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Comment by m0zg | Hacker News Reader

>> Rolled over through the centuries with Moscow's wars with other parts of Europe

What a profoundly backward perspective. It's the other way around. Belarus was a part of the Russian Empire. So much a part of it, in fact, that the long form of the title of the Russian monarch contained its name. You can't "roll over" something you already own. It wasn't Russia's wars with European states that repeatedly fucked up Belarus. It was Europe's wars with Russia. Napoleon and Hitler were two notable examples - both defeated, but both rolled through Belarus first, killing and raping everything that moved.

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It was only temporary part of russian empire (for about a century), with every attempt to fight it drowned in blood. During that time russia tried to exterminate any self-identity, forbidding to even have a name and calling it "north-western area". To get an idea of what was happening in that region historically you may read about Great Duchy of Lithuania

Another point to consider: much of the Rus (Ruth) that russia claims to be descendent of is modern Ukraine and Belarus lands, and historically they were figthing most of the time with moscow armies.

145 years continuously (and on and off before then, dating back to Peter The Great), then 74 years under the Soviets. A pretty good chunk of time IMO.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus and 'Establishment history' there. 1795-1918 - 123 years.

"Soviets" was a union of 15 republics, not one big russia.

To your original comment: russia absolutely didn't behave nice on that land at any time in history regardless of who they were at war with.

1772 to 1917 my man. Russia could not afford to "behave nice" back then. Every 100 years or so some European idiot monarch would hatch a harebrained scheme to attack it, only to get his ass handed to him a few years later.

https://www.google.com/search?q=belarus+part+of+russian+empi...

your original comment was that it wasn't russia that was bad for Belarus historically but those europeans..

and I'm not your man

>Another point to consider: much of the Rus (Ruth) that russia claims to be descendent of is modern Ukraine and Belarus lands, and historically they were figthing most of the time with moscow armies.

Russia claims to be descendent of many things, from vikings to Byzantine Empire, from slavic tribes to mongols. Russia is a mix of many things, where Kiev and Kievan Rus is just one of the main starting points. Not to mention that Kiev became the capital only ofter Oleg captured it after leaving Novgorod. Not to mention that any fights between Moscow and whatever entity you are talking about have happened centuries later.

And even if we are talking about geography only: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus%27#/media/File:Prin...

here is the map of the Kievan Rus (1054-1132). Lands of the modern Ukraine and Belarus take less than a half of the territories as can be clearly seen. Even considering that this is a 'flat' map.

russia is indeed big so I will not make broad generalizations, but I've never met any russians who would claim vikings, byzantines or mongols as someone russia has originated from (for many mongols is a conflictive/sensitive topic though, but not in an acceptive way). I'm looking at dominating there slavic 'Rus' history view.

Well, those are historical facts. Not sure about the russians you've met, but they surely have read about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_route_from_the_Varangian... at least. Not to mention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rurik_dynasty

And you can't really have any talk about Russian state over here without mentioning that 'Russia is still a Byzantine Empire descendant'. Even newspapers usualy mention that: https://www.gazeta.ru/comments/2016/05/30_e_8271917.shtml (in russian, obviously)

Anyway, this topic has lots of material if one is interested.

> the long form of the title of the Russian monarch contained its name

the British royals had "Emperor/Empress of India" in their full title until 1948.

Titles don't doesn't mean much.

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