Portal:Belarus

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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.

For most of the medieval period, the lands of modern-day Belarus were ruled by independent city-states such as the Principality of Polotsk. Around 1300 these lands came fully under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and subsequently by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth; this period lasted for 500 years until the 1792–1795 partitions of Poland-Lithuania placed Belarus within the Russian Empire for the first time. 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 finalised 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, along with 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 centralised 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...)

Selected article

A pamphlet version of the Constitution distributed to citizens by the government. The document's name is given in Belarusian, followed by Russian.

The Constitution of the Republic of Belarus (Belarusian: Канстытуцыя Рэспублікі Беларусь, romanized: Kanstytucyja Respubliki Bielaruś; Russian: Конституция Республики Беларусь, romanized: Konstitutsiya Respubliki Belarus') is the supreme basic law of Belarus. The Constitution is composed of a preamble and nine sections divided into 148 articles.

Adopted in 1994, three years after the country declared its independence from the Soviet Union, this formal document establishes the framework of the Belarusian state and government and enumerates the rights and freedoms of its citizens. However, the United Nations and various observers challenge that the rule of law is respected or that the judiciary is independent in Belarus, highlighting the consolidation of power by the current president. (Full article...)

Selected biography

Valery Vilyamovich Tsepkalo or Valery Vilyamavich Tsepkala (Russian: Валерий Вильямович Цепкало; Belarusian: Валерый Вільямавіч Цэпкала; born 22 February 1965) is a Belarusian politician and entrepreneur. After graduating from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations with a doctoral degree in international law and serving in the embassy of the Soviet Union in Finland, Tsepkalo joined the staff of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He later became an advisor on foreign political and economic relations to the Chairman of the Belarusian Parliament, Stanislav Shushkevich, and then a senior advisor to the Secretary General of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

He led Alexander Lukashenko's presidential campaign in the 1994 election and later took the post of First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. From 1997 to 2002, Tsepkalo was the Belarusian Ambassador to the United States and Mexico. In 2005–2006 he was Presidential Plenipotentiary Envoy in the Parliament. In 2005 he established the Belarus High Technologies Park (HTP), and led it until 2017. (Full article...)

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Did you know (auto-generated)

  • ... that gay rights activist Sergey Androsenko sued the Belarusian government over his arrest and beating at the 2010 Minsk Pride?
  • ... 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"?
  • ... 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 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?

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More Did you know

  • ...that only eleven people have been decorated Hero of Belarus, the highest title that can be bestowed on a citizen of Belarus?

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Sources

  1. ↑ Harshav, Benjamin. Marc Chagall and his times: a documentary narrative. Contraversions: Jews and Other Differences. Stanford University Press; 1 edition. August 2003. ISBN 0804742146.
  2. ↑ 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.
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