amounting to the annexation of what was left of Soviet Belarus by Soviet Lithuania." Borzęcki argues that there were no ethnic Belorussians in the Litbel government. Multinational republic and Grand Duchy nostalgia Mertelsmann (2003) argues that in creating a multi-ethnic republic "Litbel can be understood as an experiment to create a form of state organization beyond old national patterns", but affirms that such experiments would later become impossible with the ascendance of Stalin's approach to the national question as official Soviet policy, whereby each nation would be assigned separate statehood. Nicholas Vakar argued that the Litbel republic represented a compromise between separatists, federalists, and supporters of a Lithuanian-Belorussian state. Hélène Carrère d'Encausse argued that logic behind the launch of Litbel was the creation of a state with a predominately pro-Russian population whereby the Lithuanian drive for independence would be contained, Lithuania would be removed from the British sphere of influence and pro-Polish tendencies would be undermined. Lundén (2006) states that the creation of the Litbel republic sought to incorporate both Belorussian and Lithuanian national aspirations, noting that Vilna had overlapping claims by Lithuanian, Belorussian and Polish nationalists. Smith affirms that as the Vilnius region was ethnically diverse and contested between competing nationalisms, by creating a joint Litbel republic the Soviet leadership could avoid assigning Vilna to neither Lithuania nor Belorussia. Jahn (2009) argues that "the Lithuanian-Belarusian Republic (Litbel), which only existed for a few months in 1919, was even presented as a revival of the medieval Grand Principality." Smith (1999) also highlights the possibility of nostalgia over the Grand Duchy of Lithuania having functioned as a rationale for Litbel, noting that as of 1915 the idea of a Lithuanian-Belorussian union had championed by Belorussian nationalists with German backing and that such a union could have been perceived as having a potential to attract support from nationalist trends. The end of the republic Even the end of the republic is a source of dispute between historians. There are different viewpoints regarding the end date of the republic. Some historians refer to Stalin's telegram to Lenin asking for the disbanding of the SSR LiB government and Defense Council as the end of the republic. Per Borzęcki, Lenin liquidated SSR LiB on 17 July 1919 but the republic continued to exist formally until 1920. After the loss of its claimed territories the administration of the republic was placed in a hibernation of sorts.