Golden age of Belarusian history

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The Golden age of Belarusian history is the metaphorical term, relating to the certain relaxation, and even partial and temporary revertion, of the Polish and Catholic cultural-religious expansion (end of the 14th–17th centuries) to Old Belarusian and Ukrainian (so, Eastern Slavonic and Orthodox) parts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 1500s–1570s, esp. in the 1550s–1570s. In modern usage, it is sometimes used in relation to the Belarusian history of the entire 16th century, which is not exactly correct.

The authorship of the term is attributed to the contemporary writer and publicist Fyodar Yewlashowski (Yewlashewski). In the Soviet propagandist literature, the authorship of the term had been incorrectly attributed, sometimes, to the «Belarusian bourgeouis nationalists» (Soviet post-1920s political label for the non-Soviet Belarusian national activists), notably to Vatslaw Lastowski.