In the 19th century, the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was considered as part of the history of Russia and the Orthodox Russian people. One of the supporters of this approach was Xenophon Antonovich Govorsky: historian, publicist, founder and editor-publisher of the journal “Vestnik Yugo-Zapadnoy I Zapadnoy Rossii” (later - “Vestnik Zapadnoy Rossii”). The magazine regularly published materials related to the history of the Principality of Lithuania - primarily as part of the Commonwealth, when the Russian Orthodox population had a need to defend their rights. But the magazine paid close attention to the “classical” period of the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (before the Union of Lublin). Historical documents were actively published on its pages - mainly on original “Western Russian” language - devoted primarily to the history of local Orthodoxy. However, the focus of the authors is rather historical and historical-journalistic materials, showing how the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was refracted through the prism of the program that stood at the origins of “Western Russian” publication. Of course, the very laws of the genre allow to see in the materials of the journal not so much a scientific concept, as well as the official narrative of the Russian Empire inspired by N. G. Ustryalov and other historians, the peaks of which were the famous Mikeshin’s monument in Veliky Novgorod and the no less famous Tyutchev lines about “ancient Russian Vilna”.