Activity of Latvian research Department at the Institute of Belarusian culture and the Belarusian Academy of Sciences (1928-1936)

Abstract

One of the factors that influenced the process of institutionalization of the scientific sphere of Belarus in the interwar period was the national diversity of its population. This, in particular, is evidenced by the organization of the Latvian research unit at the Institute of Belarusian Culture (IBC). The article determines the specific features of its functioning using its original documents. It is stated that the process of forming the Latvian research unit stretched out over time. It was initially formed as an auxiliary one in the structure of IBC mostly to serve the needs of the commission of the same name in Moscow. Gradually the Latvian unit has been turned into a self-sufficient research structure issuing scientific literature concerning the state of Latvians in Belarus. Acceleration in social, national and cultural construction in the 1930s contributed to the expansion of the problematic field of the Latvian scientific unit. On the one hand, its studies were devoted to Latvians in Belarus. On the other hand, considerable attention was paid to the comprehension of the national question in Latvia itself. The research unit focused on the involvement of the Latvian population in the process of social and cultural construction in the BSSR, as evidenced by the development of the philological direction of research, and in particular by the preparation of the Latvian-Belarusian dictionary.