Tutejszy 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". Linguistically, the term is closely associated with speakers of the so-called prostaya mova ('simple speech'), an uncodified vernacular based on Belarusian dialects with influences from Polish, Russian, and Lithuanian.
This phenomenon was mostly present 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 , 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 (; ) 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. Lithuanian researchers assert that within ethnographic Lithuania, the Tutejszy were mostly Slavicized Lithuanians. 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.
Language
The group's speech (, "local language") was described by 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 attested that many of the Vilnius Region's inhabitants who declare Polish nationality speak a Belarusian dialect which they call mowa prosta ('simple speech').
See also
- Poleshuks
- Podlashuks
- Kresy
- Krajowcy
- Simple speech