History
Polish ethnic and cultural presence in modern Belarus are an intricate part of its history. The lands of modern Belarus are the birthplace of Mickiewicz and Domejko among others. The proto-Belarusian language, called Ruthenian or Old Belarusian was protected by law in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and used as local vernacular, while both Polish and Latin languages were the lingua franca of the throne. "As the 16th century drew to a close" – wrote Andrew Savchenko about the local nobles, they had to contend with "an increasingly stark choice: to strengthen their ties with Poland or to suffer disastrous military defeat and subjugation" by the Russian Empire, thus leading to their voluntary Polonization. Throughout the 19th century, "the mass of unassuming peasants was subjected to active Russification" by the Tsarist authorities including the abolition of the Uniate Church created by the Union of Brest, a uniquely Belarusian institution and the cornerstone of the Belarusian nation.
The territories of the Russian Empire consisting of modern Belarus were divided in 1921 between Poland and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic at the Treaty of Riga, thus ending the Polish-Soviet War. Thousands of Poles settled in the area following the peace treaty. In the elections of November 1922, a Belarusian party (in the Blok Mniejszości Narodowych coalition) obtained 14 seats in the Polish parliament (11 of them in the lower chamber, Sejm). In 1923, a new regulation was passed allowing for the Belarusian language to be used officially both in courts and in schools. Obligatory teaching of the Belarusian language was introduced in all Polish gymnasia in areas inhabited by Belarusians in 1927. Minsk was home to a Polish-speaking national theatre of Belarus. The Polish community had its organizations there.
Meanwhile, in East Belarus the Soviet authorities liquidated most Polish organizations in early 1930s. In 1937–1938 the Soviet NKVD and the Communist Party attempted to eradicate Poles as a minority group in East Belarus during the largest ethnic shooting and deportation action of the Great Terror.
Read more about this topic: Poles In Belarus
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