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Belarusian ( endonym : беларуская мова , romanized :  bielaruskaja mova , pronounced [bʲɛɫaˈruskaja ˈmɔva] ) 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.

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64-643: The Sozh ( Belarusian : Сож , romanized :  Sož , IPA: [sɔʐ] ; Russian : Сож ; Ukrainian : Сож ) is a river flowing in Russia , Belarus , and Ukraine . It is a left bank tributary of the Dnieper . The Sozh passes through Gomel , the second largest city in Belarus. The river is crossed by the Sozh Floating Bridge at Karma and an elegant steel arch at Gomel, which

128-533: 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 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

192-486: 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

256-467: 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,

320-458: 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

384-451: Is an old and prominent Russian noble family, whose members were involved in imperial politics in the 18th and early 19th century. They were granted the title of Count in Russia . The family claimed descent from the boyar Rumyanets who broke his oath of allegiance and surrendered Nizhny Novgorod to Vasily I of Moscow in 1391. The first Rumyantsev to gain prominence, Alexander Ivanovich (1680–1749), served as ordinary of Peter

448-507: Is featured on a Rbls  300 national stamp. The original name was Sozh' ( Russian : Сожь ), from Old East Slavic Съжь. With the previously suggested Baltic and Finnic etymologies considered unsatisfactory, Vadim Andreevich Zhuchkevich proposed that the name is derived from Old Russian/Old Belarusian sozhzh' (сожжь) 'burned parts of a forest prepared for plowing,' which has parallels to other place names. The Sozh rises in Russia and

512-399: 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

576-477: Is located in an area radioactively polluted as a result of the Chernobyl disaster that occurred on 26 April 1986. High radiation levels due to iodine-131 (20,000 kBq/m) and strontium-90 (137 kBq/m) were measured in the soil in the entire Vetka district after the accident. This disaster also resulted in a large-scale relocation of population. A Folk Art Museum, founded in 1987, has exhibits depicting

640-565: Is located on the hill above the bank of Sozh river, in Berdizh village. Remains of woolly mammoth have also been found along the Sozh River. Sozh River deposits that extend into Smolensk Oblast providing a supply of ground phosphate to Krychaw and Klimavichy rock plants. Phosphorite is found along the river between Mstislavl and Krichev. Many other construction materials, such as chalk, clay, sand, and gravel are also distributed in

704-547: Is mostly snow fed. The river freezes over between November and early January. The ice thaws from late March or April. The Vikhra and Pronia , on the right, and the Ostyor , Besed , Iput and Uts on the left are its main tributaries. It is one of the six tributaries longer than 500 km that join the Dnieper – the third longest river in Europe at 2,201 km. The Sozh has navigational locks in its upper reaches where it

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768-400: 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

832-424: Is navigable from Krychaw . Timber is floated along the river. The mouth of the river is 150m broad and swampy. The catchment area of the river is 42,140 square kilometres (16,270 sq mi) along its 648 kilometres (403 mi) length, 21,700 square kilometres (8,400 sq mi) and 493 kilometres (306 mi) within Belarus. The mean discharge recorded at Gomel, 100 kilometres (62 mi) upstream from

896-501: 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

960-571: 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,

1024-613: 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

1088-766: 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

1152-623: The Rumyantsevs and the Paskeviches who were statesmen and military commanders of the Russian Empire. The town is now an important industrial center with a population of about half million. Located in the region of the Chernobyl disaster , Gomel and its surrounding area still suffers from subsisting levels of radiation. Vetka is a small town, 22 kilometres (14 mi) northeast of Gomel, surrounded by forest and marshy land. It

1216-550: 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

1280-509: 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

1344-431: 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

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1408-562: 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

1472-574: The Belarusian language is declared as a "language spoken at home" by about 40,000 inhabitants According to 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

1536-458: 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

1600-706: 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

1664-522: 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 )

1728-554: 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

1792-663: 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,

1856-552: The Great in the Preobrazhensky regiment . In 1720 he married Countess Maria Matveyeva , daughter and heiress of Count Andrey Matveyev . Peter's daughter Elizabeth recalled Rumyantsev to active service and made him a hereditary count as well as Governor of Kiev . Their son Pyotr Alexandrovich (1725–96) took his name from that of the ruling Emperor and was rumored to have been his natural son. In 1761 he besieged and took

1920-645: The Prussian fortress of Kolberg , thus clearing for Russian armies the path to Berlin . During Catherine II 's reign he served as Governor General of Little Russia , or Ukraine . After crossing the Danube River into Bulgaria and signing the advantageous Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca with the Turks in 1774, Rumyantsev was promoted Field Marshal and was given the victory title of Zadunaisky (literally, "Transdanubian"). His sister, Praskovja Bruce (1729–85),

1984-498: 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

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2048-468: 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

2112-545: 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

2176-650: The ancient artefacts, carved wooden entrance doors, manuscripts, traditional costumes and woven rushniki . Anthropomorphized forms of Russian myths include tales of rivalry between the Sozh, described as wild and turbulent, and the Dnieper, which is described as quiet and leisurely. Excavations have unearthed a Palaeolithic boat in the soils of the Sozh River, which has been preserved in the Museum of Ancient Belarusian Culture. The remains of pantheist temples were excavated in

2240-584: 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

2304-639: The border between Khislavichsky and Shumyachsky District of Smolensk Oblast in the east, and Mogilev Region of Belarus in the west. Many of the cities and towns located in the river valley are part of the river's history of events. Several centuries ago, the East Slavic Radimichi tribal people lived in the Sozh River basin and established the Gomel town. The They were involved in agricultural practices, rearing cattle, fishing and honey collection. They were craftsmen, and they were good tradesman as

2368-496: 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

2432-454: The combinations "consonant+iotated vowel" ("softened consonants"), which had been previously denounced as highly redundant (e.g., in the proceedings of the Belarusian Academic Conference (1926)), was cancelled. However, the complete resolution of the highly important issue of the orthography of unstressed Е ( IE ) was not achieved. Rumyantsev family The Rumyantsev family ( Russian : Румянцевы , romanized :  Rumyantsevy )

2496-474: 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

2560-526: 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

2624-427: 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

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2688-499: The figure at approximately 3.5 million active speakers in Belarus. In Russia , the Belarusian language 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 ,

2752-467: 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

2816-558: 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

2880-504: 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 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

2944-823: 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

3008-490: The mounds of Tushemlia and Haradok on the Sozh River and dated to the 3rd and 4th centuries. These temples have been inferred as temples erected by Balts for worship of gods and goddesses. Through the end of the 14th century, during the Grand Duchy of Lithuania period, pantheistic religion was prevalent in the region. Another Palaeolithic site, discovered by Konstantin Mikhailovich Polikarpovich ,

3072-490: The mouth, is 207 m/s. Important historical towns on the banks of the main river and its tributaries are: Krychaw , Cherykaw , Slawharad , Gomel and Vietka . In Russia, the Sozh has its source in Smolensky District and flows through Pochinkovsky and Khislavichsky Districts of Smolensk Oblast. The urban-type settlement of Khislavichi is located on the banks of the Sozh. It flows further south, making

3136-462: 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

3200-528: 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

3264-422: 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

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3328-567: 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

3392-509: 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,

3456-523: 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

3520-605: 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

3584-496: The river provided navigation to the northwestern and southeastern parts of Europe . Gomel, a river port and a railhead, is also known as Homyel or Homiel. It is situated to the southeast of Belarus, and is the capital (administrative centre) of the Gomel Region . It is located on the western bank of the Sozh River, about 300 km from Minsk , and close to the border with Russia and Ukraine. The earliest reported occupation of

3648-543: The river region as are many mineral water springs. The Sozh is one of the two chief rivers of Mogilev in the Smolensk Oblast where the trade in the early part of the 20th century, involving primarily paper, oil, wire nails, flour, glass, and matches, was predominantly in the hands of the large Jewish population. Main tributaries: Vihra , Oster , Pronya, Besed , Iput , Khmara, Peschanka . Belarusian language Before Belarus gained independence in 1991,

3712-455: The town was in 1142, under Kievan Rus. This was followed by Lithuanian control in 1537, then Polish under the Truce of Andrusovo , and later under Russia in 1772. Embankments were built on the banks of the Sozh River . As a result, "a unique nature-architecture ensemble grew on the high picturesque bank of the Sozh River right in the historical center of Gomel." These monuments are credited to

3776-421: 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

3840-437: 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

3904-520: Was gutted twice by invading Tsarist forces in 1735 and 1764 which forced the residents to resettle in Eastern Russia. It was renowned for the unique icon style paintings and also wood carvings. It was annexed by the Russian Empire , in 1852. Ships were manufactured here from 1840. During World War II , the town was occupied by the Nazis who killed many of the residents. Vetka, on the Sozh River,

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3968-584: 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

4032-462: 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

4096-573: Was the confidant and lady-in-waiting of Catherine the Great , who entrusted her with her private affairs and was known in history as the so-called " l'éprouveuse " (= " the (lovers) tester "). During the Napoleonic wars , Zadunaisky's son Nikolay Petrovich (1754–1826) held the highest offices of state, including those of Minister of Commerce (1802–11), President of the State Council (1810–12), Foreign Minister (1808–12), and Chancellor of

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