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Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus spans an area of 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) with a population of 9.1 million. The country has a hemiboreal climate and is administratively divided into six regions. Minsk is the capital and largest city; it is administered separately as a city with special status.
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 Byelorussian SSR, which became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922. After the Polish-Soviet War (1918–1921), Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland. 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 Soviet invasion of Poland, 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. In 1945, the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations and the Soviet Union. The republic was home to a widespread and diverse anti-Nazi insurgent movement which dominated politics until well into the 1970s, overseeing Belarus's transformation from an agrarian to an industrial economy.
The parliament of the republic proclaimed the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990, and during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Belarus gained independence on 25 August 1991. Following the adoption of a new constitution in 1994, Alexander Lukashenko was elected Belarus's first president in the country's first and only free election after independence, serving as president ever since. Lukashenko heads a highly centralized authoritarian government. Belarus ranks low in international measurements of freedom of the press and civil liberties. It has continued several Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of large sections of the economy. In 2000, Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, forming the Union State. (Full article...)
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Western Belorussia or Western Belarus (Belarusian: Заходняя Беларусь, romanized: Zachodniaja Biełaruś; Polish: Zachodnia Białoruś; Russian: Западная Белоруссия, romanized: Zapadnaya Belorussiya) is a historical region of modern-day Belarus which belonged to the Second Polish Republic during the interwar period. For twenty years before the 1939 invasion of Poland, it was the northern part of the Polish Kresy macroregion. Following the end of World War II in Europe, most of Western Belorussia was ceded to the Soviet Union by the Allies, while some of it, including Białystok, was given to the Polish People's Republic. Until the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Western Belorussia formed the western part of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). Today, it constitutes the west of modern Belarus.
Created by the USSR after the conquest of Poland, the new western provinces of Byelorussian SSR acquired from Poland included Baranavichy, Belastok, Brest, Vileyka and the Pinsk Regions. The majority of Belastok Region was returned to Poland and the rest of the regions were reorganized one more time after the Soviet liberation of Belarus into the contemporary western provinces of Belarus which include all of Grodno and Brest regions, as well as parts of today's Minsk and Vitebsk regions. Vilnius was returned by the USSR to the Republic of Lithuania which soon after that became the Lithuanian SSR. (Full article...)
Selected biography

Mitrofan Viktorovich Dovnar-Zapol'skiy (Belarusian: Мітрафан Віктаравіч Доўнар-Запольскі, Russian: Митрофан Викторович Довнар-Запольский; 14 June [O.S. 2 June] 1867, Rechytsa, Minsk Governorate – 30 September 1934, Moscow) was a historian, ethnographer, and diplomat of Belarusian origin. He hailed from the family of land-less smaller nobility and was the son of Collegiate Secretary.
He was the author of more than 150 works on the history of Kievan Rus', Muscovy, 19th-century Russia, Lithuania and Belarus, on the social-political movement, peasants' question and the ethnography of Belarus. Notably, the majority of his works were of a scientific-analytical nature. He extensively sourced his works on the materials from more than 20 archives in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Kyiv, Vilna, Warsaw, Kraków, Lviv, Kostroma, Yaroslavl, Novgorod, Nyasvizh etc. Many of his works remain unpublished. He was awarded the Order of Saint Vladimir 4th grade (April 1916) for his scientific work. (Full article...)
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Did you know (auto-generated)

- ... that the Russian and Belarussian military exercise Zapad 2009 involved nuclear-capable ballistic missiles?
- ... that there are more than 9,000 swamps in Belarus?
- ... that Rufina Bazlova has used traditional embroidery to depict protests in Belarus?
- ... that Obliskomzap People's Commissar for Public Charity V. L. Mukha resigned in protest over the dispersing of the First All-Belarusian Congress?
- ... that the Russian and Belarusian military exercise Zapad 2013 was officially described as counterterrorist, but international observers concluded that it was a preparation for a conventional war?
- ... that German national Rico Krieger was likely forced by the Belarusian KGB to lie in a state-televised plea titled "Confession of a German Terrorist"?
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- ...that Uładzimir Karatkievič was a Belarusian writer whose novels deal predominantly with Belarus's history, including the January Uprising?
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- Zaskarki (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by WeaponizingArchitecture (talk · contribs · new pages (2)) started on 2025-04-19, score: 40
- 2026 Men's Ice Hockey World Championships (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by JSwift49 (talk · contribs · new pages (9)) started on 2025-04-19, score: 20
- List of heads of state by approval rating (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Иованъ (talk · contribs · new pages (17)) started on 2025-04-14, score: 20
- Church of Christ in Poland (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Oliwiasocz (talk · contribs · new pages (43)) started on 2025-04-12, score: 16
- 81st Grodno Rifles Regiment (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Oliwiasocz (talk · contribs · new pages (43)) started on 2025-04-09, score: 40
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- Dina Marciano (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by HuskyBusty (talk · contribs · new pages (2)) started on 2025-04-14, score: 20
- 2026 Women's Ice Hockey World Championships (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by JSwift49 (talk · contribs · new pages (9)) started on 2025-04-13, score: 20
- Ivan Korotchenya (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Ivan Milenin (talk · contribs · new pages (5)) started on 2025-04-13, score: 40
- ORP Generał Sikorski (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Oliwiasocz (talk · contribs · new pages (43)) started on 2025-04-04, score: 26
- Vilner Emes (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Soman (talk · contribs · new pages (20)) started on 2025-04-11, score: 20
- Stavsky (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Altenmann (talk · contribs · new pages (78)) started on 2025-04-11, score: 20
- 156th Rifle Division (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Wreck Smurfy (talk · contribs · new pages (1)) started on 2025-04-10, score: 20
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- Marko Bozinovski Foundation (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Mkdbasket2014 (talk · contribs · new pages (1)) started on 2025-04-08, score: 20
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- Russian landing ship Kaliningrad (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Spokoyni (talk · contribs · new pages (47)) started on 2025-04-07, score: 20
- Israel Miller (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs | tools) by Twixister (talk · contribs · new pages (2)) started on 2025-04-07, score: 20
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Sources
- ^ Kopka, D. (2011). Welcome to Belarus: Passport to Eastern Europe & Russia. Passport Series. Milliken Publishing Company. p. 6. ISBN 978-0-7877-2770-3. Retrieved July 28, 2019.
- ^ Harshav, Benjamin. Marc Chagall and his times: a documentary narrative. Contraversions: Jews and Other Differences. Stanford University Press; 1 edition. August 2003. ISBN 0804742146.