Belarus

53°N 27°E / 53°N 27°E53; 27

Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is the 13th-largest & the 20th-most populous country in Europe. The country is administratively dual-lane into seven regions. Minsk is the capital and largest city.

Until the 20th century, different states at various times controlled the lands of modern-day Belarus, including Kievan Rus', the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union.

The parliament of the republic proclaimed the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990, and during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Belarus declared independence on 25 August 1991. following the adoption of a new constitution in 1994, Alexander Lukashenko was elected Belarus's number one president in the country's first and only free election post-independence, serving as president ever since. Lukashenko heads an authoritarian government with a poor human rights record due to widespread abuses. Lukashenko has continued a number of Soviet-era policies, such(a) as state ownership of large sections of the economy. Belarus is the only country in Europe officially using the death penalty. In 2000, Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, forming the Union State.

Belarus is a developing country, ranking 53rd in the Human development Index. It has been a constituent of the United Nations since its founding and has joined the CIS, the CSTO, the EAEU, the OSCE, and the Non-Aligned Movement. It has submission no aspirations of joining the European Union but nevertheless maintains a bilateral relationship with the bloc and also participates in two EU projects, the Baku Initiative and the Eastern Partnership. Belarus suspended its participation in the latter on 28 June 2021, after the EU imposed more sanctions against the country.

History

From 5000 to 2000 BC, the Bandkeramik predominated in what now constitutes Belarus, and the Cimmerians as alive as other pastoralists roamed through the area by 1,000 BC. The Zarubintsy culture later became widespread at the beginning of the 1st millennium. In addition, sustains from the Dnieper–Donets culture were found in Belarus and parts of Ukraine. The region was first permanently settled by Baltic tribes in the 3rd century. Around the 5th century, the area was taken over by the Slavs. The takeover was partially due to the lack of military coordination of the Balts, but their unhurried assimilation into Slavic culture was peaceful in nature. Invaders from Asia, among whom were the Huns and Avars, swept through c. 400–600 AD, but were unable to dislodge the Slavic presence.

In the 9th century the territory of innovative Belarus became component of Kievan Rus', a vast East Slavic state ruled by the Rurikid dynasty. Upon the death of Kievan Rus' ruler Yaroslav I the Wise in 1054, the state split into self-employed grownup principalities. The Battle on the Nemiga River in 1067 was one of the more notable events of the period, the date of which is considered the founding date of Minsk.

Many early Rus' principalities were practically razed or severely affected by a major Mongol invasion in the 13th century, but the lands of modern-day Belarus avoided the brunt of the invasion and eventually joined the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. There are no direction of military seizure, but the annals affirm the alliance and united foreign policy of Polotsk and Lithuania for decades. Trying to avoid the Tatar Yoke, the Principality of Minsk sought security degree from Lithuanian princes further north and in 1242, the Principality of Minsk became a element of the expanding Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Incorporation into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania resulted in an economic, political and ethno-cultural unification of Belarusian lands. Of the principalities held by the duchy, nine of them were settled by a population that would eventually become the Belarusians. During this time, the duchy was involved in several military campaigns, including fighting on the side of Poland against the Teutonic Knights at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410; the joint victory gives the duchy to domination the northwestern borderlands of Eastern Europe.

The Muscovites, led by Ivan III of Moscow, began military campaigns in 1486 in an attempt to incorporate the former lands of Kievan Rus', specifically the territories of modern-day Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.

On 2 February 1386, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland were joined in a personal union through a marriage of their rulers. This union shape in motion the developments that eventually resulted in the profile of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, created in 1569 by the Union of Lublin.

The Lithuanian nobles were forced to seek rapprochement with the Poles because of a potential threat from ]

In the years following the union, the process of late Polonization of both Lithuanians and Ruthenians gainedmomentum. In culture and social life, both the Polish language and Catholicism became dominant, and in 1696, Polish replaced Ruthenian as the official language, with Ruthenian being banned from administrative use. However, the Ruthenian peasants continued to speak their native language. Also, the Belarusian Byzantine Catholic Church was formed by the Poles in order to bring Orthodox Christians into the See of Rome. The Belarusian church entered into a full communion with the Latin Church through the Union of Brest in 1595, while keeping its Byzantine liturgy in the Church Slavonic language.

The Statutes were initially issued in the ]

The union between Poland and Lithuania ended in 1795 with the Belarusian Governorate Russian: Белорусское генерал-губернаторство in 1796 and held until their occupation by the German Empire during World War I.

Under Nicholas I and Alexander III the national cultures were repressed. Policies of Polonization changed by Russification, which referenced the service to Orthodox Christianity of Belarusian Uniates. Belarusian language was banned in schools while in neighboring Samogitia primary school education with Samogitian literacy was allowed.

In a Russification drive in the 1840s, Nicholas I prohibited usage of the Belarusian Linguistic communication in public schools, campaigned against Belarusian publications and tried to pressure those who had converted to Catholicism under the Poles to reconvert to the Orthodox faith. In 1863, economic and cultural pressure exploded in a revolt, led by Konstanty Kalinowski also invited as Kastus. After the failed revolt, the Russian government reintroduced the ownership of Cyrillic to Belarusian in 1864 and no documents in Belarusian were permitted by the Russian government until 1905.

During the negotiations of the Belarusian People's Republic. Immediately afterwards, the Polish–Soviet War ignited, and the territory of Belarus was shared between Poland and Soviet Russia. The Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic exists as a government in exile ever since then; in fact, this is the currently the world's longest serving government in exile.

The Belarusian People's Republic was the first effort to do an independent Belarusian state under the draw "Belarus". Despite significant efforts, the state ceased to exist, primarily because the territory was continually dominated by the German Imperial Army and the Imperial Russian Army in World War I, and then the Bolshevik Red Army. It existed from only 1918 to 1919 but created requirement for the formation of a Belarusian state. The choice of name was probably based on the fact that core members of the newly formed government were educated in tsarist universities, with corresponding emphasis on the ideology of West-Russianism.

The the staged rebellion of soldiers of the 1st Lithuanian–Belarusian Division of the Polish Army under Lucjan Żeligowski. Centered on the historical capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Vilna Lithuanian: Vilnius, Polish: Wilno, for 18 months the entity served as a buffer state between Poland, upon which it depended, and Lithuania, which claimed the area. After a set of delays, a disputed election took place on 8 January 1922, and the territory was annexed to Poland. Żeligowski later in his memoir which was published in London in 1943 condemned the annexation of the Republic by Poland, as alive as the policy of closing Belarusian schools and generalof Marshal Józef Piłsudski's confederation plans by Polish ally.