Misplaced Pages

#371628

58-435: Minsk Region covers a total area of 39,900 square kilometres (15,400 sq mi), about 19.44% of the total area of the entire country. Lake Narach , the largest lake in the country, is located in the northern part of the region. There are four other large lakes in this region: Svir (8th largest), Myadel (11th largest), Syalyava (14th largest) and Myastro (15th largest). It is the only region of Belarus whose border

116-486: A number of names, both contemporary and historical. Some of the most dissimilar are from the Old Belarusian period. Although closely related to other East Slavic languages , especially Ukrainian , Belarusian phonology is distinct in a number of ways. The phoneme inventory of the modern Belarusian language consists of 45 to 54 phonemes: 6 vowels and 39 to 48 consonants , depending on how they are counted. When

174-467: A number of radical changes. A fully phonetic orthography was introduced. One of the most distinctive changes brought in was the principle of akanye (Belarusian: а́канне ), wherein unstressed "o", pronounced in both Russian and Belarusian as /a/ , is written as "а". The Belarusian Academic Conference on Reform of the Orthography and Alphabet was convened in 1926. After discussions on the project,

232-517: A perception that Belarusian was a "rural" and "uneducated" language. However, the census was a major breakthrough for the first steps of the Belarusian national self-awareness and identity, since it clearly showed to the Imperial authorities and the still-strong Polish minority that the population and the language were neither Polish nor Russian. The rising influence of Socialist ideas advanced

290-799: A result of the Second Partition of Poland , the area was annexed by Russia as the Minsk Region. During the collapse of the Russian Empire due to the Civil War, the western part was annexed to Poland in 1921, while the east became Soviet Belarus . The Polish National District with its capital in Dzyarzhynsk was located in the Soviet-controlled part of the current oblast in the interwar period. The Minsk region

348-520: A study done by the Belarusian government in 2009, 72% of Belarusians speak Russian at home, while Belarusian is actively used by only 11.9% of Belarusians (others speak a mixture of Russian and Belarusian, known as Trasianka ). Approximately 29.4% of Belarusians can write, speak, and read Belarusian, while 52.5% can only read and speak it. Nevertheless, there are no Belarusian-language universities in Belarus. The Belarusian language has been known under

406-533: Is a lake in northwestern Belarus ( Myadzyel District , Minsk Region ), located in the basin of the Viliya river. It is the largest lake in Belarus (in 1921–39 it was the largest lake of Poland ). Narach is a part of the Narach lake group (the others being Miastra ( Belarusian : Мястра ), Batoryn ( Belarusian : Баторын ), and Blednaje ( Belarusian : Бледнае ). It was formed about 11 thousand years ago after

464-622: Is an East Slavic language . It is one of the two official languages in Belarus , alongside Russian . Additionally, it is spoken in some parts of Russia , Lithuania , Latvia , Poland , and Ukraine by Belarusian minorities in those countries. Before Belarus gained independence in 1991, the language was known in English as Byelorussian or Belorussian , or alternatively as White Russian . Following independence, it became known as Belarusian , or alternatively as Belarusan . As one of

522-555: Is declared as a "familiar language" by about 316,000 inhabitants, among them about 248,000 Belarusians, comprising about 30.7% of Belarusians living in Russia. In Ukraine , the Belarusian language is declared as a "native language" by about 55,000 Belarusians, which comprise about 19.7% of Belarusians living in Ukraine. In Poland , the Belarusian language is declared as a "language spoken at home" by about 40,000 inhabitants According to

580-399: Is found in the representation of vowel reduction, and in particular akanje , the merger of unstressed /a/ and /o/, which exists in both Russian and Belarusian. Belarusian always spells this merged sound as ⟨a⟩ , whereas Russian uses either ⟨a⟩ or ⟨o⟩ , according to what the "underlying" phoneme is (determined by identifying the related words where

638-400: Is mostly synthetic and partly analytic, and overall quite similar to Russian grammar . Belarusian orthography, however, differs significantly from Russian orthography in some respects, due to the fact that it is a phonemic orthography that closely represents the surface phonology, whereas Russian orthography represents the underlying morphophonology . The most significant instance of this

SECTION 10

#1732797979372

696-710: Is not part of the international border of Belarus. Beginning the 10th century, the territory of the current Minsk Region was part of Kievan Rus' , the Principality of Polotsk , and later it was included in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania . With the unification of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland , the territory became part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . In 1793, as

754-501: Is rarely used. Standardized Belarusian grammar in its modern form was adopted in 1959, with minor amendments in 1985 and 2008. It was developed from the initial form set down by Branislaw Tarashkyevich (first printed in Vilnius , 1918), and it is mainly based on the Belarusian folk dialects of Minsk - Vilnius region. Historically, there have been several other alternative standardized forms of Belarusian grammar. Belarusian grammar

812-512: Is the usual conventional borderline between the Ruthenian and Modern Belarusian stages of development. By the end of the 18th century, (Old) Belarusian was still common among the minor nobility in the eastern part, in the territory of present-day Belarus, of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (hereafter GDL). Jan Czeczot in the 1840s had mentioned that even his generation's grandfathers preferred speaking (Old) Belarusian. According to A. N. Pypin,

870-613: The Belarusian Democratic Republic , Belarusian was used as the only official language (decreed by Belarusian People's Secretariat on 28 April 1918). Subsequently, in the Byelorussian SSR , Belarusian was decreed to be one of the four (Belarusian, Polish, Russian, and Yiddish) official languages (decreed by Central Executive Committee of BSSR in February 1921). A decree of 15 July 1924 confirmed that

928-533: The German army . In 1919, German composer Siegfried Wagner set to music a poem by Günther Holstein (1892-1931) about a military battle, called Nacht am Narocz (Night at lake Narach). In the 1930s, the fishers of Narach rose against Polish authorities defending their right to exploit the lake. Since the 1950s, the lake has become a popular resort and tourism site, located in the resort town of Narach . A Young Pioneer camp of national importance Zubryonok

986-766: The Old Church Slavonic language. The modern Belarusian form was defined in 1918, and consists of thirty-two letters. Before that, Belarusian had also been written in the Belarusian Latin alphabet (Łacinka / Лацінка), the Belarusian Arabic alphabet (by Lipka Tatars ) and the Hebrew alphabet (by Belarusian Jews ). The Glagolitic script was used, sporadically, until the 11th or 12th century. There are several systems of romanization of Belarusian written texts. The Belarusian Latin alphabet

1044-468: The Pleistocene ice ages. It has a surface area of 79.6 km , a wider length of 12.8 km, a maximum depth of 24.8 m, average depth of 8.9 m, a volume of 710 million cubic meters. The lake is surrounded by pine forests. The Narach River flows out of it. Narach is the abode of 22 genera of fish, including eel , pike , burbot , etc. The shore and islets are nested by different birds, such as

1102-550: The Russian Academy of Sciences refused to print his submission, on the basis that it had not been prepared in a sufficiently scientific manner. From the mid-1830s ethnographic works began to appear, and tentative attempts to study the language were instigated (e.g. Shpilevskiy's grammar). The Belarusian literary tradition began to re-form, based on the folk language, initiated by the works of Vintsent Dunin-Martsinkyevich . See also : Jan Czeczot , Jan Barszczewski . At

1160-636: The mute swan , fish hawk , tarrock and dabchick . People settled near the lake about 10 thousand years ago. Linguists think that its name is probably from the Indo-European root * nar - often found in names of bodies of water (e.g., the Nara and Neris rivers). Archaeologists have excavated many burial mounds of the Baltic and Slavic people that lived around Narach. Since the Middle Ages ,

1218-509: The "soft sounding R" ( мякка-эравы ) and "strong akanye " ( моцнае аканне ), and the South-Western dialect is chiefly characterized by the "hard sounding R" ( цвёрда-эравы ) and "moderate akanye" ( умеранае аканне ). The West Polesian dialect group is separated from the rest of the country by the conventional line Pruzhany – Ivatsevichy – Tsyelyakhany – Luninyets – Stolin . There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility among

SECTION 20

#1732797979372

1276-431: The 1897 Russian Empire census , about 5.89 million people declared themselves speakers of Belarusian (then known as White Russian). The end of the 19th century, however, still showed that the urban language of Belarusian towns remained either Polish or Russian. The same census showed that towns with a population greater than 50,000 had fewer than a tenth Belarusian speakers. This state of affairs greatly contributed to

1334-562: The Belarusian grammar. In 1915, Rev. Balyaslaw Pachopka had prepared a Belarusian grammar using the Latin script. Belarusian linguist S. M. Nyekrashevich considered Pachopka's grammar unscientific and ignorant of the principles of the language. But Pachopka's grammar was reportedly taught in an unidentified number of schools, from 1918 for an unspecified period. Another grammar was supposedly jointly prepared by A. Lutskyevich and Ya. Stankyevich, and differed from Tarashkyevich's grammar somewhat in

1392-458: The Belarusian language was spoken in some areas among the minor nobility during the 19th century. In its vernacular form, it was the language of the smaller town dwellers and of the peasantry and it had been the language of oral folklore. Teaching in Belarusian was conducted mainly in schools run by the Basilian order . The development of Belarusian in the 19th century was strongly influenced by

1450-706: The Belarusian, Russian, Yiddish and Polish languages had equal status in Soviet Belarus. In the BSSR, Tarashkyevich's grammar had been officially accepted for use in state schooling after its re-publication in unchanged form, first in 1922 by Yazep Lyosik under his own name as Practical grammar. Part I , then in 1923 by the Belarusian State Publishing House under the title Belarusian language. Grammar. Ed. I. 1923 , also by "Ya. Lyosik". In 1925, Lyosik added two new chapters, addressing

1508-522: The Belarusian, Russian, and Ukrainian languages. Within East Slavic, the Belarusian language is most closely related to Ukrainian . The modern Belarusian language was redeveloped on the base of the vernacular spoken remnants of the Ruthenian language , surviving in the ethnic Belarusian territories in the 19th century. The end of the 18th century (the times of the Divisions of Commonwealth )

1566-554: The Commission had actually prepared the project for spelling reform. The resulting project had included both completely new rules and existing rules in unchanged and changed forms, some of the changes being the work of the Commission itself, and others resulting from the resolutions of the Belarusian Academic Conference (1926), re-approved by the Commission. Notably, the use of the Ь (soft sign) before

1624-663: The Conference made resolutions on some of the problems. However, the Lyosik brothers' project had not addressed all the problematic issues, so the Conference was not able to address all of those. As the outcome of the conference, the Orthographic Commission was created to prepare the project of the actual reform. This was instigated on 1 October 1927, headed by S. Nyekrashevich, with the following principal guidelines of its work adopted: During its work in 1927–29,

1682-419: The East Slavic languages, Belarusian shares many grammatical and lexical features with other members of the group. To some extent, Russian, Ukrainian , and Belarusian retain a degree of mutual intelligibility . Belarusian descends from a language generally referred to as Ruthenian (13th to 18th centuries), which had, in turn, descended from what is referred to as Old East Slavic (10th to 13th centuries). In

1740-840: The Minsk Region. On 20 September 1944, by the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR , the Gressky, Kopyl, Krasnoslobodski, Luban, Slutsky, Starobin, Starodorozhski districts and the city of Sluck were removed from the Minsk region and transferred to the newly formed Bobruisk Region . On 8 January 1954, by the decree of the USSR Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the Nesvizhski and Stolbtsovsky districts from

1798-498: The Russian language and literature department of St. Petersburg University, approached the board of the Belarusian newspaper Nasha Niva with a proposal that a Belarusian linguist be trained under his supervision in order to be able to create documentation of the grammar. Initially, the famous Belarusian poet Maksim Bahdanovič was to be entrusted with this work. However, Bahdanovič's poor health (tuberculosis) precluded his living in

Minsk Region - Misplaced Pages Continue

1856-468: The South-Western. In addition, there is a transitional Middle Belarusian dialect group and the separate West Polesian dialect group. The North-Eastern and the South-Western dialects are separated by a hypothetical line Ashmyany – Minsk – Babruysk – Gomel , with the area of the Middle Belarusian dialect group placed on and along this line. The North-Eastern dialect is chiefly characterized by

1914-545: The abolished Baranovichi Region , as well as the Glusk , Gressky , Kopyl, Krasnoslobodski, Luban, Slutsky, Starobin, Starodorozhski districts and the city of Sluck from the abolished Bobruisk Region , were added to the Minsk Region. In 1960, following the abolition of Molodechno Region , its southern part became the northern part of the Minsk Region. The number of travel agencies in Minsk Region grew from twelve in 2000 to seventy in 2010. The most popular tourist destinations of

1972-545: The all-Russian " narodniki " and Belarusian national movements (late 1870s–early 1880s) renewed interest in the Belarusian language (See also: Homan (1884) , Bahushevich , Yefim Karskiy , Dovnar-Zapol'skiy , Bessonov, Pypin, Sheyn, Nasovič). The Belarusian literary tradition was also renewed ( see also : F. Bahushevich ). It was in these times that F. Bahushevich made his famous appeal to Belarusians: "Do not forsake our language, lest you pass away" (Belarusian: Не пакідайце ж мовы нашай, каб не ўмёрлі ). The first dictionary of

2030-584: The beginning of the 1860s, both the Russian and Polish parties in Belarusian lands had begun to realise that the decisive role in the upcoming conflicts was shifting to the peasantry, overwhelmingly Belarusian. So a large amount of propaganda appeared, targeted at the peasantry and written in Belarusian; notably, the anti-Russian, anti-Tsarist, anti-Eastern Orthodox "Manifesto" and the first newspaper Mužyckaja prauda ( Peasants' Truth ) (1862–1863) by Konstanty Kalinowski , and anti-Polish, anti-Revolutionary, pro-Orthodox booklets and poems (1862). The advent of

2088-496: The climate of St. Petersburg, so Branislaw Tarashkyevich , a fresh graduate of the Vilnya Liceum No. 2 , was selected for the task. In the Belarusian community, great interest was vested in this enterprise. The already famous Belarusian poet Yanka Kupala , in his letter to Tarashkyevich, urged him to "hurry with his much-needed work". Tarashkyevich had been working on the preparation of the grammar during 1912–1917, with

2146-538: The educational system. The Polish and Russian languages were being introduced and re-introduced, while the general state of the people's education remained poor until the very end of the Russian Empire. In summary, the first two decades of the 19th century had seen the unprecedented prosperity of Polish culture and language in the former GDL lands, and had prepared the era of such famous Polish writers as Adam Mickiewicz and Władysław Syrokomla . The era had seen

2204-526: The effective completion of the Polonization of the lowest level of the nobility, the further reduction of the area of use of contemporary Belarusian, and the effective folklorization of Belarusian culture. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the 19th century "there began a revival of national pride within the country ... and a growth in interest [in Belarusian] from outside". Due both to the state of

2262-427: The emancipation of the Belarusian language even further ( see also: Belarusian Socialist Assembly , Circle of Belarusian People's Education and Belarusian Culture , Belarusian Socialist Lot , Socialist Party "White Russia" , Alaiza Pashkevich , Nasha Dolya ). The fundamental works of Yefim Karsky marked a turning point in the scientific perception of Belarusian. The ban on publishing books and papers in Belarusian

2320-399: The first Belarusian census in 1999, the Belarusian language was declared as a "language spoken at home" by about 3,686,000 Belarusian citizens (36.7% of the population). About 6,984,000 (85.6%) of Belarusians declared it their "mother tongue". Other sources, such as Ethnologue , put the figure at approximately 3.5 million active speakers in Belarus. In Russia , the Belarusian language

2378-467: The foreign speakers' task of learning these paradigms; on the other hand, though, it makes spelling easier for native speakers. An example illustrating the contrast between the treatment of akanje in Russian and Belarusian orthography is the spelling of the word for "products; food": Besides the standardized lect , there are two main dialects of the Belarusian language, the North-Eastern and

Minsk Region - Misplaced Pages Continue

2436-558: The help and supervision of Shakhmatov and Karskiy. Tarashkyevich had completed the work by the autumn of 1917, even moving from the tumultuous Petrograd of 1917 to the relative calm of Finland in order to be able to complete it uninterrupted. By the summer of 1918, it became obvious that there were insurmountable problems with the printing of Tarashkyevich's grammar in Petrograd: a lack of paper, type and qualified personnel. Meanwhile, his grammar had apparently been planned to be adopted in

2494-549: The local inhabitants have lived mainly by fishing and farming. In the 19th century, the most profitable work was fishing of crayfish. In the 20th century, the eel became the main marketable fish. During World War I , the surrounding area was a focal point of the Lake Naroch Offensive (March–April 1916), an inconclusive offensive operation mounted by forces of the Imperial Russian Army against

2552-823: The modern Belarusian language authored by Nasovič was published in 1870. In the editorial introduction to the dictionary, it is noted that: The Belarusian local tongue, which dominates a vast area from the Nioman and the Narew to the Upper Volga and from the Western Dvina to the Prypiac and the Ipuc and which is spoken by inhabitants of the North-Western and certain adjacent provinces, or those lands that were in

2610-462: The nine geminate consonants are excluded as mere variations, there are 39 consonants, and excluding rare consonants further decreases the count. The number 48 includes all consonant sounds, including variations and rare sounds, which may be phonetically distinct in the modern Belarusian language. The Belarusian alphabet is a variant of the Cyrillic script , which was first used as an alphabet for

2668-528: The orthography of compound words and partly modifying the orthography of assimilated words. From this point on, Belarusian grammar had been popularized and taught in the educational system in that form. The ambiguous and insufficient development of several components of Tarashkyevich's grammar was perceived to be the cause of some problems in practical usage, and this led to discontent with the grammar. In 1924–25, Lyosik and his brother Anton Lyosik prepared and published their project of orthographic reform, proposing

2726-422: The particularities of different Belarusian dialects. The scientific groundwork for the introduction of a truly scientific and modern grammar of the Belarusian language was laid down by the linguist Yefim Karsky. By the early 1910s, the continuing lack of a codified Belarusian grammar was becoming intolerably obstructive in the opinion of uniformitarian prescriptivists. Then Russian academician Shakhmatov , chair of

2784-567: The past settled by the Kryvic tribe , has long attracted the attention of our philologists because of those precious remains of the ancient Ruthenian language that survived in that tongue. In 1891, in the preface to the Belarusian Flute , Francišak Bahuševič wrote, "There have been many peoples, which first lost their language… and then they perished entirely. So do not abandon our Belarusian language, lest we perish!" According to

2842-509: The people's education and to the strong positions of Polish and Polonized nobility, it was only after the 1880s–1890s that the educated Belarusian element, still shunned because of "peasant origin", began to appear in state offices. In 1846, ethnographer Pavel Shpilevskiy prepared a Belarusian grammar (using the Cyrillic alphabet) on the basis of the folk dialects of the Minsk region. However,

2900-523: The political conflict in the territories of the former GDL, between the Russian Imperial authorities, trying to consolidate their rule over the "joined provinces", and the Polish and Polonized nobility, trying to bring back its pre-Partitions rule (see also Polonization in times of Partitions ). One of the important manifestations of this conflict was the struggle for ideological control over

2958-765: The region are Zaslavskoye Lake , the Zhdanovichi area which has health resorts, Nesvizh Palace and its surroundings, as well as the alpine ski resorts of Logoysk and Silichi . The Minsk Region comprises 22 districts ( raions ), 307 selsovets , 22 cities, 8 city municipalities, and 20 urban-type settlements . Population of cities and towns in Minsk Region according to 2023 estimates: 53°40′N 27°45′E  /  53.667°N 27.750°E  / 53.667; 27.750 Lake Nara%C4%8D Lake Narach ( Belarusian : На́рач , Narač pronounced [ˈnarat͡ʂ] ; Russian : На́рочь , Naročj ; Lithuanian : Narutis , Naročius , Polish : Narocz )

SECTION 50

#1732797979372

3016-542: The resolution of some key aspects. On 22 December 1915, Paul von Hindenburg issued an order on schooling in German Army-occupied territories in the Russian Empire ( Ober Ost ), banning schooling in Russian and including the Belarusian language in an exclusive list of four languages made mandatory in the respective native schooling systems (Belarusian, Lithuanian , Polish , Yiddish ). School attendance

3074-421: The vowel is being stressed or, if no such words exist, by written tradition, mostly but not always conforming to etymology). This means that Belarusian noun and verb paradigms, in their written form, have numerous instances of alternations between written ⟨a⟩ and ⟨o⟩ , whereas no such alternations exist in the corresponding written paradigms in Russian. This can significantly complicate

3132-437: The workers' and peasants' schools of Belarus that were to be set up, so Tarashkyevich was permitted to print his book abroad. In June 1918, he arrived in Vilnius , via Finland. The Belarusian Committee petitioned the administration to allow the book to be printed. Finally, the first edition of the "Belarusian grammar for schools" was printed ( Vil'nya , 1918). There existed at least two other contemporary attempts at codifying

3190-660: Was established on 15 January 1938, based on the amendment of the Constitutional Law of the USSR . As of 20 February 1938, the area included 20 districts. Following the Soviet invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939 at the start of World War II , the former eastern lands of the Second Polish Republic were annexed in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact partitioning Poland and added to

3248-683: Was located near the lake. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union the camp was reformed into the National Children's Recreational Camp " Zubrania ", which is now the most important children's recreational camp in Belarus. In 1999, the government of Belarus created the Narachanski National Park . Belarusian language Belarusian ( endonym : беларуская мова , romanized :  bielaruskaja mova , pronounced [bʲɛɫaˈruskaja ˈmɔva] )

3306-532: Was not made mandatory, though. Passports at this time were bilingual, in German and in one of the "native languages". Also at this time, Belarusian preparatory schools, printing houses, press organs were opened ( see also: Homan (1916) ). After the 1917 February Revolution in Russia, the Belarusian language became an important factor in political activities in the Belarusian lands ( see also: Central Council of Belarusian Organisations , Great Belarusian Council , First All-Belarusian Congress , Belnatskom ). In

3364-462: Was officially removed (25 December 1904). The unprecedented surge of national feeling in the 20th century, especially among the workers and peasants, particularly after the events of 1905, gave momentum to the intensive development of Belarusian literature and press (See also: Nasha Niva , Yanka Kupala , Yakub Kolas ). During the 19th and early 20th century, there was no normative Belarusian grammar. Authors wrote as they saw fit, usually representing

#371628