Early history From 5000 to 2000 BC, the
Bandkeramik predominated in what now constitutes Belarus, and the
Cimmerians as well 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, remains 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 gradual assimilation into Slavic culture was peaceful. Invaders from
Asia, among whom were the
Huns and
Avars, swept through c. 400–600 AD, but were unable to dislodge the Slavic presence.
Kievan Rus' in Eastern Europe before the Mongol and Lithuanian invasions In the 9th century, the territory of modern Belarus became part of
Kievan Rus', a vast East Slavic state ruled by the
Rurikids. Upon the death of its ruler
Yaroslav the Wise in 1054, the state split into independent 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 principalities were virtually 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 sources of military seizure, but the annals affirm the alliance and united foreign policy of
Polotsk and Lithuania for decades. 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 allowed the duchy to control the northwestern borderlands of
Eastern Europe. The
Muscovites, led by
Ivan III of Russia, began military campaigns in 1486 in an attempt to incorporate the former lands of
Kievan Rus', including the territories of modern-day Belarus and Ukraine.
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the 15th century prior to its union with the
Kingdom of Poland. Belarus was fully within its borders. 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 set in motion the developments that eventually resulted in the formation of the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, created in 1569 by the
Union of Lublin. In the years following the union, the process of gradual
Polonization of both Lithuanians and Ruthenians gained steady momentum. 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 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.
Russian Empire and crossing the
Berezina river (near
Barysaw, Belarus) The union between Poland and Lithuania ended in 1795 with the
Third Partition of Poland by Imperial Russia,
Prussia, and
Austria. The Belarusian territories acquired by the Russian Empire under the reign of
Catherine II were included into the
Belarusian Governorate () 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 with policies of
Polonization replaced by
Russification which included the return to
Orthodox Christianity of Belarusian
Uniates. Belarusian language was banned in schools while in nearby
Samogitia primary school education with
Samogitian literacy was allowed. In a
Russification drive in the 1840s,
Nicholas I prohibited the use of the Belarusian language 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 known as Kastus). After the failed revolt, the Russian government reintroduced the use of
Cyrillic to Belarusian in 1864 and no documents in Belarusian were permitted by the Russian government until 1905. During the negotiations of the
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Belarus first declared independence under German occupation on 25 March 1918, forming the
Belarusian People's Republic. Immediately afterwards, the
Polish–Soviet War ignited, and the territory of Belarus was divided between Poland and Soviet Russia. The Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic exists as a
government in exile ever since then; in fact, it is currently the world's longest serving government in exile.
Early states and interwar period ,
Jan Sierada,
Jazep Varonka,
Vasil Zacharka.Standing, left to right:
Arkadź Smolič,
Pyotra Krecheuski,
Kastuś Jezavitaŭ, Anton Ausianik, Liavon Zayats. The
Belarusian People's Republic was the first attempt to create an independent Belarusian state under the name "Belarus". Despite significant efforts, the state ceased to exist, primarily because the territory was continually dominated by the
Imperial German 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 prerequisites 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
Republic of Central Lithuania was a short-lived political entity, which was the last attempt to restore Lithuania to the historical confederacy state (it was also supposed to create Lithuania Upper and Lithuania Lower). The republic was created in 1920 following
the staged rebellion of soldiers of the
1st Lithuanian–Belarusian Division of the
Polish Army under
Lucjan Żeligowski. Centred on the historical capital of the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania,
Vilna (, ), for 18 months the entity served as a
buffer state between
Poland, upon which it depended, and Lithuania, which claimed the area. After a variety 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 well as the policy of closing Belarusian schools and general disregard of Marshal
Józef Piłsudski's confederation plans by Polish ally. woods, 1989, where between 1937 and 1941 from 30,000 to 250,000 people, including Belarusian
intelligentsia members, were
murdered by the
NKVD during the
Great Purge In January 1919, a part of Belarus under Bolshevik Russian control was declared the
Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia (SSRB) for just two months, but then merged with the
Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (LSSR) to form the
Socialist Soviet Republic of Lithuania and Belorussia (SSR LiB), which lost control of its territories by August. The
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) was created in July 1920. The contested lands were divided between Poland and the
Soviet Union after the war ended in 1921, and the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in 1922. In the 1920s and 1930s, Soviet agricultural and economic policies, including
collectivisation and
five-year plans for the national economy, led to famine and political repression. The
western part of modern Belarus remained part of the
Second Polish Republic. After an early period of liberalisation, tensions between increasingly nationalistic Polish government and various increasingly separatist ethnic minorities started to grow, and the
Belarusian minority was no exception. The
polonisation drive was inspired and influenced by the Polish
National Democracy, led by
Roman Dmowski, who advocated refusing Belarusians and Ukrainians the right for a free national development. A Belarusian organisation, the ''
Belarusian Peasants' and Workers' Union'', was banned in 1927, and opposition to Polish government was met with state repressions. Belarusian leadership was sent to
Bereza Kartuska prison.
World War II , August 1941 Memorial; during World War II the German Nazis murdered civilians in 5,295 different localities in
occupied Soviet Belarus. In September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded and occupied eastern Poland, following the German
invasion of Poland two weeks earlier which marked the beginning of
World War II. The territories of
Western Belorussia were
annexed and incorporated into the Byelorussian SSR. The Soviet-controlled Byelorussian People's Council officially took control of the territories, whose populations consisted of a mixture of Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians and Jews, on 1939 in
Białystok. Nazi Germany
invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. The
defence of
Brest Fortress was the first major battle of
Operation Barbarossa. The Byelorussian SSR was the hardest-hit Soviet republic in World War II; it remained under
German occupation until 1944. The German called for the extermination, expulsion, or enslavement of most or all Belarusians to provide more
living space in the
East for Germans. Most of Western Belarus became part of the
Reichskommissariat Ostland in 1941, but in 1943 the German authorities allowed local
collaborators to set up a client state, the
Belarusian Central Council. During World War II, Belarus was home to a variety of
guerrilla movements, including Jewish, Polish, and Soviet partisans. Belarusian partisan formations formed a large part of the
Soviet partisans, and in the modern day these partisans have formed a core part of the Belarusian national identity, with Belarus continuing to refer to itself as the "partisan republic" since the 1970s. Following the war, many former Soviet partisans entered positions of government, among them
Pyotr Masherov and
Kirill Mazurov, both of whom were First Secretary of the Communist Party of Byelorussia. Until the late 1970s, the Belarusian government was almost entirely composed of former partisans. Numerous pieces of media have been made about the Belarusian partisans, including the 1985 film
Come and See and the works of authors
Ales Adamovich and
Vasil Bykaŭ. The German occupation in 1941–1944 and war on the
Eastern Front devastated Belarus. During that time, 209 out of 290 towns and cities were destroyed, 85% of the republic's industry, and more than one million buildings. After the war, it was estimated that 2.2 million local inhabitants had died, and of those some 810,000 were combatants—some foreign. This figure represented
a staggering quarter of the prewar population. In the 1990s some raised the estimate even higher, to 2.7 million. The
Jewish population of Belarus was devastated during
the Holocaust and never recovered. The population of Belarus did not regain its pre-war level until 1971. In 1986, the Byelorussian SSR was contaminated with most (70%) of the
nuclear fallout from the explosion at the
Chernobyl power plant located 16 km beyond the border in the neighbouring
Ukrainian SSR. By the late 1980s, political liberalisation led to a national revival, with the
Belarusian Popular Front becoming a major pro-independence force.
Independence ,
dissolving the Soviet Union, 8 December 1991. In March 1990,
elections for seats in the
Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian SSR took place. Though the opposition candidates, mostly associated with the pro-independence
Belarusian Popular Front, took only 10% of the seats, Belarus declared itself sovereign on 27 July 1990 by issuing the
Declaration of State Sovereignty of the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic.
Wide-scale strikes erupted in April 1991. With the support of the
Communist Party of Byelorussia, the country's name was changed to the Republic of Belarus on 25 August 1991.
Lukashenko era A national constitution was adopted in March 1994 in which the functions of prime minister were given to the
President of Belarus. A two-round
election for the presidency on 24 June 1994 and 10 July 1994 The 2000s saw some economic disputes between Belarus and its primary economic partner, Russia. The first one was the
2004 Russia–Belarus energy dispute when Russian energy giant
Gazprom ceased the import of gas into Belarus because of price disagreements. The
2007 Russia–Belarus energy dispute centred on accusations by Gazprom that Belarus was siphoning oil from the
Druzhba pipeline that runs through Belarus. Two years later the so-called
Milk War, a trade dispute, started when Russia wanted Belarus to recognise the independence of
Abkhazia and
South Ossetia and through a series of events ended up banning the import of dairy products from Belarus. In 2011, Belarus suffered
a severe economic crisis attributed to Lukashenko's government's centralised control of the economy, with inflation reaching 108.7%. Around the same time the
2011 Minsk Metro bombing occurred in which 15 people were killed and 204 were injured. Two suspects, who were arrested within two days, confessed to being the perpetrators and were executed by shooting in 2012. The official version of events as publicised by the Belarusian government was questioned in the unprecedented wording of the
UN Security Council statement condemning "the apparent terrorist attack" intimating the possibility that the Belarusian government itself was behind the bombing. has ruled Belarus since 1994.
Mass protests erupted across the country following the disputed
2020 Belarusian presidential election, in which Lukashenko sought a sixth term in office. Neighbouring countries Poland and Lithuania do not recognise Lukashenko as the legitimate president of Belarus and the Lithuanian government has allotted a residence for main opposition candidate
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya and other members of the Belarusian opposition in
Vilnius. Neither is Lukashenko recognised as the legitimate president of Belarus by the European Union, Canada, the United Kingdom or the United States. The European Union, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States have all imposed sanctions against Belarus because of the rigged election and political oppression during the ongoing protests in the country.
Further sanctions were imposed in 2022 following the
country's role and complicity in the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine; Russian troops were allowed to stage part of the invasion from Belarusian territory. Sanctions were targeted towards not only corporate offices and individual officers of government, but also private individuals who work in the
state-owned enterprise industrial sector.
Norway and
Japan have joined the sanctions regime which aims to isolate Belarus from the international supply chain. Most major Belarusian banks are also under restrictions. ==Geography==