Along the Polish-Belarusian border grows Europe’s largest primeval forest: the Belovezh Pushcha, reputedly haunted by a six-armed spirit. Many armies have perished in its swamps, and it was at a summit here in 1991 the USSR passed into history.
For centuries, the people of Belarus were neglected and oppressed by ruling feudal dynasties of Lithuania, Poland and Russia. Exiting World War One, the Bolsheviks handed Belarus to the Germans, sparking an early nationalist movement.
After Germany’s defeat, ‘Byelorussia’ became a co-founder of the USSR. Even nationalists acknowledged the early success of the Soviet system in the new republic. But later they allied themselves with Hitler’s Germany, hoping to achieve independence. Under Nazi occupation (1941-44) Belarus’s population fell by a quarter, and 800,000 Jews – 90 per cent of the total Jewish population – were killed.
After the war, Belarus again became a key industrial centre of the USSR, with tractors and motorcycles its most recognizable exports. Of all the Soviet republics, Belarus suffered most from the nuclear fallout of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Attempts to conceal the disaster’s impact radicalized part of the Belarusian intelligentsia, leading to a flourishing of opposition: including anti-Soviet nationalism.
After the demise of the USSR, power was contested between post-Soviet and pro-Western forces, and independence was followed by factory closures, falling standards of living and hyperinflation. In the 1994 presidential elections, both sides of the new regime and resurgent nationalists were defeated by former state-farm director Alexander Lukashenko. He promised alignment with Russia, social stability and a fight against corruption.
Under Lukashenko, Belarus returned to its former Soviet iconography. While strengthening his own power, Lukashenko gained popular support by implementing price controls and halting privatization. By the late 1990s Lukashenko was already being called ‘Europe’s last dictator’, but his record for economic stability had won him popularity in both Belarus and Russia. Nonetheless, Belarus became more integrated into the global market and suffered in the world financial crisis of 2008.
In the 2010s, the government implemented two devaluations of the national currency. Incomes fell while privatization and liberalization resumed. Lukashenko’s state capitalism was becoming less social and more neoliberal, and his popularity was melting.
Observers have condemned most recent elections in Belarus, but when Lukashenko claimed an 80 per cent win in 2020, mass protests broke out, with an estimated 10 per cent of Belarusians taking part. The mainly pro-Western opposition won extensive support from Belarus’s new middle class, but much of the working class remained sceptical of its support for large-scale privatization. This – along with fear of repression – perhaps explains why the protests did not grow even larger than they did, in spite of widespread feeling that the election was a sham.
Thousands were imprisoned during the initial crackdown. By Lukashenko’s own admission, labour unrest in key state-owned industries played a role in getting the authorities to abandon some of their most brutal tactics. The EU imposed sanctions and Lukashenko retaliated by inviting refugees from the Middle East to travel via Belarus to Poland (see Currents, NI 535), sparking a migration crisis on Fortress Europe’s eastern frontier.
Lukashenko, meanwhile, received substantial support from Moscow in quashing the demonstrations. Belarus’s escalating involvement in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has underlined how now, more than ever, Lukashenko is a hostage of the Kremlin.
At a glance
- Leader
- President Alexander Lukashenko
- Economy
- GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) $19,148 (GDP per capita 6,222) (Russia PPP: $26,456; UK PPP: $45,170)
- Main Exports
- Re-exporting Russian oil and petrochemicals to the EU. Tractors, farming machinery, agricultural equipment and produce to Russia and countries of the Eurasian Customs Union. Belarus has a negative balance of payments.
- Monetary unit
- Belarusian ruble (1 BYN = $ 0.39).
- Population
- 9.45 million, slowly shrinking due to emigration and low birth rate. Population density 45.3 per sq km. (Ukraine 76; UK 281)
- Health
- Under-5 mortality rate: 2.9 per 1,000 live births (Russia 5.4; UK 4.2). Maternal mortality per 100,000 live births: 2 (Russia: 17; UK 7). 1.1 million citizens live in Chernobyl contamination zone.
- Environment
- Many forests and swamplands, with moderate continental climate. Soil contamination and population exposure is gradually decreasing in Chernobyl fallout zone. Forest fires are increasingly frequent due to climate change, but Belarus is less affected than Russia and Ukraine due to a more effective forest management system.
- Culture
- Belarus was home to people of 130 ethnicities. Among them, the most well-represented are Belarusians (7.9 million or 84.9%), Russians (706,992 or 7.5%), Poles (287, 693 or 3.1%) and Ukrainians (159, 656 or 1.7%).
- Religion
- A rather secular state, with 48.3% identifying as Russian Orthodox, 7.1% Catholic (mainly the Polish minority and some in western regions), 41.1% no religion. Prior to the Holocaust, Belarus had a large Jewish population.
- Language
- Russian (official, spoken by 80% of population). Belarusian (official, spoken by 23% of the population but only 10% day-to-day). A preference for Belarusian is usually linked to nationalist and/or pro-Western positions. Small Polish and Ukrainian-speaking minorities.
- Hdi
- 0.823 (53 out of 189 countries and territories)
