According to historian Grigory Ioffe, eastern Belorussia was among the first places in Belarus to adopt the demonym "Belarusian", doing so during the late 19th century.

Further problems were caused by the 1915 division of Belarus into eastern and western halves during World War I, with the west being occupied by the Imperial German Army.

As a result of this, eastern Belorussia was overwhelmed by an influx of Polish refugees and non-Belarusian soldiers from the Imperial Russian Army.

The 1994 Belarusian presidential election marked a conflict between the eastern Alexander Lukashenko and the western Zianon Pazniak and Stanislav Shushkevich.

[9] The election ultimately led to a victory for Lukashenko, who has variously supported eastern manifestations of Belarusian nationalism or unification of Belarus and Russia.

However, Ioffe has stated that the issue has become a matter of less importance than in the past, due to increased atheism among Belarusians and the growth of Protestantism in Belarus.