Abstract
This critical article is dealing with Belarusian nationalism as the main research topic of Danish researcher Per Anders Rudling's study The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism, 1906-1931, published in 2015 in Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press. Rudling's research portrays the development of the Belarusian nationalism as being composed of many often contradictory initiatives of the Belarusian national elites who strived to create Belarusian national statehood (both on the territory of Soviet Belarus and on the territory of Western Belarus as part of Poland).
In the soviet Belarus these national initiatives took the form of national policy of belarussization, while on the territory of Western Belarus massive political mobilization of Belarusian population within the activities of Belarusian peasant-working hramada had taken place. This article presents critical analyses of Rudling's research.
The main conclusion of carried out analyses is that the study of Per Anders Rudling contains rich data concerned Belarusian recent history of early 20th century as well as an interpretation of the development of Belarusian national projects of that period. Nevertheless, the conclusions of the analyzed study are affected by the researcher's uncritical processing of the sources leading to selective target choice of facts or events, and often to misinterpretations of the primary and secondary sources used in the study.