History of Belarus Timeline

Following the Partitions of Poland in the 18th century, Belarusian territories became part of the Russian Empire. Eventually, by 1795, Poland was partitioned by its neighbors.

Image source: Partitions of Poland

The independence-seeking 1830 and 1863 uprisings of the gentry were subdued by government forces of the Russian Empire.

Image source: January Uprising

In the second half of the 19th century, the Belarusian economy experienced significant growth due to the spread of the Industrial Revolution to Eastern Europe, particularly after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 and the construction of railways, with Minsk, Vitebsk, Grodno, Pinsk and Gomel becoming significant industrial centres. Despite Russification policies under Nicholas I and Alexander III, the 19th century marked the rise of the modern Belarusian nation.

Image source: Belarus

In 1862–1863 Kalinowski published the first newspaper in the modern Belarusian language, Mużyckaja prauda (Peasants' Truth), written in Latin script.

Image source: Mužyckaja prauda

On 21 February 1918, Minsk was captured by German troops during World War I. German administration allowed schools teaching the previously banned Belarusian language, until they were banned again in 1919 by the Polish military administration.

Image source: History of Belarus

At the end of World War I, when Belarus was still occupied by Germany according to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the short-lived Belarusian People's Republic was pronounced on 25 March 1918 as part of the German Mitteleuropa plan.

Image source: Belarusian Democratic Republic

In December 1918, Mitteleuropa was obsolete as the German Empire withdrew from Ober-Ost territory. On 3 December 1918 the Germans withdrew from Minsk, and on 10 December 1918 Soviet troops occupied the city.

Image source: Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic

On 2 January 1919, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Byelorussia was declared. It was disbanded on 17 February 1919.

Image source: Socialist Soviet Republic of Lithuania and Belorussia

When Vilnius was captured by Polish forces on 17 April 1919, the capital of the Soviet puppet state Litbel was moved to Minsk. On 17 July 1919 Lenin dissolved Litbel because of the pressure of Polish forces advancing from the West, and Polish troops captured Minsk on 8 August 1919.

Poland's Józef Piłsudski, who envisioned an Intermarium federation, carried out a Kiev offensive into Ukraine in 1920. A Red Army counter-offensive drove into Poland almost to Warsaw; Minsk was re-captured by the Red Army on 11 July 1920 and a new Byelorussian SSR was declared on 31 July 1920.

Image source: Kiev offensive (1920)

The republic was created in 1920 following the staged rebellion of soldiers of the 1st Lithuanian–Belarusian Division of the Polish Army under Lucjan Żeligowski. After a disputed election on 8 January 1922, the territory was annexed to Poland, which Żeligowski later condemned in his 1943 memoir.

Image source: Republic of Central Lithuania

The People's Republic of Belarus prepared a national uprising over two years, ceasing preparations only when the League of Nations recognized the Soviet Union's western borders on 15 March 1923.

Image source: League of Nations

In 1924 Poland created the Border Protection Corps along its eastern borderlands.

Image source: Border Protection Corps

Belarusian representation in the Polish parliament was reduced as a result of the 1930 elections. By spring 1939 there was neither a single Belarusian official organization in Poland nor a single exclusively Belarusian school, with only 44 schools teaching Belarusian remaining.

Image source: Belarusians in Poland

When the Soviet Union invaded Poland on September 17, 1939, following the terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact's secret protocol, Western Byelorussia, which was part of Poland, was included in the BSSR. By October 1940, over 75% of schools used the Belarusian language.

Image source: Soviet invasion of Poland

After twenty months of Soviet rule, Nazi Germany and its Axis allies invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941. Minsk was captured on 28 June 1941, and following bloody encirclement battles all of present-day Belarus was occupied by the Germans by the end of August 1941.

Image source: Operation Barbarossa

One of the first uprisings of a Jewish ghetto against the Nazis occurred in 1942 in Belarus, in the small town of Lakhva.

Image source: Łachwa Ghetto

In the largest partisan sabotage action of the entire Second World War, the so-called Asipovichy diversion of 30 July 1943 destroyed four German trains carrying supplies and Tiger tanks.

Image source: German occupation of Byelorussia during World War II

On 22 June 1944 the huge Soviet offensive Operation Bagration was launched. Minsk was re-captured on 3 July 1944, and all of Belarus was regained by the end of August 1944. In 1944 thirty Belarusians known as Čorny Kot (Black Cat), led by Michał Vituška, were airdropped by the Luftwaffe behind Red Army lines.

Image source: Operation Bagration

Belarusian orthography was Russified in 1933 and use of the Belarusian language was discouraged in the Byelorussian SSR as exhibiting anti-Soviet attitude.

After the end of the war in 1945, Belarus became one of the founding members of the United Nations Organisation. Industrial production in 1945 amounted to less than 20% of pre-war size, and most evacuated factories were not returned to Belarus after 1945.

On 26 April 1986, the Chernobyl disaster occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, situated close to the border with Belarus, causing severe radioactive contamination of large areas of Belarus.

Image source: Chernobyl disaster

On 27 July 1990, Belarus declared its national sovereignty, a key step toward independence from the Soviet Union.

Image source: Dissolution of the Soviet Union

On 25 August 1991, after the failure of the August Coup in Moscow, Belarus declared full independence from the USSR by granting the declaration of state sovereignty constitutional status it did not have before.

Image source: Independence Day (Belarus)

On 8 December 1991, Shushkevich met with Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine in Belavezhskaya Pushcha to formally declare the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the formation of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Image source: Belovezha Accords

A new Belarusian constitution enacted in early 1994 paved the way for the first democratic presidential election held on 23 June and 10 July, won by Alexander Lukashenko.

Image source: 1994 Belarusian presidential election

Having assumed the rights and responsibilities of the Soviet Union on the territory of Byelarus, in December 1994 Lukashenko signed the Budapest Memorandum along with Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States acting as guarantors, thereby denuclearizing the nation.

Image source: Budapest Memorandum

The 1996 referendum resulted in amendments to the constitution that removed key powers from the parliament.

In 1999 opposition leaders Yury Zacharanka and Viktar Hanchar disappeared and were presumably killed.

In 2001 Lukashenko was re-elected in elections described as undemocratic by Western observers. He was re-elected again in 2006 and 2010 in presidential elections criticized as flawed or falsified by most EU countries and organizations such as the OSCE.

Image source: Alexander Lukashenko

Lukashenko's disputed victory in the country's 2020 presidential election led to widespread allegations of vote rigging, which strongly amplified anti-government protests — the largest during his rule.

Image source: 2020–2021 Belarusian protests

On 23 May 2021, Ryanair Flight 4978 was diverted by the Belarusian government to Minsk National Airport, where opposition activist Roman Protasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega were arrested by authorities.

Image source: Ryanair Flight 4978

In summer 2021, Belarusian authorities organized a border crisis consisting of an influx of tens of thousands of immigrants, primarily from Iraqi Kurdistan, to Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland via those countries' borders with Belarus.

Image source: Belarus–European Union border crisis

Belarus allowed its territory to be used by the Russian army in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine to stage and launch forces from the north into Ukraine.

Image source: Russian invasion of Ukraine