Belarusians

Belarusians
беларусы
belarusy
Byelorussians
Total population
c. 9.5–10 million
Regions with significant populations
 Belarus  7.95 million[1][2]
 United States
(Belarusian ancestry)		 600,000[3][4]–768,000[5]
 Russia 521,443 (2010)[6]
 Ukraine 275,763 (2001)[7]
 Latvia 68,174 (2011)[8]
 Kazakhstan 66,476 (2010)[9]
 Poland 47,000 (2011)[10]
 Lithuania 41,100[11]
 Moldova 20,000[12]
 Canada 15,565[13]
 Estonia 12,171 (2016)[14]
 France 7,500[12]
 United Kingdom 7,000[12]
 Argentina 7,000[12]
 Brazil 7,000[12]
 Sweden 2,833[15]
 Belgium 2,000[12]
 Australia 1,560 (2006)[16]
 Greece 1,168[17]
 Portugal 1,002 (2009)[18]
Languages
Belarusian
Russian
Religion
Orthodox Christianity (majority), Roman Catholicism (minority)
Related ethnic groups
Other East Slavs

Belarusians (Belarusian: беларусы, bielarusy; Russian: белорусы), or Byelorussians, are an East Slavic ethnic group who are native to modern-day Belarus and the immediate region. There are over 9.5 million people who proclaim Belarusian ethnicity worldwide, with overwhelming majority residing either in Belarus or the adjacent countries where they are an autochthonous minority.

Location

Ethnic territory of Belarusians
  According to Y. Karskiy (1903)
  According to M. Dovnar-Zapol'skiy (1919)
  Modern state boundaries

Belarusians are an East Slavic ethnic group who populate the majority of the Republic of Belarus. Belarusian minority populations live in countries neighboring Belarus: in Ukraine, in Poland (especially in the Podlaskie Voivodeship), in the Russian Federation and in Lithuania. At the beginning of the 20th century Belarusians constituted a minority in the regions around the city of Smolensk in Russia.

Significant numbers of Belarusians emigrated to the United States, Brazil and Canada in the early 20th century. During Soviet times (1917–1991), many Belarusians were deported or migrated to various regions of the USSR, including Siberia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

Since the breakup of the USSR in 1991 several hundred thousand have emigrated to the Baltic states, the United States, Canada, Russia, and EU countries.

Languages

The two official languages in Belarus are Belarusian and Russian. Russian is the most spoken language, principally by 72% of the population, while Belarusian is only used by 11.9%[19] in everyday life. According to a study, in varying degrees, the vast majority of residents speak the Belarusian language: 29.4% are fluent, being able read and write it, 52.5% can speak and read the language, 8.3% can understand it but can't speak or read it, while a further 7% are able to understand the parts of Belarusian language that are similar to Russian.[19] Belarusian is a language of the East Slavic group.

The name Belarus can be literally translated as White Ruthenia that is a historical region in the east of modern Republic of Belarus, known in Latin as Ruthenia Alba (English: White Rus). This name was in use in the West for some time in history, together with White Ruthenes, White Russians (though not to be confused with the political group of White Russians that opposed the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War) and similar forms. Belarusians trace their name back to the people of Rus'.

The term Belarusians was promoted mostly during the 19th century by the Russian Empire. For instance, this can be traced by editions of folklorist researches by Ivan Sakharov, where in the edition of 1836 Belarusian customs are described as Litvin, while in the edition of 1886 the words Литва (Lithuania) and Литовцо-руссы (Lithuanian-Russians/Ruthenians) are replaced by respectively Белоруссия (Byelorussia) and белоруссы (Byelorussians).[20][21][22]

Commonwealth of Polish Kingdom and Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 17th century
Legend:
  The Crown (Kingdom of Poland)
  Duchy of Prussia - Polish fief
  Grand Duchy of Lithuania
  Livonia
  Duchy of Courland, a joint fief

History

Baltic population in the 12th century

The Belarusian people trace their distinct culture to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, earlier Kievan Rus and the Principality of Polatsk. Most Belarusians are descendants of the East Slav tribes Dregovichs, Krivichs and Radimichs, as well as of a Baltic tribe of Jotvingians who lived in the west and north-west of today's Belarus.[23]

Belarusians began to emerge as a people during the thirteenth through fourteenth centuries in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Mostly on the lands of the upper basins of Neman River, Dnieper River and the Western Dvina River.[24]

In 13th–18th centuries Belarusians were mostly known under the names of Litvins/Lithuanians and Ruthenians which refers to the Eastern part of state of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Litva, Vialikaja Litva) of which the White Ruthenian, Black Ruthenian and Polesian lands were part of since the 13th–14th centuries, and where the Ruthenian language developed and gradually became the dominant written language in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, replacing Latin. Casimir's Code of 1468 and all three editions of Statutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1529, 1566, and 1588) were written in the Ruthenian (also referred to as Old Belarusian) language. From the 1630s it was replaced by Polish, as a result of Polish high culture acquiring increasing prestige in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

On the grounds of the dominance of Ruthenian language (which later evolved into contemporary Belarusian and Ukrainian Languages) and culture in the Eastern parts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, some "modern" Belarusian scholars and people in Belarus consider the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to be a Belarusian state when it existed.[25][26][27]

Between 1791 and 1917 much of Belarus, with its Christian and Jewish populations, was acquired by the Russian Empire in a series of military conquests and diplomatic manoeuvres, and was made part of a region known as the Pale of Settlement.

After World War I Belarusians revived their own statehood, with varying degrees of independence – first as the short-lived Belarusian National Republic under German occupation, then as the Byelorussian SSR from 1919 until 1991, which merged with other republics to become a constituent member of the Soviet Union in 1922). Belarus gained full independence with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Cuisine

Main article: Belarusian cuisine

Belarusian cuisine shares the same roots with cuisines of other Eastern and Northern European countries, basing predominantly on meat and various vegetables typical for the region.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ "Changes in the populations of the majority ethnic groups". belstat.gov.by. Archived from the original on 28 July 2016. Retrieved 2016-07-28.
  2. ↑ "Demographic situation in 2015". Belarus Statistical Office. 27 January 2016. Archived from the original on 3 February 2016. Retrieved 27 January 2016.
  3. ↑ Garnett, Sherman W. (1999). Belarus at the Crossroads. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. ISBN 978-0-87-003172-4.
  4. ↑ Kipel, Vituat. "Belarusan americans". World Culture Encyclopedia. Retrieved July 28, 2016.
  5. ↑ "Country: United States: Belarusians". Joshua Project. 2016. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
  6. ↑ "All-Russian population census 2010 population by nationality, sex and subjects of the Russian Federation". Demoscope Weekly (in Russian). Retrieved July 28, 2016.
  7. ↑ Про кількість та склад населення України за підсумками Всеукраїнського перепису населення 2001 року (Ukrainian)
  8. ↑ "On key provisional results of Population and Housing Census 2011". Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  9. ↑ "Перепись населения Республики Казахстан 2009 года. Краткие итоги. (Census for the Republic of Kazakhstan 2009. Short Summary)" (PDF) (in Russian). Republic of Kazakhstan Statistical Agency. Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 December 2010. Retrieved 10 December 2010.
  10. ↑ Przynależność narodowo-etniczna ludności – wyniki spisu ludności i mieszkań 2011. GUS. Materiał na konferencję prasową w dniu 29. 01. 2013. p. 3. Retrieved 2013-03-06.
  11. ↑
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Как живешь, белорусская диаспора?". Belarus Time (in Belarusian). March 13, 2012. Archived from the original on March 13, 2012.
  13. ↑ "Ethnic Origin (264), Single and Multiple Ethnic Origin Responses (3), Generation Status (4), Age Groups (10) and Sex (3) for the Population in Private Households of Canada, Provinces, Territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomerations, 2011 National Household Survey".
  14. ↑ 2016 census. Eesti Statistikaamet.
  15. ↑ "Utrikes födda efter födelseland och invandringsår" [Foreign-born by country of birth and year of immigration] (XLS). Statistics Sweden (in Swedish). 31 December 2015. Retrieved 23 October 2016.
  16. ↑ "20680-Ancestry (full classification list) by Sex - Australia". 2006 Census. Australian Bureau of Statistics. Archived from the original (Microsoft Excel download) on March 10, 2008. Retrieved 2008-06-02.
  17. ↑ "Error" (PDF). Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  18. ↑ "POPULAÇÃO ESTRANGEIRA RESIDENTE EM TERRITÓRIO NACIONAL - 2009" (PDF). Statistics Portugal (in Portuguese). January 1, 2011. Retrieved July 28, 2016.
  19. 1 2 "Общество". Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  20. ↑ Сказанія русскаго народа, собранныя Иваномъ Петровичемъ Сахаровымъ, 1836, 1886
  21. ↑ Бандарчык В. К. Фарміраванне і развіццё беларускай нацыі / В. К. Бандарчык, П. У Церашковіч // Этнаграфія беларусаў.— Мінск : Навука і тэхніка, 1985.— С. 158.
  22. ↑ Беларусы : у 10 т. / Рэдкал.: В. К. Бандарчык [і інш.]. — Мінск : Беларус. навука, 1994–2007. — Т. 4 : Вытокі і этнічнае развіццё... С. 62—63, 88.
  23. ↑ http://www.krugosvet.ru/enc/istoriya/BELORUSI.html Энциклопедия Кругосвет
  24. ↑ Беларусы : у 10 т. / Рэдкал.: В. К. Бандарчык [і інш.]. — Мінск : Беларус. навука, 1994–2007. — Т. 4 : Вытокі і этнічнае развіццё... С. 36, 49.
  25. ↑ Renshaw, Cheryl (5 June 2002). "The Grand Duchy of Lithuania 1253-1795". University of Washington, Baltic Studies. Archived from the original on 19 January 2012.
  26. ↑ Ivan Saverchanka "portrays the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as a strong Belarusian state in the center of Europe". Zejmis, Jakub, "Belarusian National Historiography and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as a Belarusian State," Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung , 1999, 48, pp. 392–383.
  27. ↑ Elena Gapova. "The Nation in Between". Over the Wall/After the Fall: Post-Communist Cultures Through an East-West Gaze. Indiana University Press. 2004. p. 65.

References

External links

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