in 1960: Polish ethnic and cultural presence in modern Belarus are an intricate part of its history. The lands of modern Belarus are the birthplace of important Polish historical figures, such as the writer
Mickiewicz or scientist
Domejko among others. The proto-Belarusian language, called Ruthenian or Old Belarusian was protected by law in the
Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and used as the local vernacular, while both Polish and Latin languages were the
lingua franca of the throne. "As the 16th century drew to a close" – wrote Andrew Savchenko about the local nobles, they had to contend with "an increasingly stark choice: to strengthen their ties with Poland or to suffer disastrous military defeat and subjugation" by the
Russian Empire, thus leading to their 'voluntary' "
Polonization". After the
Napoleonic Wars, Russia annexed the territories of the former
Grand Duchy of Lithuania as its North-Western Territory. Throughout the 19th century, a majority of the gentry, which comprised about 10% of the population, continued to identify as culturally Polish. In the
elections of November 1922, a Belarusian party (in the
Blok Mniejszości Narodowych coalition) obtained 14 seats in the Polish
parliament (11 of them in the lower chamber,
Sejm). In 1923, a new regulation was passed allowing for the
Belarusian language to be used officially both in courts and in schools. Obligatory teaching of the Belarusian language was introduced in all Polish
gymnasia in areas inhabited by Belarusians in 1927. Across the border, in the
Belarusian SSR,
Minsk was home to Polish community organizations and a Polish-speaking national theatre of Belarus. In addition, a Polish Autonomous District,
Dzierżyńszczyzna, was proclaimed on Soviet territory. However, in East Belarus the Soviet authorities liquidated most Polish organizations in the early 1930s.
The "Polish operation" of the NKVD In 1937–1938, the Soviet
Byelorussia witnessed the
"Polish Operation" of the NKVD. The state-sanctioned campaign of mass-murder which took place approximately from August 25, 1937 to November 15, 1938, according to archives of the Soviet NKVD, resulted in the killing of 111,091 ethnic Poles (mostly men). Additional 28,744 were sentenced to death-ridden
labor camps; amounting to 139,835 Polish victims across the country (10% of the officially persecuted persons during the entire
Yezhovshchina period, with confirming NKVD documents). About 17% of the total number of victims came from Byelorussia, among them, thousands of peasants, railway workers, industrial labourers, engineers and similar others, resulting in near collapse of its economy. In a typical
Stalinist fashion, the murdered Polish families were accused of "anti-Soviet" activities and state terrorism.
World War II Following the Nazi–Soviet
Invasion of Poland in 1939, the Polish anti-German resistance movement
Armia Krajowa was actively operating on the territory of modern Belarus, although many ethnic Belarusians also actively participated in the movement. Soon after the
Soviet invasion of Poland, Poland was divided between Germany and the Soviet Union in accordance with the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The eastern part was incorporated into the USSR following
staged elections. Part of this area (
West Belarus) was added to the Soviet republic of Belarus. In their attack, the
Red Army overrun 52.1% of territory of
interwar Poland with over 13,700,000 inhabitants. The Soviet occupation zone included also 336,000 new refugees who escaped from Polish lands invaded by Germany, numbering at around 198,000. Spreading terror throughout the region, the
Soviet secret police (NKVD) accompanying the Red Army massacred
Polish prisoners of war, and in less than two years, deported up to 1.5 million ethnic Poles
to Siberia including Poles and Polish Jews from West Belarus. Twenty-one months after the Soviet invasion of Poland, during the German
Operation Barbarossa of June 1941, West Belarus was overrun again by the
Wehrmacht followed closely behind by
Einsatzgruppen and the mass executions of Polish Jews commenced.
1945–1989 In 1945, the
Big Three, Great Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union,
established new borders for Poland. The Polish population was soon
forcibly resettled as part of the Soviet-Polish population exchange. Many inhabitants of Belarus who identified themselves as Poles were allowed to go back to
Poland. In exchange, several thousands of Belarusians from parts of the former
Belastok Region were resettled to
Belarus. The remaining Polish minority in Belarus was significantly discriminated against during the times of the Soviet Union. The Catholic Church faced severe repression, with its institutions shut down, churches closed and turned into warehouses, and priests either killed or imprisoned in
Gulag camps. By the 1980s, only a quarter of parishes remained, and slightly over half of them had a priest. The situation of the Polish minority started to improve only in the later years of the Soviet Union prior to its dissolution, but faced difficulties from the government of
Alexander Lukashenko. ==Current situation==