Are all surnames with endings -vich Jevish or not? Most of the Russian would  give a positive answer for this question, I experienced this much more than once or twice. In  my childhood some of my coevals in their desire to offend me often call me "Jew", and one of the colleges of my wife even asked her after our marriage: "Well, your husband is Jew, isn't he?" Also some of my good friends sincerely believe me to be a russianized Jew. I’ve said "A russianized" because of my white skin, fair hair, blue eyes and some freckles (in childhood). Anyway, it bring more evidence to their ignorance, for there are fair–haired and blue–eyed Jews! I tried to prove them that they are mistake about my non–evident "Jewish" surname and appearance, justly emphasizing the fact that the true Jews can be determined by their strict religious beliefs, and indicating the wide spread of the surname with ending -vich in Belorussia, Poland and states of former Jugoslavia; in the latters such surnames probably consist the majority of the total variety. Well, and I also brought out some quite simple, even if a bit naive notion: "How could such a huge amount of Jews live in Slavonic countries?" After all, according to the official Belorussian statistics there are only about 1,4 percent of Jews of all Belorussian population.

Well, as it is almost always, the truth is somewhere between the two extreme viewpoints. There are Slavonic surnames with Belorussian stems, there are Jewish surnames with Jewish stems, and the words of the both types end on –vich.

Belorussian Slavonic surnames ending on –vich are of the most ancient origin and has meaning "belonging to a family, belonging to a kin". For example, feirst well–known ancient East Slavonic large commuties of peoples had names krivichi, radimichi, dregovichi, etc., and descendants of the first russian prince Rurik had been called rurikovichi (Note of the translator: e.g. Ivan the Terrible was named rurikovich). Threfore, the ending –vich conveys respectfulness, this also can be observed upon studying East Slavonic patronymic names (Note of the translator: That is very uncommon practice for Western Europe to have and to be called by patronymic names). In Russia, when you want to address an acquaintance with most polite or respect, you add to his/her first name the patroymic name also, e.g. Vladimir Ivanovich (Ivan's son Vladimir); as more simple but anyway respectful adress can be  used the patronymic only, e.g Ivanovich (Ivan's son), Petrovich (Peter's son).  Furthermore, there are many Belorussian towns and villages which names end on –ichi, and these settlements are of the most ancient ones, the endging of their names referring to the name of the most numerous or famous kin that lived there in great antiquity. As for our surname, there is settlement Knotenichi in Brest region, and there is also Khotenchitsy in the north of the Minsk region, this theme to be explained in all its details hereafter.

In the late 19th century the Tzar’s authorities began to surname the Jewish population of Belorussia. Most of the surnames would end on –vich and –ski, but has Jewich or German stems: Abramovich (from Abram), Khazanovich (from Jewish khazzan), Rabbinovich (from Jewish rabbi), etc. Belorussian Jews lived mainly in towns or boroughs (small semi–towns, semi–villages) and were almost entirely engaged in commerce (in the late 19th century 95% of all Belorussian merchants were Jews) or crafstmanship, and quite few of the them were peasant. Therefore for the Russian dealing with the active part of the Belorussian ment dealing with the Jews with such surnames that end on –vich 3333and –ski. Small wonder that there had been laid the basis for the opinion that all the people who have surnames ending on –vich, are Jews.

In the early 20th another version arised: the surnames with ending –vich were classified as Lithuanian of Polish; the article on the matter, for example, was published in 1922 by Belorussian philologist J. Stankevich: "Both of the opinions are wrong, for in different historical periods Belorussian land consequently consisted part of the grand duchy of Lithuania or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Indigene Poles had not such sunames! Mickiewicz (Mitskevich), Sienkiewicz (Sienkevitch), Kandratowicz  (Kandratovich) were Belorussian that enriched Poland culture and made it flourishing. In Tzar's Russia there was no such nationality as Belorussian. Peoples that were born on the territory of modern Belorussia, was wtitten as Poles if they were Catholics or members of Uniate Chrch, or as Russians or Ukrainians if they were members of the Orthodox Church. On the other hand, and in the other country, namely, in Russia, local Jews were given typically Russian sunames with endings –ov. For example, a famous modern Russian humourist Khazanov on Belorussian lands would have recieved surname Khazanovich or Khazanovsky, that is of above-mentioned type.