Belarusians in Russia

Belarusians in Russia
Белорусы России
Беларусы Расіі

The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin Mary in Moscow, built in 1899-1911 by the Vitebsk-born architect Tomasz Bohdanowicz-Dworzecki
Total population
208,046 (2021)
Languages
Russian · Belarusian
Religion
Eastern Orthodox Church (52%) · Roman Catholicism (1.3%) · Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Belarusian diaspora, Polish minority in Russia, Ukrainians in Russia, Jews in Russia

Share of Belarusians in regions of Russia, 2010 census

Belarusians are a major ethnic group in Russia. At the census of 2010, 521,443 Russian citizens indicated Belarusian ancestry. Major Belarusian groups live in the regions of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kaliningrad, Karelia and Siberia. Most Belarusians in Russia are migrants from modern Belarus or their descendants, while a minor part of Belarusians in Russia are indigenous.

Geography

A minor part of Belarusians in Russia are original inhabitants of the Russian-Belarusian border regions. In ancient times the regions of Smolensk and Pskov were inhabited by the East Slavic tribe of Krivichi that later became major base of the Russian and Belarusian nations. The Russian town of Smolensk was several times conquered by Polatsk dukes and belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania between 1408 and 1514.

According to the census of the Russian Empire, some Belarusians lived in the territories of modern Smolensk Oblast, Bryansk Oblast. A small number of Belarusians used to live in the modern Kaluga Oblast, Pskov Oblast, Orel Oblast.

The Korenization policies of the 1920s encouraged Belarusians of Russia to promote and develop Belarusian cultural life and education. A system of Belarusian schools was established in Western Russia. In the 1930s, the Korenization was reversed and its proponents were repressed.

Moscow

During the Polonization of the Grand Duchy in the 16th and 17th centuries, a large number of Orthodox Ruthenians, led by Princes Mstislavsky, Belsky and Galitzine, escaped the repressions to Moscow. In documents of that time they are also called Litvins or White Ruthenians.

One of the compact settlements of Litvins in Moscow was the Meschanskaya Sloboda. Its inhabitants engaged in financial operations, trade, and medicine. Meschanskaya Sloboda had a degree of self-governance and a collegiate church.

In the times of Imperial Russia and the USSR, Moscow as the scientific and economic centre of the country attracted many specialists from different parts of the empire including Belarus. So, the minister of foreign affairs of the USSR during the most tensed period of the Cold War was the Belarusian Andrei Gromyko.

Today, Moscow also attracts huge numbers of specialists for constant and temporary work. Every year hundreds of students from Belarus join Moscow universities.

St. Petersburg

After the Partition of Poland, Belarusians started migrating to Russia including the imperial capital, St. Petersburg. Especially many peasants from northern and eastern regions of Belarus migrated to St. Petersburg.

According to statistics, from 1869 to 1910 the number of Belarusians in St. Petersburg grew 23 times and reached 70,000. By the end of that period Belarusians were the biggest ethnic minority in the city. During the First World War for some period up to one million Belarusians lived in the city because of inflow of refugees.

In the second half of the 19th century, several Belarusian organisations were created in St. Petersburg uniting intellectuals and students. In 1868 the enlightenment organisation Kryvitski Vazok was founded. In the 1880s the organisation of leftist Belarusian intellectuals Homan was created. Along with Wilno, St. Petersburg has been the centre of Belarusian cultural an intellectual life in the late 19th century. A Belarusian publishing house existed in St. Petersburg in 1906-1912. Belarusian scientists at the universities of St. Petersburg made important ethnographic researches about Belarus.

The activity of organisations of Belarusian diaspora continued after the October Revolution until it was violently stopped by Stalinist repressions.

During the Perestroika, several new Belarusian diaspora organisations appeared in Leningrad. Today St. Petersburg, though less than Moscow, is also attractive for workers and students from Belarus.

Other regions

In the 18th century Belarusians lived in several governorates of European Russia. Belarusian settlements existed in Kursk, Penza governorates and in the Ural.

After the cancellation of serfdom in Russia in the 19th century, mass migrations of Belarusian peasants to Russia started. The main destinations were the Volga region, the Caucasus, Central Asia and Siberia.

From the late 1940s to the early 1960s many Belarusians settled in the Republic of Karelia, Arkhangelsk Oblast, the Komi Republic, and Kaliningrad Oblast.

Belarusian territorial autonomies in Russia

Belarusian national revival in RSFSR in early Soviet times included creation of Belarusian local autonomies - national Rural Soviets (Belarusian: сельсоветы, romanized: selsovjety) inside raions. In 1924–1926, 71 Belarusian rural soviets were created in Siberia. In 1926 there were 26 Belarusian rural soviets in the Russian Far East. In the Ural in 1928 there were eleven. Later, several Belarusian raions, administrative units of a higher level, were created. In the early 1930s there was a Belarusian national raion of Taboryn as part of the Ural oblast. There was a discussion about the creation of a Belarusian national unit inside the Omsk oblast.

In the mid-1930s all Belarusian autonomies inside the RSFSR were liquidated.

Modern state

Belarusians protesting against the regime of Alexander Lukashenko in front of the Embassy of Belarus, Moscow, in September 2020

Number of Belarusians in Russia

Year	Population
1959	844,000
1970	964,700
1989	1,206,000
2002	807,970
2010	521,443

Because of cultural closeness of Belarusians to Russians and weakly expressed national identity, Belarusians are more than other ethnic minorities exposed to assimilation in Russia. Despite mass inflow of migrants from Belarus during last centuries, children of immigrants rarely identify themselves as Belarusians.

Currently, more and more Belarusian organisations are created in different regions of Russia.

In 2003 a Belarusian cultural society Belorusy Yugry was registered in Surgut.

The largest and strongest Belarusian diaspora organisation in Russia is the Jan Čerski Society for Belarusian Culture in Irkutsk. The organisation unites descendants of Belarusian settlers in Siberia, and has several branches and issues a newspaper.

In Moscow there is the Frantsishak Skaryna Society for Belarusian Culture and an informal union of Belarusian students. In Bashkortostan there is a Belarusian national cultural centre Siabry founded in 1996. In Kaliningrad Belarusians are united in the culture society Karalaviec.

In the last decade Belarusian community of Russia is of separate opinion on the current presidency of Alexander Lukashenko. Some organisations support the democratic opposition. Other, more recently founded organisations as the Federal National Cultural Autonomy of Belarusians in Russia are supported by the embassy of Belarus, and have a more positive opinion on the policies of the government.

Besides Russian citizens of Belarusian descent, there are about 400 thousands Belarusians currently working in Russia.

Notable Russians of Belarusian origin

• Fyodor Dostoyevsky, writer, descendant of a Polesian szlachta family
• Mikhail Glinka, composer, descendant of Smolensk szlachta
• Sofya Kovalevskaya, Russian mathematician who made noteworthy contributions to analysis, partial differential equations and mechanics.
• Dmitry Shostakovich, composer, descendant of a participant of the November uprising
• Several Russian noble families (Trubetskoy, Belsky and others) were originally Belarusian szlachta that fled to Muscovy
• Pavel Sukhoi, constructor and designer
• Nikolai Nikolayevich Yudenich, commander of the Russian Imperial Army during World War I, leader of the anti-communist White movement in Northwestern Russia during the Civil War.
• Andrey Vilkitsky, hydrographer and surveyor.
• Ivan Khrutsky, painter
• Osip Kozlovsky - composer
• Iosif Goshkevich, an Imperial Russian diplomat and Orientalist
• Ivan Solonevich - philosopher, historian, writer, editor, publisher, publicist and conservative political activist.
• Pavel Malyantovich -Minister of Justice of the Provisional Government (1917), Supreme Prosecutor of Russia (1917).
• Boris Vilkitsky, Russian hydrographer and surveyor.
• Yefim Karskiy, linguist-Slavist, ethnographer and paleographer, founder of Belarusian linguistics, literary studies and paleography, a member of numerous scientific institutions, and author of more than 100 works on linguistics, ethnography, paleography and others.
• Nikolai Sudzilovsky, a revolutionary and scientist.
• Lev Dovator, Soviet major-general during WW2
• Anatoly Lesun - deputy of the 8th State Duma
• Mikhail Khodaryonok - journalist, military observer for Gazeta.Ru and Vesti FM, and a Reserve Colonel of the Russian Federation
• Vasily Sokolovsky, Soviet general and Marshal of the Soviet Union who led Red Army forces on the Eastern Front during World War II.
• Ivan Yakubovsky, Marshal of the Soviet Union, twice made a Hero of the Soviet Union and serving as commander-in-chief of the Warsaw Pact from 1967 to 1976.
• Yanka Kupala, poet and writer.
• Vasily Yushkevich, Soviet Army colonel general
• Yevgeni F. Ivanovski - Soviet military general who served in numerous high commands following the Second World War, including the command of the Moscow Military District from 1968 to 1972, command of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany from 20 July 1972 to 25 November 1980.
• Lev Artsimovich, a Soviet physicist, academician of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (1953)
• Viktor Yanukovych, the fourth President of Ukraine
• Aleksandra Bortich, Actress
• Elena Zaiatz - female chess player who holds the FIDE titles of International Master (2005) and Woman Grandmaster (1988)
• Innokenty Smoktunovsky, a Soviet actor acclaimed as the "king of Soviet actors".
• Kazimir Malevich, Ukraine-born Russian painter of Belarusian-Polish origin
• Georgy Mondzolevski, Soviet former volleyball player
• Ruslan Salei, ice hockey player
• Sergei Drozd, ice hockey player
• Sergei Ignashevich, former professional footballer who played as central defender and is currently the manager of Russian Football National League club Torpedo Moscow.
• Andrey Makarevich, Soviet and Russian rock musician and the founder of Russia's oldest still active rock band Mashina Vremeni (Time Machine).
• Artyom Borovik - journalist and media magnate
• Igor Rudenya - statesman who is currently the 5th governor of Tver Oblast since 23 September 2016
• Vladimir Kovalyonok, Soviet cosmonaut
• Oleg Novitskiy, Russian cosmonaut
• Yury Olesha - Russian and Soviet novelist
• Svyatoslav Sokol - member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation
• Artyom Zemchyonok - professional ice hockey defenceman
• Stepan Falkovsky - professional ice hockey defenceman
• Viktor Pinsky - deputy of the 6th, 7th, and 8th State Dumas
• Pavel Moysevich - ice hockey goaltender for SKA Saint Petersburg of the Kontinental Hockey League
• Yelena Stempkovskaya - Soviet radio operator in the 216th Rifle Regiment of the Red Army during World War II who was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 15 May 1946.
• Vladimir Strzhizhevsky - World War I flying ace

External links

• Russia and Belarus: an ethnocultural dialogue (in Russian)
• Peoples of Russia: Belarusians (in Russian)
• A hundred Belarusian villages in Siberia (article in Belarusian)
• Federal National Cultural Autonomy of Belarusians in Russia (in Russian)

Further reading

• Hughes, Lindsey A. J. (1976). "Byelorussian craftsmen in late seventeenth-century Russia and their influence on Muscovite architecture". The Journal of Byelorussian Studies. III (4): 327–341. Retrieved 3 June 2024.