Text 4. Belarus after the Third Division of Rech Paspalitaya

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The Russians in Belarus immediately started persecuting everything Belarusian. The goal of this persecution was to destroy all thoughts of Belarusian statehood and to russify all Belarusian people. This policy, of course, cared very little of people’s needs and wishes. “People” in the sense of those times were primarily knights, the aristocracy, and merchants; farmers and peasants (serfs) were not considered as representatives of the Belarusian people. Russia announced to other countries that the newly conquered territories were Russian and that the conquest itself did not happen – it was just a reunification of the same people.

Thus, in attempting to destroy Belarusian culture, the Russians closed the University in Polatsk in 1820, in 1832 the same thing happened to the University in Vilnia. In 1839, the Russians forbade using the Belarusian language in churches and schools, and also abolished the Uniate church, which at the end of Rech Pospolitaya started being a defender of Belarusian and Ukranian culture and education. In 1840 the Lithuanian Statut – the Belarusian Code of Laws - was abolished, too, and Belarus was named the “Northwestern Region”. Simultaneously, the glorious historical Belarusian name Lithuania related only to a purely Baltic tribe, the Zmudz, which had never been called Lithuanians; since then, they have kept this name as the name of their country. The rapacious taxes and exploitation of the Belarusian people strongly deteriorated the economic situation of the country; Belarus became a poor and retarded outskirt of the Russian Empire.

In 1812 the war between Russia and Napoleon started. Both the route of Napoleon to Moscow and his escape from there passed through the territory of Belarus, devastating it yet again to ashes. However, Napoleon turned to be a supporter of the idea of the Belarusian state, though in a shape that suited his interests. During the short period of occupation, he created two Belarusian states - "Lithuania" which was on the territory of the Belastok (Bialystok), Harodnia (Hrodna), Vilnia, and Minsk regions (again without Zhmudz), and "Belarus," which occupied the eastern Belarusian lands. In case of a truce. Napoleon was going to give "Belarus" to Moscow leaving "Lithuania" under his power. Belarusians, certainly, did not like these intentions and raised the question of unification of the two states. But this situation did not last too long - still in 1812, Napoleon was defeated and the Russian invasion of Belarus started again even more severely.

The ideas of the French Revolution of 1789 – Freedom, Equality, and Fraternity - reached the souls of all the oppressed peoples of Europe including the Belarusians. Before the closing of Vilnia University, a new wave of Belarusian renaissance started there. Under the influence of its professors and a progressive group of students, other Belarusians also became interested in the history and the idea of Belarusian ethnicity. Since the Belarusian language under the Russians was not allowed to be used in education, Polish was opposed to Russian as a language of the Belarusian intelligentsia. The first Belarusian poets of this period – Yan Chachot who wrote both in Polish and Belarusian and Uladyslau Syrakomlia – also came from the progressive students' organizations. Chachot's close friend poet Adam Mickewicz, a Belarusian from Navahradak who wrote in Polish, greatly enriched Polish culture by his talent. Even the closing of Vilnia University in 1832 could not stop the Belarusian cultural enthusiasm of the 19th century. New cultural artists appeared in Belarus, among whom were Vincent Dunin-Martsinkevich – a very fruitful Belarusian playwright, and polonized Belarusian composer Stanislau Maniushka – the author of the first Belarusian opera.

Together with the cultural renaissance, the spirit of protest against the Moscow occupation was growing among the Belarusian youth. The preparation for revolt was actively taking place and finally exploded into rising in arms in 1863.

The revolt was started in Poland and soon was expanded to Belarus and Lithuania where it achieved its culmination. There were 80,000 rebel troops, and they managed to fight more than 260 battles against 200,000 Russian soldiers. The goals of the rebels were first of all independence of Belarus to the extent of the borders of the Great Lithuanian Principality, freedom and land for the farmers, and free access to education. The soul and the leader of the revolt was Kastus Kalinouski – a national hero of Belarus. In 1863 Kalinouski was only 25, but before the revolt started he and his friends led a wide and active agitation of people in order to convince them to protest against the Muscovites. They talked to farmers, merchants, and artisans and explained the importance of armed revolt. The people who were very tired of and angry with the Muscovites eagerly supported Kalinouski's ideas. For wider publicity, Kalinouski illegally issued a newspaper "Muzhytskaya Prauda"("Peasant's Truth") in which under a pseudonym, he wrote about the ways of liberating Belarus from Russian and Polish oppressors. Few European politicians of that time were brave and prescient enough to claim the reforms in agriculture and the equality of peasants and others as did Kalinouski. The Russian tsar Alexander II sent his general Muravyov to put the rebels down. He literally sank in blood many troops of rebels. Kalinouski started the struggle for total mobilization of the people in Belarus and Lithuania, and soon the revolt embraced the territory of Belarus completely. In response, the Russians sent in a whole network of spies and police in order to capture the leadership of the revolt, and in 1864 they located Kalinouski's headquarters and arrested him. He was soon sentenced to death and hanged in Vilnia on March, 22, 1864. When Kastus Kalinouski was standing under the gallows and heard the hangman calling out "Nobleman Kastus Kalinouski!" he shouted: "We don’t have noblemen, we are all equal!" After his execution the revolt was quickly suppressed; lots of people were hanged, shot, or exiled to Siberia. In order to prevent further riots, the tsarist government forbade any printing in the Belarusian language.

But this interdiction did not stop the Belarusian cultural renascence. Belarusian ethnologists Karski, Nikifarouski, and others who were forced to work for the Russians, but still continued their investigations and proved that in spite of repressions, the Belarusian people, language, and culture goes on in its historical development. Also the political protests of Belarusians kept going on. Thus, the Belarusian student lhnat Hryniavitski made a bomb and blew up the Russian tsar Alexander II in 1881 in St. Petersburg together with himself – a brave, but useless, terrorist action since this could not stop the oppression. The most outstanding representative of Belarusian renaissance of that period was Frantsishak Bahushevich, also a rebel of 1863. In his poems he showed Belarusians their glorious past and claimed them for preserving and restoring Belarusian culture and statehood. He had to print his books abroad. Together with Bahushevich, the enlightenment was led by the writers Yanka Luchyna, Adam Hurynovich, and others. Due to their works, the foundation for the further education and renascence of Belarus was laid, and the county entered the 20^th century ready for a new wave in the movement for liberation.

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