TNT is the best option. By the way, most of the reverted 90k was written by Pofka single-handedly, who liberally threw plenty of WP:SYNTH I dont want to waste time on discussing. If some people wasted their time editing Pofka's original research, well, sorry for them.

If you point to a couple of "babies in the water thrown out of the bathtub", please point at them, and we will gladly see how they can be reincorporated. --Altenmann >talk 18:58, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

P.S. I have no disrespect to Pofka's deep knowledge of history. It is just his way of editing Wikipedia does not conform our rules of WP:NOOR. --Altenmann >talk 19:01, 13 December 2025 (UTC)!

@Altenmann I agree. Removing AI artifacts, verifying, and improving the condensed text took far less time (which I’ve basically already done) than starting everything from scratch. The version of the article that Pofka created was simply unacceptable according to the current Wikipedia criteria. Marcelus (talk) 19:37, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

The article claims: "A central tenet of the radical interpretation is the linguistic distinction between the historical term "Litva" (associated with the Slavic heritage of the Grand Duchy) and the modern term "Lietuva" or "Letuva" (associated with the modern Republic of Lithuania)."

Can anyone explain what is "radical" about having the linguistic distinction? There is a linguistic distinction between Russian Empire, Soviet Union, Russian Federation and Russia (or between Soviet, Rossiyanin and Russian). Does anyone consider this radical too?

There's Pavel Sukhoi article, about a person, who was born in the Russian Empire and died in the Soviet Union. He is labelled as "a Soviet aerospace engineer and aircraft designer" there. Why having the distinction between "Soviet" and "Russian" rather than simply labelling him as "Russian"? Oh, but "Pavel Osipovich Sukhoi was born 22 July 1895 in Hlybokaye, Vilna Governorate of the Russian Empire, to ethnic Belarusian parents of peasant background." Turns out that there's a good reason for the linguistic difference between "Soviet" and "Russian" after all.

There's also Sergei Korolev. He was born in the Russian Empire and died in the Soviet Union too. He is labelled as "the lead Soviet rocket engineer" in the article. His nationality was disputed between Russians and Ukrainians at one point.

And there's Albert Razin. The authors of the article about him at least didn't label him as a "Russian", even though they formally could do just that to describe him using the English language. That's because currently the validity of "Rossiyanin" as an English word is not acknowledged. Wiktionary has an article about the word "Rossiyan", but claims that it is a synonym of "Russian". --Ssvb (talk) 20:42, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

While I was typing this comment, this section of the article was removed and it isn't there anymore. --Ssvb (talk) 20:48, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

@Ssvb: In the earlier version of this article before mass removal of its content it was clear what are the problematics of this and why Lithuanian historians (e.g. Tomas Baranauskas, etc.) criticized this distinction of "Lietuva" from "Litva". Belarusian authors like Alexander Kravtsevich (e.g. see this article) claim that "Litva" is Belarus, while "Lietuva" (which according to him never existed before 1918) is the modern Republic of Lithuania. It is like saying that the Kingdom of France is not France. Per scientific point of view Lietuva existed in the Middle Ages and it is the same country as Litva. Lithuania = Lietuva = Litva, while Kingdom of Lithuania, Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Republic of Lithuania are statehood periods of Lithuania/Lietuva/Litva. In the early 1990s Belarusians and Lithuanians agreed to stop this illogical distinction of "Lietuva" from "Litva", but later it regained some popularity. -- Pofka 21:41, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

It is requested that an edit be made to the semi-protected article at Litvinism. (edit · history · last · links · protection log) This template must be followed by a complete and specific description of the request, that is, specify what text should be removed and a verbatim copy of the text that should replace it. "Please change X" is not acceptable and will be rejected; the request must be of the form "please change X to Y". The edit may be made by any autoconfirmed user. Remember to change the |answered=no parameter to "yes" when the request has been accepted, rejected or on hold awaiting user input. This is so that inactive or completed requests don't needlessly fill up the edit requests category. You may also wish to use the {{ESp}} template in the response. To request that a page be protected or unprotected, make a protection request.

Change "Some Lithuanian historians and politicians view the GDL as an exclusively Lithuanian national state, dismissing the Belarusian contribution. This stance often leads to labeling any Belarusian attempt to claim GDL heritage as "theft" of Lithuanian history."

to "In Lithuanian public discourse, ‘Litvinism’ is sometimes applied so broadly that even Belarusian engagement with the heritage of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania may be viewed with suspicion or labeled as a manifestation of ‘Litvinism.’"

The referenced source, “Літвінізм” з беларускай і літоўскай перспектывы (“Litvinism” from Belarusian and Lithuanian perspectives), does not mention or support the claims that some Lithuanian historians and politicians view the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as an exclusively Lithuanian national state, dismiss the Belarusian contribution, or describe Belarusian claims to GDL heritage as “theft” of Lithuanian history. The source instead discusses the broad and politically charged use of the term “Litvinism” in Lithuanian public discourse. The current wording therefore goes beyond what the source supports, and a more careful, neutral phrasing is needed unless an alternative reliable source is provided. Eternallyin (talk) 13:15, 26 March 2026 (UTC)

I think the whole sentence must be removed altogeter. Its first part is just a rephrasing of the previous paragraph, and the part about "theft" is a rhetoric of nationalists, which must be described as such. --Altenmann >talk 16:31, 26 March 2026 (UTC)