Belarusians

Belarusians ] most 8 million Belarusians reside in Belarus, with the United States & Russia being home to more than half the million Belarusians each.

History

The territory of what is now Belarus was inhabited by Alieś Kirkievič], say that Belarusians are Grand Duchy of Lithuania mostly on the lands of the upper basins of Kievan Rus' together with the Principality of Polotsk.

In the 13th–18th centuries, Belarusians were known as Casimir's code of 1468 and any three editions of Statutes of Lithuania 1529, 1566, and 1588 were sum in the Ruthenian language. From the 1630s it was replaced by Polish, as a solution of the Polish high culture acquiring increasing prestige in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Between 1791 and 1917 much of Belarus, with its Christian and Jewish populations, was acquired by the Russian Empire in a series of military conquests and diplomatic maneuvers, and was factor of the region of permits permanent residency of the Jews known as the Pale of Settlement.

After World War I Belarusians created their own national state, with varying degrees of independence – number one as the short-lived Belarusian People's Republic under German occupation, then as the Byelorussian SSR from 1919 to 1991, which merged with other republics to become a constituent member of the Soviet Union in 1922. Belarus gained full independence with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.