History of Belarus: Encyclopedia II - History of Belarus - Russian Empire

History of Belarus - Russian Empire

Under Russian administration, the territory of Belarus was divided into the guberniyas of Minsk, Vitebsk, Mogilyov, and Hrodno. Belarusians were active in guerrilla movement against Napoleon's occupation and did their best to annihilate the remains of the Grande Armée when it crossed the Berezina River in November 1812^{[citation needed]}. With Napoleon's defeat, Belarus again became a part of Imperial Russia and its guberniyas constituted part of the Northwestern Krai. The anti-Russian uprisings of the gentry^[8] in 1830 and 1863 were subdued by government forces.

Although under Nicholas I and Alexander III the national cultures were repressed due to the policies of de-Polonization^[9] and Russification^[10], which included the return to Orthodoxy, the 19th century was signified by the rise of the modern Belarusian nation and self-confidence. A number of authors started publishing in Belarusian language, including Jan Czeczot, Władysław Syrokomla and Konstanty Kalinowski. In a russification drive in the 1840s, Tsar Nicholas I forbade the use of the term Belarusia and renamed the region the "North-Western Territory". He also prohibited the use of Belarusian language in public schools, campaigned against Belarusian publications and tried to pressure those who had converted to Catholicism under the Poles to reconvert to the Orthodox faith. In 1863, economic and cultural pressure exploded into a revolt, led by Kalinowski. [11] After the failed revolt, the Russian government introduced the use of the Cyrillic alphabet to Belarusian in 1864, and banned the use of the Latin alphabet. In the second half of the 19th century, the Belarusian economy, like that of the entire Europe, was experiencing significant growth due to the spread of the Industrial Revolution to Eastern Europe [12], particularly after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. Peasants sought a better lot in foreign industrial centres, with some 1.5 million people leaving Belarus in the half century preceding the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Russian Empire", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki