Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus and formerly known as Byelorussia or Belorussia, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital and most populous city is Minsk. Over 40% of its 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) is forested. Its major economic sectors are service industries and manufacturing. Until 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.
The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, also commonly referred to in English as Byelorussia, was a federal unit of the Soviet Union (USSR). It existed between 1920 and 1922, and from 1922 to 1991 as one of fifteen constituent republics of the USSR, with its own legislation from 1990 to 1991. The republic was ruled by the Communist Party of Byelorussia and was also referred to as Soviet Byelorussia by a number of historians.
The Lithuanian–Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic or Litbel (Lit-Bel) was a Soviet socialist republic that existed within the territories of modern Belarus and eastern Lithuania for approximately five months during 1919. It was created after the merger of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia. The republic was dissolved after the Polish Army took over its claimed territory of eastern Lithuania during the Polish–Soviet War.
Pyotr Mironovich Masherov was the first secretary of Belarusian committee of the Communist Party of Soviet Union and a communist leader of Soviet Belarus.
Kirill Trofimovich Mazurov was a Belarusian Soviet politician.
Belastok Voblast or Belostok Oblast was a short-lived territorial unit in the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) during World War II from September 1939 until Operation Barbarossa of 22 June 1941 and again for a short period in 1944. The administrative center of the newly created voblast was the Polish: Białystok renamed Belastok.
Panteleimon Kondratyevich Ponomarenko was one of the leaders of Soviet partisan resistance in Belarus. He also served as an administrator at various positions within the Soviet government, including the leadership positions in Byelorussian and Kazakh SSRs.
Tikhon Yakovlevich Kiselyov was a Belarusian statesman in the Soviet Union, the leader of the Communist Party of Byelorussia, i.e., the de facto leader of the Byelorussian SSR (1980-1983).
The Holocaust in Byelorussia is the term that refers to the systematic discrimination and extermination of Jews living in the former Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic which was occupied by Nazi Germany after August 1941 during World War II. American historian Lucy Dawidowicz, author of The War Against the Jews estimated that 66% of the Jews residing in Byelorussian SSR died in the Holocaust, out of 375,000 Jews in Byelorussia prior to World War II according to Soviet data. By comparison, in the Baltic states about 90% of Jews were killed in the same period.
Pyotr Ustinovich Brovka was a Soviet Belarusian poet, more commonly recognized by his literary pseudonym Petrus Brovka.
Currently, there are 9 administrative divisions of Minsk, called raions (districts):
Vasily (Vasil) Zakharovich Korzh, also known under the Soviet partisan nom de guerre"Komarov", was a Belarusian communist activist and Soviet World War II hero.
Vilgelm Georgiyevich Knorin was a Latvian Bolshevik revolutionary, Soviet politician and publicist.
Anatoly Alexandrovich Malofeyev is a former first secretary of the communist party of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic during the Soviet Union era and Belarusian parliament speaker. In March 1985, Malofeyev became the Minsk regional Communist Party leader upon the removal of Vladimir A. Mikulich. He served as First Secretary of the Byelorussian Communist Party from November 1990 to August 1991.
Mikhail Vladimirovich Myasnikovich is a Belarusian politician who was Prime Minister of Belarus from 2010 to 2014. He has been the Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission since 2020.
Nadezhda Grigoryevna Grekova, was a Soviet Belarusian politician. She was Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Belorussian SSR 1938–1949. Her office as Chairman of the Supreme Soviet nominally made her Head of the Republic. At some point she was known as the "Iron Lady".
Independence Square is a square in Minsk, Belarus. It is one of the landmarks on Independence Avenue. The National Assembly of Belarus and Minsk City Hall are on this square. During the period of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic it was called Lenin Square. It is currently one of the biggest squares in Europe.
Iosif Alexandrovich Adamovich was a Belarusian communist politician. He was born in 1897 in Barysaw, in the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire, in a working-class family of Belarusian ethnicity. He served as a Prime Minister of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1924 to 1927. In 1916, he was a member of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, where he was organised the Belarusian Bolshevik. He was born in Babruysk and moved to Tbilisi in Georgia.
Aleksey Yefimovich Kleshchev was a Belarusian general and politician. He served as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic from 17 March 1948 to 24 July 1953. Kleschchov led partisans in Pinsk as a major general during World War II, for which he was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. He was a member of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan from 1955 until 1960. He was deputy member of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. From 1927 to 1929, he served in the Red Army. He was born in Minsk Governorate and died in Moscow on 13 December 1968, aged 63. He was decorated as the Order of the Red Banner.
The Gomel Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus, commonly referred to as the Gomel CPB Obkom, was the highest authority in the Gomel Region of the Byelorussian SSR in the Soviet Union. The position was created on January 15, 1938, and abolished on 25 August 1991. The First Secretary was considered the de facto governor of the Minsk region. The First Secretary was appointed by the Politburo.
