Belarusian Nobility - Belarus As Part of The Russian Empire

Belarus As Part of The Russian Empire

In the late 18th and 19th centuries Belarusian szlachta were active participants of anti-Russian uprisings on the territory of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Tadeusz Kościuszko (Tadevush Kastsyushka), a nobleman from what is now Belarus, was leader of the Kościuszko Uprising in 1793. Kastus Kalinouski was the leader of January Uprising on the territory of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

By the 19th century polonization of the szlachta on one hand and russification and violent introduction of Russian Orthodoxy to the peasantry on the other hand led to a situation where the social barrier between aristocracy and peasantry on Belarusian lands became in many aspects an ethnic barrier. In the 19th century, the era of nationalism, local intellectuals of peasant origin and some szlachta people like Francišak Bahuševič and Vintsent Dunin-Martsinkyevich contributed to the forming of modern-day Belarusians as a new nation of Slavonic-speaking inhabitants of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania and basing on the historical and legacy of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and previous Ruthenian kingdoms of Polatsk and Turau. At the same time Baltic-speakers of the lands of modern Republic of Lithuania formed into modern-day Lithuanians and the historical unity of Ruthenians and Lithuanians fell apart.