# Tutejszy

Tutejszy (Belarusian: тутэйшы, romanized: tutejšy; Polish: tutejszy, Polish pronunciation:; Ukrainian: тутешній, romanized: tuteshniy; Lithuanian: tuteišiai; Latvian: tuteiši; Russian: туземный, romanized: tuzemnyj) was a self-identification of Eastern European rural populations, who did not have a clear national identity. The term means "from here", "local" or "natives". This was mostly in mixed-lingual Eastern European areas, including Belarus, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Latvia, in particular, in Polesia and Podlachia. As a self-identification, it persisted in Lithuania’s Vilnius Region into the late 20th century. For example, in 1989, a poll of persons whose passports recorded their ethnicity as Polish revealed that 4% of them regarded themselves as tuteišiai, 10% as Lithuanians, and 84% as Poles.

## In Poland

The term was first used in an official publication in 1922 in the preliminary results of the Polish census of 1921 (Miesięcznik Statystyczny, vol. V). An indigenous nationality (French: Nationalité Indigène; Polish: Narodowość tutejsza) was declared by 38,943 persons, with the vast majority being Orthodox (38,135) and from rural areas (36,729). The Census stated that this category was for "population who could not describe their ethnicity in any other way". This census did not include the Vilnius Region.
There are mixed opinions about the reasons, meaning, and implications of this term. In the Polish census of 1931 asked respondents to identify their mother tongue. “Tutejszy” was included and was chosen by 707,088 respondents. Lithuanian researchers assert that within ethnographic Lithuania, the Tutejszy were mostly Slavicized Lithuanians. Björn Wiemer [de] argues that a considerable contribution to Slavicization of the area was a significant influx of Ruthenian (Belarusian) peasantry in the area, especially after considerable depopulation due to plague.

## In Latvia

Report on the Latvian census of 1930 describes tuteiši as Catholics of Latgale, who spoke Polish, Latvian and Russian equally and lacked ethnic identity (the Latvian census did not recognize these people as having a separate ethnic identity). The report notes that they could easily change their identity on a whim or after being persuaded by nationalist organizations, producing sharp changes in the ethnic composition of some areas, the most noticeable changes being a decrease in the number of Belarusians in ten years since 1920 from 75,630 to 36,029 and number of Poles increasing more than could be explained with natural growth and immigration, suggesting that some 5,000 Tutejszy had chosen to identify as Poles. In addition, uncertain number of them presumably chose to identify as Russians or Latvians.

## Language

The group's speech (język tutejszy, "local language") was described by Björn Wiemer [de] as “an uncodified and largely undescribed Belarusian vernacular”.
According to Polish professor Jan Otrębski's article published in 1931, the Polish dialect in the Vilnius Region and in the northeastern areas in general are very interesting variant of Polishness as this dialect developed in a foreign territory which was mostly inhabited by the Lithuanians who were Belarusized (mostly) or Polonized, and to prove this Otrębski provided examples of Lithuanianisms in the Tutejszy language.
In 2015, Polish linguist Mirosław Jankowiak [pl] attested that many of the Vilnius Region's inhabitants who declare Polish nationality speak a Belarusian dialect which they call mowa prosta ('simple speech').