H. Currency and Banking

The unit of currency is the new Belarusian ruble (26,500 rubles equal U.S.$1; 1997), introduced in August 1994 and equivalent to ten old rubles. It has been the official national currency since January 1995, when circulation of Russian rubles ceased. In April 1994 Belarus and Russia agreed to the eventual merger of their monetary systems, but Russia has delayed the merger because of the high inflation and other economic problems in Belarus. In early 1998 the Belarusian ruble plunged in value, partly because of the government printing money to lend inefficient state enterprises. The central bank is the National Bank of Belarus in Minsk.

VI

GOVERNMENT

Belarus adopted its first post-Soviet constitution in 1994. Under the constitution, a popularly elected president replaced the chairperson of the unicameral (single-chamber) legislature, called the Supreme Soviet, as head of state. The president had the power to dismiss the prime minister and members of the Council of Ministers but not to dissolve the legislature or other elected governing bodies. President Alyaksandr Lukashenka, who was elected in the first presidential election of 1994, called a referendum in 1996 on a proposal to broaden his presidential authority (including the power to dissolve the legislature), extend his term from five to seven years, and create a bicameral (two-chamber) legislature. According to official tallies, more than 70 percent of voters approved the proposed changes. Despite widespread allegations of vote fraud, Lukashenka immediately dissolved the opposition-led Supreme Soviet and created a new legislature composed of his supporters. He also signed the changes into law as constitutional amendments. All citizens have the right to vote from the age of 18.

A

Executive

Under the constitution a president is the head of state of Belarus. The president appoints the prime minister, who is the head of government, with the approval of the lower house of the legislature, the House of Representatives. The president also appoints and dismisses the ministers who make up the government. Presidential appointments also largely determine the members of the judiciary and the Central Electoral Commission. Amendments to the constitution in 1996 invested the president with the power to dissolve the legislature. In 2004 a constitutional amendment abolished a provision limiting the president to two consecutive terms in office.

B

Legislature

Under the 1994 constitution, Belarus was to have a unicameral legislature (Supreme Soviet) of 260 members elected by universal adult suffrage for a term of five years. Under the constitutional amendments of 1996, the Supreme Soviet was replaced by a bicameral National Assembly, consisting of the House of Representatives (lower house) and the Council of the Republic (upper house). The 110 members of the House of Representatives are directly elected by the people. The Council of the Republic is made up of 64 members; 56 are chosen by regional councils and 8 are appointed by the president. The term of office for members of both houses is four years.

C

Judiciary

The judicial system of Belarus consists of three high courts: the Supreme Court, the Economic Court, and the Constitutional Court. The latter court is charged with protecting the constitution, and its decisions are not subject to appeal. It has the power to review the constitutionality of presidential edicts and the regulatory decisions of the other two high courts. As amended in 1996, the constitution allows the president to appoint 6 of the 12 members of the Constitutional Court, including its chairperson; the Council of the Republic appoints the remaining members. The president also appoints judges to all other courts of the republic, including the Supreme Court and Economic Court.

D

Local Government

Belarus is divided administratively into six oblasts, which have the same names as their largest cities. The Minsk, Hrodna, Homyel’, Mahilyow, Vitebsk, and Brest oblasts are each divided into smaller administrative districts, called rayony. The oblasts have their own councils for the administration of regional affairs. In addition, the president has appointed a plenipotentiary, or diplomatic agent, in each oblast to report local affairs to the executive.

E

Political Parties

The political opposition has little voice in Belarus. Parties supporting President Lukashenka dominate government and the legislature. Opposition parties have had little success in elections, which have drawn international criticism for failing to meet the standards of a democracy. Pro-government parties include the Agrarian Party, the Communist Party of Belarus, the Belarusian Patriotic Party, and the Liberal Democratic Party of Belarus. Opposition parties include the BPF-Revival (formerly the Belarusian Popular Front, founded as a pro-reform movement in 1988), the Belarusian Social Democratic Party (National Assembly), the Belarusian Social Democratic Assembly, the United Civic Party, and the Party of Communists of Belarus.

F

Social Services

Health care in Belarus is state operated and free of charge. Hospitals are generally undersupplied by Western standards, and pharmaceuticals are scarce. Higher-quality medical facilities can be found in hospitals and clinics under city jurisdiction. The Chernobyl’ disaster’s impact on the health of the population has severely strained the country’s limited health-care system.

G

Defense

Military service is compulsory for all males for 18 months beginning at the age of 18. In 2004 the army was composed of 29,600 troops and the air force had 18,170 troops. There is no navy. In addition to the regular army, Belarus maintains a border guard with about 8,000 members.

Belarus inherited more than 500 strategic and tactical nuclear warheads when the USSR was dissolved in 1991. In 1992 Belarus signed a protocol in which it agreed to implement the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) and to adhere to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In December 1996 Belarus completed the process of deporting its nuclear warheads to Russia, where they were to be dismantled.

H

International Organizations

Belarus is a member of approximately 50 international organizations, most notably the United Nations (UN), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the World Health Organization (WHO). In early 1995 Belarus joined the Partnership for Peace program of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a plan designed to promote military cooperation between NATO and non-NATO states.

VII

HISTORY

Human settlement in Belarusian territory dates to prehistoric times, but there is no consensus among scholars on the origins of the Belarusian state. The three early Slavic tribes from which the Belarusians are believed to have derived are the Krivichi, Dregovichi, and Radimichi, who between the 6th and 8th centuries settled first on the Daugava (Western Daugava) River and later in the vicinity of the Pripyat’ and Sozh rivers. The medieval period of Belarusian history dates most notably from the last quarter of the 10th century, when Prince Rogvold ruled the local principality of Polotsk (Polatsk). In the late 10th century Polotsk was annexed into Kievan Rus, the first significant East Slavic state. At least three principalities—Smolensk, Polotsk, and Turov-Pinsk—existed on what later became Belarusian territory. The Tatar invasions that destroyed Kievan Rus and the city of Kiev (Kyiv) in 1240 left Belarusian territory relatively unscathed.

In the 14th century Belarusian territory became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, with its capital at Vilnius. Slavs heavily outnumbered the titular nation and retained privileges, and state business was for a time conducted in the Belarusian language. By the 16th century a Slavic culture had begun to emerge, symbolized by the translation of the Bible into the Belarusian language by Frantsysk Skaryna in 1517. In 1569, however, the Grand Duchy formed a political union with Poland by the Union of Lublin, forming the Rzeczpospolita (Commonwealth) and making the sovereign of Poland also the grand duke of the Lithuanian kingdom. In this period, Belarusians faced pressure from the Poles to convert from Eastern Orthodoxy to Roman Catholicism. The union lasted until the late 18th century, by which time the lands of Belarus had fallen under the control of the Russian Empire as a result of the partitions of Poland that took place in 1772, 1793, and 1795.

A

Rule of the Russian Empire

The period of imperial Russian rule has been widely perceived as one of repression of cultural and political initiatives on Belarusian territory. In 1839 the Eastern Catholic (Uniate) Church in the Polotsk region was dissolved, and the Lithuanian statute of 1588 that codified civil rights was prohibited. In 1863 the young Belarusian Kastus Kalinovsky played a prominent role in the widespread Polish uprising against the Russian Empire; he was publicly executed after his capture by the imperial authorities in March 1864. Belarusian culture nevertheless made great strides in the 19th century, and during this period the concept of a Belarusian nation first truly emerged.

The vast majority of ethnic Belarusians were villagers at the turn of the century. Although industrial development had progressed rapidly in the late 19th century, Belarus lagged behind most territories of the Russian Empire. The major Belarusian urban centers—such as Vilnius, Minsk, Homyel’, and Mahilyow—contained Jewish majorities, with Poles and Russians constituting the largest minorities. In 1905 the Russian Empire permitted Belarusians to publish newspapers and books in their native language, and national activities became more widespread. The most prominent publication was the newspaper Nasha Niva (Our Cornfield), which was the main Belarusian cultural publication in Vilnius until 1915.

B

The Soviet Period

The Russian Revolution of 1917 overthrew the Russian monarchy in February (or March, in the Western, or Gregorian, calendar), and the Belarusian Socialist Hramada (Assembly) called for the reorganization of the Russian Empire as a federation. Later in the same month, all Belarusian political groups united to form the Belarusian National Committee, which was later renamed the Central Rada (Council). In the October (or November) phase of the revolution, the Bolsheviks (militant socialists) seized power in Russia. In Minsk, an All-Belarusian Congress took place in December to establish a democratic, multiparty government, but the Bolsheviks disbanded it by force of arms before it could complete its deliberations. In March 1918 most of Belarus came under German control by the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, which was the result of the Bolsheviks’ negotiations with Germany to end Russia’s involvement in World War I (1914-1918). Belarusian nationalists took the opportunity to declare the creation of the Belarusian People’s (National) Republic, and Germany guaranteed the new state’s independence. The republic proved short-lived, however, because of Germany’s defeat in the war in November. Red Army invasions secured the Bolshevik regime on January 1, 1919, and the Belorussian (or Byelorussian) Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) was proclaimed. In March 1921 the Treaty of Rīga, which formally ended a war between Russia and Poland, divided the eastern and western portions of Belorussia’s territory between the two countries. In December 1922 the Belorussian SSR, then only a fraction of its former size, became a constituent, founding republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). In the 1920s the Belorussian republic incorporated most of the ethnic Belarusian territories that had been annexed into Russia. By the terms of a nonaggression treaty between the USSR and Germany, the Hrodna, Brest, and western part of Minsk provinces were annexed from Poland in September 1939, nearly doubling the size of Belorussia. Vilnius and its surrounding region were ceded to Lithuania.

The Belorussian republic was permitted to develop culturally through the 1920s. Beginning in the late 1920s, however, the Soviet regime became increasingly oppressive under USSR dictator Joseph Stalin. In the late 1930s, Stalin masterminded a massive, violent purge of the population—targeting especially intellectuals and political opponents—throughout the Soviet Union, carried out by the Soviet secret police. In the worst known incident in Belorussia, approximately 250,000 people were rounded up and executed in the Kuropaty Forest near Minsk. In addition, countless thousands were exiled to labor camps in Siberia. During this period, national development ended in Belorussia, and Russian language and culture were promoted by the state.

C

World War II

In 1941, during World War II, the Nazi German army invaded Belorussia as part of a major offensive against the Soviet Union. The Nazis occupied the republic, imposing a brutal regime in which an estimated 2 million people perished. Jews, who at the time were the second-largest ethnic group in Belorussia, were especially targeted for imprisonment and mass executions in the Nazi death camps (see Holocaust). By the summer of 1942 the republic became the location of an extensive partisan movement, directed from Moscow, which played a major role in undermining the Nazi regime. In 1944 the Soviet Red Army drove out Nazi forces.

In the postwar years, Belorussia developed into one of the Soviet Union’s most modern manufacturing regions. The republic became the major Soviet center for the production of tractors and automobiles and an important base for chemicals and other products. Concurrently, the postwar years were marked by rapid urbanization. Minsk developed as the major center of economic, cultural, and political life and the largest urban center with a quarter of the republic’s urban residents. Communist Party loyalists dominated the leadership from the mid-1950s through 1980, with first Kiryl Mazurov and then the popular Petr Masherov leading the Soviet republic through a period of relative prosperity. Underlying this evident progress was a rigorous Soviet policy of promoting the Russian language and culture, resulting in a thorough Russification of the non-Russian population.

D

The Collapse of Soviet Rule

In 1986 Belorussia was devastated by the explosion at the Chernobyl’ nuclear power station in Ukraine. More than one-fifth of the republic was contaminated with high-level radioactive fallout, and many of its residents were exposed. Also during the 1980s, USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev introduced his political and economic reforms, perestroika (Russian for “restructuring”) and glasnost (“openness”), which encouraged a cultural rebirth in Belorussia. In October 1988 the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) was formed, dedicated to the revival of the Belarusian language and to catalyzing the slow progress of de-Stalinization, or the reversal of repressive Stalinist policies, in the Belorussian SSR. In January 1990 Belarusian was made the sole official language of the republic. Later in 1990 relatively open elections were held to the Supreme Soviet, although the Communist Party won most seats and continued to dominate the legislature.

In 1990 Belorussia was one of several republics to declare sovereignty from the central government of the USSR. Although a largely symbolic act, it took on new significance when Communist hardliners attempted a coup of the Soviet government in mid-August 1991. The coup attempt, which failed abjectly, precipitated the disintegration of the USSR. Following the lead of several other republics, Belarus declared its independence on August 25.

In the following month, the Supreme Soviet of Belorussia elected as its chairperson a respected former vice-chancellor of Belarus State University, Stanislau Shushkevich, and changed the name of the state to the Republic of Belarus. The former state flag of the short-lived Belarusian People’s Republic of 1918 was resurrected, along with a state insignia displaying a knight on horseback (the former symbol of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania). In December a high-level meeting between Shushkevich, Russian president Boris Yeltsin, and Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk resulted in the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), a loosely structured alliance open to all Soviet republics, with Minsk as its headquarters. Most republics joined the CIS, and the Soviet Union was formally dissolved in late December.

E

Belarus Since Independence

In 1992 the BPF attempted to force new parliamentary elections by collecting signatures from the public, but the attempt was rejected by the Communist-dominated legislature. Hardline forces thereafter regained control of political life. Shushkevich, long opposed by his prime minister, Vyacheslau Kebich, was ousted on trumped-up corruption charges in January 1994. As the economy deteriorated, Communist leaders sought closer ties with Russia, demanding among other things a military-security union. The first presidential election took place in July 1994 and resulted in an unexpected defeat for Kebich. A virtually unknown young politician, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, swept to victory with more than 80 percent of the vote in the final runoff.

E1

Power Struggles in Government

Lukashenka, a former state farm manager, immediately began to circumvent the constitution to assert his powers over the Supreme Soviet. In May 1995 he held national referenda that resulted in the removal of the state flag and emblem and their replacement by a flag nearly identical to that of the Belorussian SSR. Frequent demonstrations were held against the president’s policies. In April 1996 the largest of these protests, involving about 70,000 people, resulted in numerous arrests and police-inflicted injuries. The BPF leader, Zyenon Poznyak, was granted political asylum in the United States. In September the government shut down the only independent radio station and froze the bank accounts of at least five independent weekly newspapers.

By late 1996 a power struggle had developed between Lukashenka and an intra-party majority in the Supreme Soviet. The president demanded a new referendum to extend his term in office and provide him with authority to dissolve the legislature, while the Supreme Soviet, led by chairman Semyon Sharetsky, sought to impeach the president. The referendum, which passed with more than 70 percent of the vote amid widespread allegations of vote fraud, resulted in a dramatic victory for Lukashenka. Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin played the role of intermediary and tried, unsuccessfully, to have the results of the referendum declared nonbinding. Lukashenka immediately signed its provisions into law as amendments to the constitution, despite an earlier ruling by the Constitutional Court that the results were to be used only for advisory purposes. Lukashenka dissolved the Supreme Soviet and created a new legislature, the National Assembly, composed entirely of his supporters. As president, Lukashenka combines genuine popularity, especially in rural regions, with a repressive regime that openly emulates the Soviet past.

E2

Ties with Russia

In foreign affairs, Lukashenka pursued his long-held goal of unifying Belarus with Russia. In April 1996 Lukashenka and Russian president Boris Yeltsin signed a preliminary union treaty that proposed closer political and economic ties between the two countries. Earlier agreements already established their military cooperation and the stationing of Russian military units in Belarus. Lukashenka continued to push for full unification, but liberal Russian officials urged Yeltsin to agree to only a limited integration, largely due to Belarus’s authoritarian government structure. In April 1997 the two leaders signed a union treaty that called for economic, political, and military cooperation but fell short of creating a single state. In December 1998 Yeltsin and Lukashenka signed an accord for the two countries to eventually merge their currencies, customs regulations, and tax collection systems.

E3

Recent Elections

Legislative elections in October 2000 were boycotted by the political opposition and reinstated a National Assembly mostly loyal to Lukashenka. In September 2001 Lukashenka was reelected president. However, the election was marred by arrests and harassment of political opponents, a strong bias against opposition candidates in state-run media, and widespread allegations of vote rigging.

The 2004 legislative elections resulted in the complete exclusion of opposition parties from the National Assembly. International election observers said the election was seriously flawed due to widespread vote tampering in favor of pro-Lukashenka candidates, who won all the seats. In addition, a concurrent referendum on a constitutional amendment lifted the two-term limit on the presidency and gave Lukashenka the option to run for two additional terms.

Presidential elections were held in March 2006. Lukashenka claimed victory with more than 86 percent of the vote. International observers and Western nations again denounced the election as seriously flawed. The controversy prompted mass public demonstrations, leading to at least 1,000 arrests. One of the two main opposition candidates was arrested for helping direct the demonstrations and speaking out against Lukashenka, who insisted that the elections were fair.

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