![]() ![]() There are several claims to the origin of the name White Rus'. The name Belarus is closely related with the term Belaya Rus', i.e., White Rus'. It has shown no aspirations of joining the European Union but nevertheless maintains a bilateral relationship with the bloc, and also participates in the Baku Initiative. The country has been a member of the United Nations since its founding and has joined the CIS, the CSTO, the EAEU, the OSCE, and the Non-Aligned Movement. ![]() In 2000, Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, forming the Union State.īelarus is a developing country, ranking 60th on the Human Development Index. Belarus is the only European country that continues to use capital punishment. It has continued a number of Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of large sections of the economy. Belarus ranks low in international measurements of freedom of the press and civil liberties. Lukashenko heads a highly centralized authoritarian government. 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. 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. The republic was home to a widespread and diverse anti-Nazi insurgent movement which dominated politics until well into the 1970s, overseeing Belarus' transformation from an agrarian to industrial economy. ![]() In 1945, the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union. During World War II, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a quarter of its population and half of its economic resources. 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 finalized after World War II. After the Polish-Soviet War, Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland. 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. Minsk is the capital and largest city it is administered separately as a city with special status.īetween the medieval period and 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 country has a hemiboreal climate and is administratively divided into six regions. Covering an area of 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) and with a population of 9.2 million, Belarus is the 13th-largest and the 20th-most populous country in 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. Retrieved 16 February 2013.īelarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. Archived from the original on 26 January 2012.
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