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Belarusians

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Belarusians
Regions with significant populations
 Belarus: 8,159,073[1]
 Russia521,443[2]
 United States600.000[3]
 Ukraine275,763[4]
 Israel130.000[3]
 Kazakhstan66,476[5]
 Latvia68,174[6]
 Canada50,000 - 70,000[7]
 Brazil45,000 - 80,000 [8]
 Poland50,000 - 70,000[8]
 Lithuania41,100[9]
 Moldova20,000[3]
 Australia20,000[3]
 Estonia17,241[10]
 Argentina7,000[3]
 Great Britain7,000[3]
 Belgium2,000[3]
 Greece1,168[11]
 Portugal1,002[12]
 Armenia260[13]
Languages
Belarusian, Russian
Religion
Predominantly Orthodox Christianity;
Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic and Protestant minorities. Judaism [14]
Related ethnic groups
Other Slavs, particularly other East Slavs [15]

Belarusians (Template:Lang-be, Template:Lang-ru, byelorusy) are an East Slavic ethnic group who populate the majority of the Republic of Belarus. Introduced to the world as a new state in the early 1990s, the Republic of Belarus brought with it the notion of a re-emerging Belarusian ethnicity, drawn upon the lines of the Old Belarusian language spoken by the Ruthenian ethnic group that ruled (together with ancestors of today's Lithuanians) the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. However, after the creation of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, many of the Old Belarusian-speaking Ruthenian nobles would be absorbed by the Polish szlachta in the West and, later, the Russian nobility in the East, leaving only a small rural-dwelling population to be the propagators of a distinct non-literary Belarusian language up until its revival. There are over 8 million people who associate themselves with the Belarusian nationality today.

Location

See also: Belarusian diaspora
Ethnic territory of Belarusians
  According to Y. Karskiy (1903)
  According to M. Dovnar-Zapol'skiy (1919)
  Modern state boundaries

Belarusians also form minorities in neighboring Poland (especially in the Białystok Voivodeship), Russia and Lithuania. At the beginning of 20th century Belarusians constituted a majority in the regions around Smolensk.[citation needed]

Noticeable numbers have emigrated to the United States, Brazil and Canada in the early 20th century. During Soviet times, many Belarusians were deported or migrated to various regions of the USSR, including Siberia, Kazakhstan and Ukraine.

Since the breakup of the USSR several hundred thousand have emigrated to the European Union, United States, Canada and Russia.

Languages

The most spoken language in Belarus is Russian, principally spoken by 72% of the population, while the other official language, Belarusian, is only used by 11.9%[16] in every day life. Statistical data shows that Belarusian is fluently communicated, read and written by 29.4%, while 52.5% of the population can communicate and read in Belarusian.[16] Belarusian is a language of the Eastern Slavic group.

Genetics

File:R1a1a distribution.png
Frequency distribution of R1a1a, also known as R-M17 and R-M198, adapted from Underhill et al (2009).

Belarusians show the characteristic R1a genes of the male ancestorship at 51%, similar to other East slav groups. Such large frequencies of R1a have been found only in East Europe and India.[17]

Genetical studies show that genetically Belarusians have close genetical similarities with Poles, Russians and Ukrainians, which belong to the same group. A study of the Y chromosome in East Slavs groups shows that there is no significant variation in the Y chromosome between Belarusians, Poles, central-southern Russians and Ukrainians, and it is overlapped by their vast similarities, thus revealing an overwhelmingly shared patrilineal ancestry.[18][19][20]

A genetic portrait of modern Belarusians documents A separation of subpopulations along the south-north line, which is demonstrated particularly in distribution of Y chromosomal lineages R1b, I1a and I1b, N3 and G-chromosomes, has been noted; east-west gradient is insignificant.[21]

Name

The name Belarus can be literally translated as White Ruthenia that is a historical region in the east of modern Republic of Belarus, known in Latin as Ruthenia Alba. This name was in use in the West for some time in history, together with White Ruthenes, White Russians (though not to be confused with the political group of White Russians that opposed the Bolsheviks during the Russian Civil War) and similar forms. Belarusians trace their name back to the people of Rus' {{citation}}: Empty citation (help).

Commonwealth of Polish Kingdom and Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 17th century
  Kingdom of Poland
  Duchy of Prussia, Polish fief
  Grand Duchy of Lithuania
  Duchy of Courland, a joint fief
  Livonia

History

Baltic population in the 12th century

The Belarusian people trace their distinct culture to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and earlier Kievan Rus and the Principality of Polatsk. Most Belarusians are descendants of the East Slav tribes Dregovichs, Krivichs and Radimichs, as well as of a Baltic tribe of Jotvingians who lived in the west and north-west of today's Belarus.[22]

In 13th-18th centuries Belarusians were mostly known under the name of Ruthenians which refers to the Eastern part of state of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Litva, Vialikaja Litva) of which the White Ruthenian, Black Ruthenian and Polesian lands were part of since the 13th-14th centuries and where Ruthenian language which developed in Old Belarusian language gradually became the dominant written language in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, that replaced Latin. Casimir's Code of 1468 and all three editions of Statutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1529, 1566, and 1588) were written in Old Belarusian language. Eventually it was replaced by Polish.

On the grounds of the dominance of Ruthenian language (which later evolved into modern Belarusian and Ukrainian Languages) culture in the Eastern parts of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, some modern Belarusian scholars and people in Belarus count that Grand Duchy of Lithuania was mostly Belarusian state when it existed.[23][24][25][26]

Between 1791 and 1917 much of Belarus, with its Christian and Jewish populations, was acquired by the Russian Empire in a series of military conquests and diplomatic manoeuvres, and was part of a region known as the Pale of Settlement.

After World War I Belarusians revived their own statehood, with varying degrees of independence - first as the short-lived Belarusian National Republic under German occupation, then as the Byelorussian SSR from 1919 until 1991, which merged with other republics to become a constituent member of the Soviet Union in 1922). Belarus gained full independence with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Draniki, traditional Belarusian potato pancakes

Cuisine

Main article: Belarusian cuisine

See also

References and notes

  1. ^ 1999 census
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ a b c d e f g http://www.belarustime.ru/belarus/culture/diaspore/c6420f28d9870602.html
  4. ^ Про кількість та склад населення України за підсумками Всеукраїнського перепису населення 2001 року Template:Ref-uk
  5. ^ [2]
  6. ^ [3]
  7. ^ Multiculturalcanada.ca
  8. ^ a b 2002 census
  9. ^ [4]
  10. ^ 2000 census
  11. ^ http://www.statistics.gr/portal/page/portal/ESYE/BUCKET/A1605/Other/A1605_SPO15_TB_AN_00_2006_07_F_EN.pdf
  12. ^ http://sefstat.sef.pt/Docs/Distritos_2009.pdf
  13. ^ http://www.armenia-new.belembassy.org/rus/soot/
  14. ^ CIA - The World Factbook -- Belarus -- People -- Religions -- 1997 Census
  15. ^ http://www.ethnologue.com/%5C/15/show_family.asp?subid=90707
  16. ^ a b Belta.by
  17. ^ Behar, Doron M.; Thomas, Mark G.; Skorecki, Karl; Hammer, Michael F.; Bulygina, Ekaterina; Rosengarten, Dror; Jones, Abigail L.; Held, Karen; Moses, Vivian; Goldstein, David; Bradman, Neil; Weale, Michael E. (2003). "Multiple Origins of Ashkenazi Levites: Y Chromosome Evidence for Both Near Eastern and European Ancestries". American Journal of Human Genetics. 73 (4): 768–779. doi:10.1086/378506. PMC 1180600. PMID 13680527.
  18. ^ "DK Zelenin, Ethnographical divisions of East Slavs"[full citation needed]
  19. ^ Balanovsky, Oleg; et al. (2008). "Two Sources of the Russian Patrilineal Heritage in Their Eurasian Context". American Journal of Human Genetics. 82 (1): 236–250. doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2007.09.019. PMC 2253976. PMID 18179905. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |last2= (help)
  20. ^ Malyarchuk, Boris; et al. (2004). "Differentiation of Mitochondrial DNA and Y Chromosomes in Russian Populations". Human Biology. 76 (6): 877–900. doi:10.1353/hub.2005.0021. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |last2= (help)
  21. ^ Genetic portrait of modern Belarusians: mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome perspective. Alena Kushniarevich, 1Larysa Sivitskaya, 1Nina Danilenko, 2Richard Villems, 1Oleg Davydenko 1Institute of Genetics and Cytology, Academicheskaya Str 27, Belarus, 2Estonian Biocenter, Riia Str 23, Estonia
  22. ^ http://www.krugosvet.ru/enc/istoriya/BELORUSI.html Энциклопедия Кругосвет
  23. ^ http://www.hetman.by/files/data/historyone_en.pdf
  24. ^ http://flagspot.net/flags/by-arms.html
  25. ^ http://depts.washington.edu/baltic/papers/grandduchy.htm
  26. ^ Zejmis, Jakub, “Belarusian National Historiography and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as a Belarusian State,” Zeitschrift fur Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung , 1999, 48, p. 383.
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