BELARUS (WHITE RUSSIA). - One of the 16 federated Republics constituting the U.S.S.R.

Having proclaimed itself autonomous in 1918 and adopted the Soviet regime in 1920, it was recognized by the new Russian government on 16 Jan. 1921; it then became part of the U.S.S.R. as a federated State on 30 Dec. 1922. Its territory, which originally comprised only that part of the old government of Minsk that had not been annexed to Poland (59,600 sq. km. with 1.6 million inhabitants), was enlarged toward the east in 1924-26 with the aggregation of the old governments of Vitebsk (excepting Latgallia, which passed to Latvia) and of Mogilev. On the eve of the Second World War B. extended over 126,600 sq. km. and counted 5.6 million inhabitants. Following the collapse of Poland in Sept. 1939, B. incorporated its territories north of the Pripet, except the Vilna area ceded to Lithuania, and thus became a State of 226,000 sq. km. with 10 million inhabitants. In July 1941, invaded by the Germans, it was aggregated to the Commissariat of Ostland; liberated by the Soviets in the summer of 1944, it was reconstituted within the frontiers of 1939, except for the cession of the Bialystok-Suwalki sector (11,000 sq. km. with about 600,000 inhabitants) to the new Polish Republic.

At present B. extends over 215,000 sq. km. and counts 9.4 million inhabitants.

In 1926 the Bielorussians (who belong, like the Ukrainians and the Great Russians, to the Russo-Slavic family) formed 81% of the population (as against barely 8% of Great Russians).

Their name is due to the prevalence of white (bielo) in their traditional costumes; their individuality finds expression in a physical type more slender and delicate than the other Russian peoples, and in the language, fairly well differentiated within the sphere of the Eastern Slavic domain. After the recent war the number of Jews (8.2%

in 1926) living in the Bielorussian cities has decreased, and the same has probably happened with the other Jewish minorities (Poles). The percentage of the urban population had grown very little in the prewar period (from 17 to 25% between 1926 and 1939), while the flow of Bielorussians toward the northern regions of the U.S.S.R. and Siberia remained considerable. Illiteracy, on the other hand, had fallen from 47 to 21% in the same period.

Minsk (in Bielorussian Mensk), on a tributary of the Beresina, is the capital of B.; it counted 239,000 inhabitants in 1939 (of whom 2/5 were Israelites). Vitebsk (167,000 inhabitants), Gomel (144) and Mogilev (99) are, after the capital, the only inhabited centers that exceed or approach 100,000 inhabitants. The notable shift westward of the European frontier of the U.S.S.R. has somewhat changed the strategic-commercial position of these centers, without however substantially altering the function of B., which remains one of the most delicate marginal zones of the entire Soviet system.

For ecclesiastical history, v. RUSSIA.

Bibliography8 works

BIBL.: G. Kuchinka, Das Poljesie im westlichen Russland, in Peterm. Mitteil., 2 (1911), p. 235 ff.; L. Wasilewski, Die Ostprovinzen des alten Polenreiches, Krakow 1917; B. Brandt, Das Pripetischen, in Peterm. Mitteil., 1918, pp. 16-21; P. Camena d'Almeida, Russie, in Géographie Universelle, Paris 1932, pp. 124-29; M. Friederischen, Russland, in Handbuch d. Georg. Wissenschaft., Osteuropa, Potsdam 1933, pp. 387-92; M. Slonim, Les onze Républiques soviétiques, Paris 1937, pp. 216-22; A. Fichelle, Géographie physique et économique de l'U.R.S.S., Paris 1946; F. Lorimer, The Population of the Soviet Union: History and Prospects, Geneva 1946.

Giuseppe Caraci

@incollection{ec2_bielorussia_russia_bianca, author = {Caraci, Giuseppe}, title = {Bielorussia (Russia Bianca)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {II}, pages = {1628--1629}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1949}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/bielorussia-russia-bianca} }

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Belarus (White Russia)

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