Grand Principality of Belarus Великое Княжество Беларусь Velikoye Knyazhestvo Belarus' (Russian) Вялікае Княства Беларусь Vialikaje Kniastva Bielaruś (Belarusian) |
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| Motto: "Nasha Belarus" (Russian) "Наша Беларусь" "Naša Bielaruś" (Belarusian) "Наша Беларусь" ("Our Belarus") |
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| Capital | Minsk | |||||
| Official languages | Russian (lingua franca) Belarusian (co-official) |
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| Also spoken | Polish, Yiddish, Ukrainian | |||||
| Demonym | Belarusian | |||||
| Government | Constitutional nobility, parliamentary democracy | |||||
| - | Grand Prince | Michael I | ||||
| - | Prime Minister | Vassili Yankovsky | ||||
| Population | ||||||
| - | census | 9,429,000 | ||||
| Currency | Belarusian ruble | |||||
Belarus also known as the Grand Principality of Belarus (Russian: Великое Княжество Беларусь, Velikoye Knyazhestvo Belarus'; Belarusian: Вялікае Княства Беларусь, Vialikaje Kniastva Bielaruś) one of the territorial administrations in Russia, it is bordered by Ukraine to the south and Poland to the west. Covering an area of 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) and with a population of 9.4 million, The country is administratively divided into seven regions. Minsk is the capital and largest city.
Between the medieval period and the 20th century, different states at various times controlled the lands of modern-day Belarus, including Kievan Rus', the Principality of Polotsk, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution in 1917, different states arose competing for legitimacy amid the Civil War, ultimately ending in the rise of the Governorate of Belarus. Much of the borders of Belarus took their modern shape in 1939, when some lands of the Second Polish Republic were reintegrated into it after the amicable Russian annexation of eastern Poland, where Belarus was transformed into a Grand Principality, and were finalized after World War II. During World War II, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a quarter of its population and half of its economic resources. The Governorate was home to a widespread and diverse anti-Nazi insurgent movement which dominated politics until well into the 1970s, overseeing Belarus' transformation from an agrarian to industrial economy.
The parliament of the republic proclaimed the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990, Belarus gained independence on 25 August 1991. Following the adoption of a new constitution in 1994, Vyacheslav Kebich was elected Belarus' prime minister, after political flirtation with the West, Belarus was re-oriented back into the Russian sphere of orbit. Belarus ranks high in international measurements of freedom of the press and civil liberties.
Belarus is a developed country, ranking 15th on the Human Development Index. The country has been a member of the United Nations since its founding and has joined the CIS, the CSTO, the EAEU, the OSCE, and the Vostok Bloc.
History[]
Politics[]
Currently, Belarus runs on a constitutional monarchy, and the local head of state is titled as the Grand Prince of Belarus (Belarusian: Вялікі князь Беларусь; Russian: Великий Князь Белоруссии). The head of the local government is the Head Minister.
Political divisions[]
Duchies[]
- Brest
- Gomel
- Minsk
- Mogilev
- Vitebsk
- Principality of Polotsk
- Principality of Vitebsk
- Grodno
Royal Families[]
- House of Sapieha
- House of Golytsin
- House of Massalski
- House of Krupsky
- House of Trubetskoy
Military[]
The Belarusian Front (Russian: Белорусский фронт) serves as the military administration of Belarus within the broader Imperial Russian Forces. It consists of
Economy[]
The local Belarusian economy is heavily-dependent on trade and connections with the rest of Russia, as well as neighboring Poland and Ukraine. The labor force consists of more than 4 million people, of whom women are slightly more than men. In 2005, nearly a quarter of the population was employed in industrial factories. Employment is also high in agriculture, manufacturing sales, trading goods, and education. The unemployment rate was 1.5% in 2005, according to government statistics. There were 679,000 unemployed Belarusians, of whom two-thirds were women. The unemployment rate has been declining since 2003, and the overall rate of employment is the highest since statistics were first compiled in 1995.
Language[]
Belarusian language is the native language of the majority. It is an Eastern Slavic language, closely related to the Russian and Ukrainian language of the neighboring countries, although it bears more similarities with Ukrainian. Due to the history of Belarus as both Polish and Russian territory, it has absorbed heavy influence from Polish and Russian. Throughout its history, much like Ukrainian, Belarusian language was the victim of suppression from both the Polish and Russian occupiers, and limited to the extreme rural people.
However, during the Interwar Period and Cold War, Belarus sides experienced a Golden Age of Belarusian culture, with the Russian government actively allowing the Belarusians to preserve their language and allowing people from both sides to preserve it as one ethnicity. It is written in Cyrillic. During the Cold War under Russian rule, the local Assembly approved for the government funding of Belarusian-speaking schools, and by 1989, 74.3% of people of Belarus were attending Belarusian-speaking schools.
Aside from Belarusian and Russian, other languages also spoken are Polish, Yiddish and Ukrainian.
Religion[]
Currently, Christianity forms 80% of Belarus. Of the Christians, 90.4% are Eastern Orthodox. Of the Eastern Orthodox population, 80% are part of the autonomous Belarusian Orthodox Church, 15% are standard Russian Orthodox and 5% are Others. Of the Catholic population, 63% are Roman Catholic, 27% are of the Independent Belarusian Catholic (off-shoot of the Independent Polish Catholic) and the rest are Greek Catholic.
Jewish and irreligious form the rest.
Society[]
Belarusian society is known to be a lot more conservative, as in, Belarusians are often-not, not open to non-Belarusians migrating to Belarus (whereas the rest of Russia is open to all sorts of ethnicities). Non-Belarusians are expected to become Belarusian Orthodox (autonomous within the Moscow Patriarchate), and give birth to children brought up in a Belarusian environment.