History of Belarus

Template:Totallydisputed This article describes the history of Belarus and the Belarusian people.

Early history

The history of Belarus, or, more correctly of the Belarusian ethnicity, begins with the migration and expansion of the Slavic peoples throughout Eastern Europe between the 6th and 8th centuries Anno Domini. East Slavs settled on the territory within present-day Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, assimilating local Baltic (Belarus), Ugro-Finnic (Russia) and steppe nomads (Ukraine) already living there, early ethnic integrations that contributed to the gradual differentiation of the three East Slavic nations. These East Slavs were pagan, animistic, agrarian people whose economy included trade in agricultural produce, game, furs, honey, beeswax and amber.

The modern Belarusian ethnos was probably formed on the basis of the three Slavic tribes - Kryvians, Drehovians, Radzimians as well as several Baltic tribes.

During the 9th and 10th century, Scandinavian Vikings established trade posts on the way from Scandinavia to the Byzantine Empire. The network of lakes and rivers crossing East Slav territory provided a lucrative trade route between the two civilizations. In the course of trade, they gradually took sovereignty over the tribes of East Slavs, at least to the point required by improvements in trade.

The Rus' rulers invaded the Byzantine Empire on few occasions, but eventually they allied against the Bulgars. The condition underlying this alliance was to open the country for Christianization and acculturation from the Byzantine Empire.

The common cultural bond of Eastern Orthodox Christianity and written Church Slavonic (a literary and liturgical Slavic language developed by 8th century missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius) fostered the emergence of a new geopolitical entity, Kievan Rus' -- a loose-knit network of principalities, established along preexisting trade routes, with major centers in Novgorod (currently Russia), Polatsk and Kiev (currently in Ukraine) — which claimed a sometimes precarious preeminence among them.

First Belarusian states

Kiev duke Vladimir and princess Rahneda of Polatsk (painting of 1770).

Between the 9th and 12th century, the principality of Polatsk (northern Belarus) emerged as the dominant center of power on Belarusian territory, with a lesser role played by the principality of Turau in the south.

It repeatedly asserted its sovereignty in relation to other centers of Rus', becoming a political capital, the episcopal see of a bishopric and the controller of vassal territories among Balts in the west. The city's Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom (1044-1066), though completely rebuilt over the years, remains a symbol of this independent-mindedness, rivaling churches of the same name in Novgorod and Kiev, referring to the original Hagia Sophia in Constantinople (and hence to claims of imperial prestige, authority and sovereignty). Cultural achievements of the Polatsk period include the work of the nun Euphrosyne of Polatsk (1120-1173), who built monasteries, transcribed books, promoted literacy and sponsored art (including local artisan Lazarus Bohsha's famous "Cross of Euphrosyne," a national symbol and treasure stolen during World War II), and the prolific, original Church Slavonic sermons and writings of Bishop Cyril of Turau (1130-1182).

The Grand Duchy of Lithuania

File:Pol-lith commonwealth map.jpg

Outline of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth with its major subdivisions at the point of its greatest expansion (1619) superimposed on present-day national borders

In the 13th century, the fragile unity of Kievan Rus' disintegrated due to nomadic incursions from Asia, which climaxed with the Mongol Blue Horde's sacking of Kiev (1240), leaving a geopolitical vacuum in the region. The East Slavs splintered into a number of independent and competing principalities. Due to military conquest and dynastic marriages the Belarusian principalities were acquired by the expanding Lithuanians, beginning with the rule of King Mindouh (1240-1263). From the 13th to 15th century, Baltic, Belarusian and Ukrainian lands were consolidated into the multi-ethnic Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Ruthenia and Samogitia, with its capital initially in Horodno, later in Navahradak (now in western Belarus) and finally in Vilnia.

The Lithuanians' smaller numbers and lack of written language or Christian culture in this medieval state gave the Belarusians and Ukrainians a major and important role in shaping Lithuanian political, religious and cultural life, and further assimilation between the Slavs and Balts occurred. Owing to the predominance of East Slavs and Eastern Orthodox faith among the state's population, Ruthenian became the official language of the country, used for its official chancery, legal, diplomatic and judicial needs until 1696, when it was eventually replaced by Polish.

This period of political breakdown and reorganization also saw the rise of written local vernaculars in place of the literary and liturgical Church Slavonic language, a further stage in the evolving differentiation between the Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian languages.

After 1385, Belarus became part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Union of Kowno. Several Lithuanian monarchs - the last being Svitrigailo in 1432-1436 - championed interests of the Eastern Orthodox Ruthenian majority, while most monarchs and magnates increasingly came to reflect opinions of the Roman Catholic Lithuanian minority. Escalating discrimination of dissidents contributed to the eventual breakup of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

"Union of Lublin" of 1569, oil on canvas by Jan Matejko, 1869, 298 x 512 cm, National Museum in Warsaw.

Construction of Orthodox churches in some parts of Belarus had been initially prohibited, as was the case of Vitebsk in 1480. On the other hand, further unification of the, mostly Orthodox, Grand Duchy with mostly Catholic Poland led to liberalization and partial solving of the religious problem. In 1511 King and Grand Duke Sigismund I the Old granted the Orthodox clergy with autonomy enjoyed previously only by Catholic clergy. In 1531 the privilege was enhanced in 1531, when the Orthodox church was no longer responsible to the Catholic bishop and instead the Metropolite was responsible only to the sobor of 8 Orthodox bishops, the Grand Duke and the Patriarch of Constantinople. The privilege also extended the jurisdiction of the Orthodox hierarchy over all Orthodox people [1].

In such circumstances, vibrant Belarusian culture flourished, mostly in major Belarusian cities [2]. Despite the legal usage of Old Ruthenian language (predecessor of both modern Belarusian and Ukrainian languages) which was used as a chancerry language in all territory of the Grand Duchy, the literature was mostly non-existent, outside of several chronicles and letopises. hence the first Belarusian book was published in Prague. It was not until 1517 that the first printing press using Cyrillic alphabet was founded in Kraków. Soon afterwards Francysk Skaryna, a leading representative of the renaissance Belarusian culture, founded a similar printing press in Polatsk and started an extensive work of publishing the Bible and other religious works there. Apart from the Bible itself, until his death in 1551 he published 22 other books thus laying foundations for the evolution of the Ruthenian language into modern Belarusian language.

The Lublin Union of 1569 constituted the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as an influential player in European politics and the largest multinational empire in Europe. While Ukraine and Podlasia became subject to the Polish Crown, Belarus was still regarded as part of Lithuania. The new polity was dominated by Poland, which had 134 representatives in the Sejm as compared to 46 representatives of the Grand Duchy. The country was governed by the so-called Lithuanian Statutes, which codified both civil and property rights. Mogilyov was the largest urban centre of the territory of modern-day Belarus, followed by Vitebsk, Polotsk, Pinsk, Slutsk, and Berestye, whose population exceeded 10,000. [3]

During the period of Polish rule (1569-1795), trade passed into the hands of Jews and Poles who settled primarily in the cities, while the rural population remained predominantly Ruthenian (Belarusian). Numerous Polish nobles and colonists settled in Belarus and the Belarusian magnates came to be thoroughly polonized. For instance, Adam Mickiewicz, although born in present-day Belarus into a Belarusian family, regarded himself as a Lithuanian and wrote in Polish. Similar trends affected lower classes of society: Belarusian language was relegated to secondary positions; Eastern Orthodox peasantry was converted to Uniatism against their will. A Uniate archbishop of Polotsk, for instance, was lynched by Belarusian mob after having been accused in brutal proseletyzing (1623) [4].

Continuing polonization of local Ruthenian nobility (like Sapieha), together with increasing counterreformation (often led by Jesuit priests, enforcing the Union of Brest and supported by ultra-Catholic Polish king Zygmunt III Waza, who tried to disregard the Warsaw Compact promise of religious tolerance) led to violent clashes, including the rebellions of Belarusian people against the ruling Polish nobility in Mogilyov (1606-10), Vitebsk (1623), and Polotsk (1633). Belarusian peasants fled from Polish serfdom to the Zaporizhian Sich (also know as the Wild Fields), where they became known as Cossacks. As Polish nobility tried to turn Cossacks into serfs, tensions between those groups increased. In 1595, the Cossack insurgents under Severyn Nalivaiko took the towns of Slutsk and Mogilyov and executed Polish magistrates there.

After Belarusian peasantry volunteered to take part in the anti-Polish movement led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky, deputations from several Belarusian towns arrived to Moscow, asking the tsar for interference on their part [5]. The Treaty of Andrusovo, however, left much Belarus still under Polish rule. During the Khmelnytsky Uprising and Swedish invasion (The Deluge), the Commonwealth lost close to 1/3 of its population. At the same time, after the schizm in the Orthodox Church (Raskol), many of the members of the "old faith" migrated west, seeking refuge in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which allowed them to freely practice their faith. [6]. However after Orthodox fraternities were disbanded by Polish administration, the use of Belarusian language was increasingly discouraged or suppressed [7].

By the 18th century the rapacity of Polish nobles plunged the country into anarchy, making the once powerful empire vulnerable to foreign influence. Increasingly during this time Muscovite armies invaded the Commonwealth, kidnapping scores of its eastern inhabitants, among them hundreds of thousands of Belarusian peasants[8]. Eventually Poland was partitioned by its neighbors, which meant that Belarusians were reunited with majority of other Orthodox East Slavs.

Russian Empire

View of Polatsk in 1912

Under Russian administration, the territory of Belarus was divided into the guberniyas of Minsk, Vitebsk, Mogilyov, and Hrodno. Belarusians were active in guerilla movement against Napoleon's occupation and did their best to annihilate the remains of the Grande Armée when it crossed the Berezina River in November 1812.

Although under Nicholas I and Alexander III the national cultures were repressed due to the policy of de-Polonization [9] which included the return to Orthodoxy, the 19th century was signified by the rise of the modern Belarusian nation and self-confidence. Belarusian economy was booming, particularly after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. Peasants sought a better lot in large industrial centres, with some 1,500,000 people leaving Belarus in half a century preceding the Russian Revolution of 1917.

After Russian Revolution

Belarus National Republic

The Belarus National Republic, 1918

World War I was the short period when Belarusian culture started to fluorish. German administration allowed schools with Belarusian language, previously banned in Russia; a number of Belarusian schools were created until 1919 when they were banned again. At the end of World War I, when Belarus was still occupied by Germans according to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the short-lived Belarus National Republic was pronounced on March 25, 1918.

When the Red Army entered Minsk on January 5, 1919, the Rada (Council) of the BNR went into exile, first to Kaunas, then to Berlin and to Prague. The number of supporters of BNR in Belarus increased significantly after the Treaty of Riga, when Belarusians realised that their country was divided between Poland and Russia. For next two years BNR prepared for national uprising in Belarus and ceased the preparations only when the League of Nations recognised the eastern borders of Soviet Union on March 15 1923.

During the World War II the Nazis attempted to establish a puppet Belarusian government, Belarusian Central Rada, with the symbolics similar to BNR.

As of 2004, Ivonka Survilla is the current chairperson of the Council of BNR.

LBSSR

In December 1918 the Germans left the land, and on January 2, 1919 the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was declared. A month later, on February 27, BSSR joined the Lithuanian SSR to form the LBSSR, Lithuanian-Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, informally known as Litbel, which continued to exist until August 1919 (the onset of the Polish-Soviet War). In 1920, the lands of Belarus were divided between Poland and Byelorussian (Belarusian) Soviet Socialist Republic.

Belarusian Soviet Republic and West Belarus

Within the USSR, the name of the country was Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. It was declared on January 1, 1919 in Smalensk.

The frontiers between Poland, which had established an independent government following World War I, and the former Russian Empire, were not recognized by the League of Nations. At this point, Poland's Józef Piłsudski, who envisioned a new Międzymorze federation forming an East European bloc to form a bulwark against Russia and Germany, carried out Kiev Offensive in 1920, but was met by a Red Army counter-offensive that drove into Polish territory almost to Warsaw. However, Piłsudski halted the Soviet advance at the battle of Warsaw and resumed the offensive. The "Peace of Riga" signed in early 1921 that split the territory of Belarus between Poland and the USSR. (see also: Polish-Soviet War)

For several years, the national culture and language enjoyed a significant boost of revival in the Soviet Belarus. This was however soon tragically ended during the Great Purge, when almost all prominent Belarusian national intelligentsia were executed. Belarusian orthography was russified in 1933 and use of Belarusian language was discouraged as exhibiting anti-soviet attitude.

In the West Belarus, up to 300 thousand Polish veterans were settled in the lands formerly belonging to the Russian tsar family and Russian aristocracy. Belarusian representation in Polish parliament was reduced in result of the 1930 elections. Since early 1930's West Belarus was undergoing a strong policy of polonization by the Polish government. The usage of Belarusian language was discouraged and the Belarusian schools were facing severe financial problems. In spring of 1939 there already was no single Belarusian official organisation in Poland.

Belarus in World War II

When the Soviet Union invaded Poland on September 17 1939, following the terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocol, much of what had been eastern Poland was annexed to the BSSR. Twenty months later, Germany and its Axis allies invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Belarus suffered particularly heavily during the fighting and the German occupation. Following bloody encirclement battles, all of present-day Belarus was occupied by the Germans by the end of August 1941.

The Germans imposed a brutal racist regime, burning down some 9,000 Belarusian villages, deporting some 380,000 people for slave labour, and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians more. Almost the whole, previously very numerous, Jewish population of Belarus which did not evacuate was killed. Since the early days of the occupation, a powerful and increasingly well-coordinated Soviet partisan movement emerged. Hiding in the woods and swamps, the partisans inflicted heavy damage to German supply lines and communications, disrupting railway tracks, bridges, telegraph wires, attacking supply depots, fuel dumps and transports and ambushing German soldiers. Not all anti-German partisans were pro-Soviet. In the largest partisan sabotage action of the entire Second World War, the so-called Asipovichy diversion of July 30, 1943, four German trains with supplies and Tiger tanks were destroyed. To fight partisan activity, the Germans had to withdraw considerable forces behind their front line. On June 22, 1944, the huge Soviet offensive Operation Bagration was launched, finally regaining all of Belarus by the end of August. Hundred thousand of Poles were expelled after 1944.

In total, Belarus lost a quarter of its pre-war population in the Second World War. For the defence against the Germans, and the tenacity during the German occupation, the capital Minsk was awarded the title Hero City after the War. The fortress of Brest was awarded the title Hero-Fortress.

BSSR from 1945 to 1990

After the end of War, in 1945 Belarus became one of the founding members of the United Nations Organisation.

50 years of Soviet Belarus - a Soviet stamp of 1969

During the immediate postwar period, the Soviet Union first rebuilt and then expanded the BSSR's economy, with control always exerted exclusively from Moscow. During this time, Belarus became a major center of manufacturing in the western region of the USSR. Huge industrial objects like the BelAZ, MAZ, and the Minsk Tractor Plant were built in the country. The increase in jobs resulted in a huge immigrant population of Russians in Belarus.

On April 26, 1986 the Chernobyl accident occurred at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. It is regarded as the worst nuclear accident in the history of nuclear power. It produced a plume of radioactive debris that drifted over parts of the western Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia. Large areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia were contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of roughly 200,000 people. About 60 percent of radioactive fallout landed in Belarus.

Republic of Belarus

On 27 July 1990, Belarus declared its national sovereignty, a key step toward independence from the Soviet Union. The BSSR was formally renamed the Republic of Belarus on 25 August 1991. Around that time, Stanislav Shushkevich became the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus, the top leadership position in Belarus. Shushkevich, along with Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine met on December 8, 1991, in Belavezhskaya Pushcha, to formally declare the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

In 1994, the first presidential elections were held and Alexander Lukashenko was elected president of Belarus. During his presidency, Lukashenko halted economic reform and re-established an authoritarian government reminiscent of the Soviet era. In 1996, Lukashenko disbanded parliament, and strengthened his control over the judiciary. In 2001, he was re-elected as president in elections condemned as undemocratic by Western observers. Western governments and NGOs consider Belarus to be the last dictatorship in Europe ([10], [11], [12]). Economically however, this allowed Belarus to bypass severe economic hardships and criseses that many former Soviet Union countries encountered. Today the country has one of the highest GNP per capita growth of all the former USSR nations.

Symbols from earlier history

The Chase/Pahonya CoA of Belarus in 1918 and 1991-1995

The images show the white-red-white flag (бел-чырвона-белы сцяг) and The Chase (Паго́ня, Pahonya) coat of arms. These historical symbols were adopted as the symbols of the Belarus National Republic and as the official national symbols of the Republic of Belarus from the time it got its independence in July 1991 and until the Referendum of 1995. The coat of arms is similar to that of Lithuania (Vytis).

References

1. ^ Nina Struzynska, "Anti-Soviet conspiracy and partisan struggle of the Green Oak Party in Belarus", p. 859-860 in "Non Provinicial Europe", London/Warsaw 1999, ISBN 8386759925, ISBN 8387893587
2. ^ Anatol Zhytko, "Russian policy towards the Belorussian gentry in 1861-1914", Minsk

See also

• List of Belarusian rulers
• Soviet Union
• Collapse of the Soviet Union
• Commonwealth of Independent States
• History of Europe
• History of present-day nations and states
• Dzierzynszczyzna
• Kryvian

External links

• Belarus National Republic - the Belarusian Government in exile
• Stary Hetman - Belarusian history forums
• Belarus, by CIA World Factbook, 2000
• Belarus, by United States Department of State
• Belarusian diaspora
• Rulers.org — Belarus List of rulers for Belarus