Belarus: An Independent Country?

Belarus (, ) is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered by Russia to the north and east, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the north. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno (Hrodna), Gomel (Homiel), Mahilyow (Mahilo?) and Vitebsk (Viciebsk). Forty percent of the country is forested,

and its strongest economic sectors are agriculture and manufacturing.

Until the 20th century, the Belarusians lacked the opportunity to create a distinctive national identity because for centuries the lands of modern-day Belarus belonged to several ethnically different countries, including the Duchy of Polatsk, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. After the short-lived Belarusian People's Republic (1918?19), Belarus became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Byelorussian SSR.

The final unification of Belarusian lands within its modern borders took place in 1939, when the ethnically Belarusian-Russian lands held by the Second Polish Republic (interwar Poland) were annexed into the USSR under the terms of the Nazi-Soviet pact,Europa Publications Limited, "Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, Volume 4", Routledge, 1999, pg. 182, [http://books.google.com/books?id=qmN95fFocsMC&pg=PA182&dq=Belarus+annexed+by+Soviet+Union#v=onepage&q=Belarus%20annexed%20by%20Soviet%20Union&f=false] and attached to Soviet Belarus. The territory and its nation were devastated in World War II, during which Belarus lost about a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources; the republic was redeveloped in the post-war years. The parliament of the republic declared the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990, and following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Belarus declared independence on 25 August 1991. Alexander Lukashenko has been the country's president since 1994. During his presidency, Lukashenko has implemented Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of the economy, despite objections from Western governments. Since 2000, Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, with some hints of forming a Union State.

Most of Belarus' population of 9.85 million reside in the urban areas surrounding Minsk and other oblast (regional) capitals. More than 80% of the population are native Belarusians, with sizable minorities of Russians, Poles and Ukrainians. Since a referendum in 1995, the country has had two official languages: Belarusian and Russian. The Constitution of Belarus does not declare an official religion, although the primary religion in the country is Russian Orthodox Christianity. The second most popular, Roman Catholicism, has a much smaller following by comparison, but both Orthodox and Catholic Christmas and Easter are officially respected as national holidays.

Minsk (, ; , ) is the capital and largest city in Belarus, situated on the Svislach and Niamiha rivers. Minsk is also a headquarters of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). As the national capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is also the administrative centre of Minsk voblast (province) and Minsk raion (district). It has a population of 1,830,000 inhabitants (2008). An urban area that includes about thirty satellite cities (e.g. Krupki) holds 3,000,000.

The earliest references to Minsk date to the 11th century (1067), when it was a provincial city within the principality of Polotsk. In 1242, Minsk became a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and it received its town privileges in 1499. From 1569, it was a capital of the Minsk Voivodship in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was annexed by Russia in 1793, as a consequence of the Second Partition of Poland. From 1919-1991, Minsk was the capital of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.

This article describes the history of Belarus. The Belarusian ethnos is traced at least as far in time as other East Slavs.

After an initial period of independent feudal consolidation, Belarusian lands were incorporated into the Kingdom of Lithuania, Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and later in the Polish?Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire and eventually the Soviet Union. Belarus became an independent country in 1991 after declaring itself free from the Soviet Union.

Category: File - :Bo-map.png|right|

Category: File - :Belarus 1997 CIA map.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Detailed map of Belarus

Category: File - :Satellite image of Belarus in December 2002.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Satellite image of Belarus in December 2002.

Belarus, a landlocked, generally flat country (the average elevation is 162 meters above sea level) without natural borders, occupies an area of 207,600 square kilometers, or slightly smaller than the United Kingdom or the state of Kansas. Its neighbors are Russia to the east and northeast, Latvia to the north, Lithuania to the northwest, Poland to the west, and Ukraine to the south.

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Recently, the Belarusian economy has shifted into sustained high gear, along with Ukraine, Russia, and many other Commonwealth of Independent States economies. The economic boom provided by mineral wealth of Russia and other CIS nations and its key location as a transit route between the EU and Russia have enabled it to sustain this impressive growth, albeit from a low base level. Following 9.9% growth in 2006 MENAFN - Middle East North Africa . Financial Network News: Oman, Belarus exploring business avenues in the first quarter 2007, the Belarus GDP grew 8.2%%.World Bank - Belarus Country Brief 2008 - Accessed Jan.20, 2009 GDP further grew in 2008 by 10%. AgriMarket.Info - Accessed Jan. 20, 2009.

The politics of Belarus takes place in a framework of a presidential republic, whereby the President of Belarus is the head of state. Executive power is exercised by the government, in its top sits a prime minister, appointed by the President. Legislative power is vested in the bicameral parliament, the National Assembly, however the president may enact decrees that are executed the same way as laws, for undisputed time. Belarus's declaration of independence on 27 July 1990, did not stem from long-held political aspirations but from reactions to domestic and foreign events. Ukraine's declaration of independence, in particular, led the leaders of then Belarusian SSR to realize that the Soviet Union was on the brink of collapsing, which it did.

After the establishment of a Republic on August 25, 1991, Stanislav Shushkevich was selected to be the first Belarusian leader and held this position until 1994. During that time frame, Shushkevich directed his country in a way to become free from its Soviet past and try to look towards the West. His successor, Alexander Lukashenko, changed all of that upon assuming office in 1994 and began to turn his attention away from the West and back towards Russia. And, during his rule, Lukashenko began to re-instate Soviet-era functions and reintroduced the symbols from Soviet Belarus. Lukashenko, who is still in power, has caused increased focus on his country due to his leadership manner, which has been considered authoritarian by some and a dictatorship by others.

==Chronological overview==

Belarusian culture is the product of a millennium of development under the impact of a number of diverse factors. These include the physical environment; the ethnographic background of Belarusians (the merger of Slavic newcomers with Baltic natives); the paganism of the early settlers and their hosts; Byzantine Christianity as a link to the Orthodox religion and its literary tradition; the country's lack of natural borders; the flow of rivers toward both the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea; and the variety of religions in the region (Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Judaism, and Islam).Jan Zaprudnik and Helen Fedor. "Culture." A Country Study: Belarus. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress; Helen Fedor, ed. Research completed June 1995. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.[http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/about.html]

An early Western influence on Belarusian culture was Magdeburg Law?charters that granted municipal self-rule and were based on the laws of German cities. These charters were granted in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by grand dukes and kings to a number of cities, including Brest, Hrodna, Slutsk, and Minsk. The tradition of self-government not only facilitated contacts with Western Europe but also nurtured self-reliance, entrepreneurship, and a sense of civic responsibility.

In 1517-19 Frantsishak Skaryna (ca. 1490-1552) translated the Bible into the vernacular (Old Belorussian). Under the communist regime, Skaryna's work was vastly undervalued, but in independent Belarus he became an inspiration for the emerging national consciousness as much for his advocacy of the Belorussian language as for his humanistic ideas.

From the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries, when the ideas of humanism, the Renaissance, and the Reformation were alive in Western Europe, these ideas were debated in Belorussia as well because of trade relations there and because of the enrollment of noblemen's and burghers' sons in Western universities. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation also contributed greatly to the flourishing of polemical writings as well as to the spread of printing houses and schools.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when Poland and Russia were making deep political and cultural inroads in Belorussia by assimilating the nobility into their respective cultures, the rulers succeeded in associating "Belorussian" culture primarily with peasant ways, folklore, ethnic dress, and ethnic customs, with an overlay of Christianity. This was the point of departure for some national activists who attempted to attain statehood for their nation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

The development of Belorussian literature, spreading the idea of nationhood for the Belorussians, was epitomized by the literary works of Yanka Kupala (1882-1942) and Yakub Kolas (1882- 1956). The works of these poets, along with several other outstanding writers, became the classics of modern Belorussian literature by writing widely on rural themes (the countryside was where the writers heard the Belorussian language) and by modernizing the Belorussian literary language, which had been little used since the sixteenth century. Postindependence authors in the 1990s continued to use rural themes widely.

Unlike literature's focus on rural life, other fields of culture?painting, sculpture, music, film, and theater?centered on urban reality, universal concerns, and universal values.