The Goat from the Vikings and 'the Stern Orderliness of the Belarusian Song'. What was written about Belarus in a propaganda magazine during the occupation

Christmas Goat. Illustrative photo: adukar.com

In materials about Belarus, the publication placed the greatest emphasis on culture, attempting to create the illusion of an unprecedented national revival under the patronage of German rule. The main motif was a contrast: the Bolsheviks destroyed everything national, while the «new order» returned and protected it. However, behind the beautiful words and high-quality photographs lay absurd ideological theories.

Theatrical Life

In the July 1943 issue, a huge article by Kastus Jezavitau, chairman of the Belarusian Association in Latvia, on the history of Belarusian theater was published. The author provides a detailed excursion from the traditional batleyka (puppet theatre) and works of Dunin-Martsinkevich to professional troupes of the early 20th century.

Павялічыць

Scene from the BDT-1 play «Kastus Kalinouski» directed by Yevstigney Mirovich (1923). Photo: «Ostland»

The successes of Natallia Arsenneva, who translates «The Barber of Seville» and Schiller's classics for the Minsk stage, are also reported.

Павялічыць

Scene from the BDT-1 play «Panski Haiduk». The author of the play is the prominent theatrical figure Yazep Dylo, arrested in 1930 on the fabricated case of the «Union for the Liberation of Belarus». Photo: «Ostland»

The magazine publishes high-quality photos from iconic plays of the 1920s: «Kastus Kalinouski», «Na Kupalle», and «Panski Haiduk». Readers are reminded that the creators of Belarusian theater — including Uladzislau Halubok — were physically annihilated by Soviet power in the 1930s. And there is no lie in this.

Павялічыць

Alena Dushaŭskaja, wife of Klaudzi Duzh-Dushaŭski, creator of the sketch for the white-red-white flag. A month after this publication in «Ostland» magazine, the Gestapo would send Alena and her husband to the Pravieniškės concentration camp for saving Jews. Photo: «Ostland»

But along with the photos of the plays, another one is included, revealing the hypocrisy of the German occupiers — a photo portrait of Dushaŭskaja, the «beloved Belarusian actress of the St. Petersburg troupe» of the early 20th century.

The photo is signed as G. Dusch-Duschewskaja, so one might initially think it refers to Hanna Duzh-Dushaŭskaja, the sister of Klaudzi Duzh-Dushaŭski, creator of the white-red-white flag, who indeed had acting experience. However, as a deeper study of the image using modern technical means showed, the photo is not of his sister, but of Klaudzi's wife, Alena.

Literally a month after this issue of «Ostland» was released, in August 1943, the Gestapo in Kaunas arrested Alena and Klaudzi Dushaŭski and sent them to the Pravieniškės concentration camp. Their guilt lay in the fact that they had hidden Jews in their apartment, saving them from the Holocaust.

For this feat, in 2004, the Dushaŭskis were posthumously awarded the Lithuanian state order — the Cross of the Rescuer of the Dying.

Павялічыць

Mass scene from the legendary play «Na Kupalle» based on the play by Mikhas Charot (in the magazine he is signed with his real name — Mikhail Kudzelka). The author of the work was shot by NKVD organs on the night of October 30, 1937. Photo: «Ostland»

The Belarusian «Goat» — from the Vikings!

When it came to ethnography, German researchers tried various ways to link local traditions to Aryan or Germanic roots. In December 1942, Friedrich Alexander Redlich published an article «Christmas in Ostland» (Weihnachten im Ostland). Describing the traditional Belarusian and Baltic ritual where carollers lead a young man dressed in a goat mask (Bocksmaske) through courtyards, the author draws a strange conclusion.

Павялічыць

Teenagers in traditional ritual costumes during winter holidays. The original caption indicates that the photo was taken in Latvia, however, in the article itself, German ethnographers try to prove that this custom appeared in our lands exclusively under the influence of «Viking connections» and originates from the mythical goats of the Germanic god Thor. Photo: «Ostland»

While modern pro-Russian activists in Belarus fight against the traditional Christmas «goat», seriously seeing in it symbols of Baphomet and Satanism, the German occupiers in 1942 followed the path of cultural appropriation. They appropriated local folklore, trying to see under the straw mask of the goat… the legacy of the stern Scandinavian Vikings.

Redlich tried to harness the ordinary Belarusian goat to the chariot of the Germanic god Thor. The article claimed that our goat mask appeared «under the influence of Viking connections» and is a relative of the Swedish Christmas goat (Julbock), in order to somehow justify the presence of an ancient Germanic spirit in Slavic territories.

The Irony of the Fates of Ostforschung Researchers

Even further in psychological analysis goes Dr. Eberhard Wolfgram (1908—1981), a German Slavist and one of the so-called Ostforscher (Ostforscher), «East researchers», who during the war transformed from academic scholars into intellectual servants of genocide and colonization.

In July 1944, Wolfgram published a comprehensive article «Belarusian Folk Song» (Das weißruthenische Volkslied), relying on the preserved archives of the defeated Inbelkult.

Wolfgram proves to the German reader that Belarusians are fundamentally different from Russians. The researcher categorically contrasts the two cultures: he calls the Russian folk song an «boundless flow of the soul into infinity» and an explosion of emotions that «breaks all boundaries». In contrast, the Belarusian song, in his opinion, demonstrates a «modest, almost stern orderliness» and a deep, practical connection with real peasant life.

Павялічыць

An old peasant (most likely Latvian) on the cover of one of the issues of «Ostland» magazine.

Here it is worth mentioning the irony of the researcher's own fate. Eberhard Wolfgram, who during the war studied «Ostland» in a Nazi magazine and wrote about the superiority of the new European order over Bolshevism, found himself in the Soviet occupation zone after the defeat of the Third Reich. He remained living in the GDR, in Leipzig, and from 1945 to 1956… officially worked for the Society for German-Soviet Friendship!

Radio Without Receivers

The occupiers were also surprised by what the totalitarian Soviet system had left them. In January 1943, reviewing radio broadcasting, quartermaster Hans Kriegler noted with surprise: Belarusians had practically no individual radio receivers, only wired radio points.

«In Belarus, over-the-air reception was forbidden from the very beginning, so that people would not hear the truth from abroad», — writes the German author.

In reality, before the war, over-the-air receivers were sold in the USSR, though they were subject to strict registration with communication authorities. What the Germans saw was the result of general poverty and the total confiscation of radio receivers, carried out by the NKVD on June 25, the third day of the war.

By the way, the Germans liked the Soviet wired broadcasting system very much — they instantly adapted it for broadcasting Hitler's speeches.

Why the Hitlerites Did Not Dissolve Kolkhozes

As is known, one of Germany's main propaganda slogans in the war against the USSR was the «liberation of peasants from Bolshevik serfdom» and the return of private land ownership. In Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, the German administration indeed dissolved the state farms (sovkhozes) that Soviet power had managed to create only a year before the German invasion. But in Belarus, it was different.

In the July 1943 issue, in a large article by high-ranking official, former State Minister Herbert Backe, «Europe's Peasants Work for Victory» (Europas Bauern arbeiten für den Sieg), the author boasts about the successes of German agrarian policy in the occupied territories. He reports that peasants are supposedly gladly freeing themselves from the collective farm system throughout Ostland and Ukraine, but immediately makes a reservation: «…the collective farm system, however, was partially preserved only in the Belarusian regions».

This very thesis about the preservation of collective farms in Belarus (Weissruthenien) is repeated word for word a year later, in an article from the July 1944 issue («The Duty of the Latvian Home Front…»).

Why then did the Nazis decide to leave one of its main symbols of Bolshevism — collective farms — intact and operational specifically in our lands? Apparently, uninterrupted supply of products for the gigantic Wehrmacht machine required strict, undeniable, and centralized control over product collection.

The German administration, in essence, did not need to change anything in the Soviet system — it was enough merely to place its commandants and managers at the head of this system. The economy of Belarus was viewed by the Germans exclusively as a resource base, and ideology easily gave way to practical advantage here.

• 2
• 0
• 1
• 0
• 0
• 1
• 0
• 0