Mutt

This sure doesn't sound like Belarus was always part of Russia, it's been yanked back and forth between Poland and Russia. It had its own culture and language and the Russians forced them to be become 'Russian'.

This is the problem with Europe, its history is filled with wars that never get forgotten and each country chooses to remember history biased towards their people being the wounded party

You choose to believe that Belarus has always been Russia, to do that you have to go back 1500 years before Russia existed and the Kiev Rus ruled Belarus. A lot happened in those next 1000+ years.



During this time, the territories of Belarus were acquired by the Russian Empire under the reign of Catherine II and held until their occupation by the German Empire during World War I.

Although under Nicholas I and Alexander III the national cultures were repressed due to the policies of de-Polonization and Russification, 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 the Belarusian language, including Jan Czeczot, Władysław Syrokomla and Konstanty Kalinowski.

In a Russification drive in the 1840s, Nicholas I 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. After the failed revolt, the Russian government reintroduced the use of Cyrillic to Belarusian in 1864 and banned the use of the Latin alphabet.

During the negotiations of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Belarus first declared independence under German occupation on 25 March 1918, forming the Belarusian People's Republic.Immediately afterwards, the Polish?Soviet War ignited, and the territory of Belarus was divided between Poland and the Soviet Russia.

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