Belarusian National Republic

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History of Belarus
Early East Slavs
Principality of Polatsk
Kievan Rus'
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
Imperial Russia
Belarusian National Republic
Imperial Russia
Belarusian SSR (LBSSR)
Independent Belarus

The Belarusian People's Republic (Belarusian: Белару́ская Наро́дная Рэспу́бліка, translit. : Belaruskaya Narodnaya Respublika) was an independent Belarusian state, which declared independence in 1918. It is also called the Belarusian National Republic, and the current BNR Rada refers to it as Belarusan Democratic Republic.

Contents 1 History 2 Presidents 3 Research 4 See also 5 External links

[edit] History

The Belarusian People's Republic was pronounced on March 25, 1918 during World War I, when Belarus was occupied by the Germans according to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. In its Third Constituent Charter, the following territories were claimed for BNR: Mogilev guberniya (province), parts of Minsk, Hrodna (including Białystok), Vilnia, Vitebsk, and Smolensk Governorates, as well as parts of bordering governorates. The areas were claimed because of a Belarusian majority according to demographic research, although there were also numbers of Lithuanians, Poles and people speaking pidgins of Belarusian, Lithuanian and Polish, as well as many Jews, mostly in towns and cities (in some towns they made up a majority). Some of the Jews spoke Russian as their native tongue; others spoke Yiddish.

A national flag of three stripes — white-red-white — was adopted, as well as a state seal (Pahonia), which was based on an emblem of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

The BNR did not become a real state: it did not have a constitution, armed forces, definite territoriality, etc. When the Red Army entered Minsk on January 5, 1919^{[citation needed]}, the Rada (Council) of the BNR went into exile. The exiled government still exists.

Similar governments-in-exile of the neighboring countries (Lithuania, Poland and others) handed back their "authorities" to the corresponding actual governments in the 1990s. The BNR council has not done this because the BNR council views the current Belarusian government of the president Alexander Lukashenka's as an anti-Belarusian, anti-independence, and an anti-democratic power.

[edit] Presidents

Chairmans of the Council of BNR:

• Jan Sierada (1918–1919)
• Piotra Krečeŭski (1919–1928)
• Vasil Zacharka (1928–1943)
• Mikoła Abramčyk (1944–1970)
• Vincent Žuk-Hryškievič (1970–1982)
• Jazep Sažyč (1982–1997)
• Ivonka Survilla (1997–present)

[edit] Research

In 1998, a Belarusian linguist and translator Siarhiej Shupa published a two-volume collection of BNR archives (Архівы Беларускай Народнай Рэспублікі. Менск-Вільня-Прага-Нью-Ёрк). The total size of the two volumes is more than 1700 pages. Essentially these are the processed and re-organized documents from the Lithuanian archival fund #582 in Vilnia and they constitute roughly 60% of all the BNR official documents from 1918.

Another 20% of BNR official documentation is located in the Minsk archives, and the fate of the remaining 20% is unknown.

[edit] See also

• Mitteleuropa

[edit] External links

• radabnr.org — Belarusian National Respublic Rada website
• The sorrows of Belarus: A government in exile, a country in a mess, The Economist, 16 November 2006