The bestseller book "Краіна Беларусь" translated into English!

An illustrated history. Text — Uladzimir Arloŭ. Design —Źmicier Hierasimovič. Translation — Jim Dingley. Reviewers: Dr. Anatoĺ Hryckievič, Dr. Hieorhi Štychaŭ. Editor of the original Belarusian text: Źmicier Sańko. Consultant and assistant in the choice of illustrative materials: Alieś Biely. — KALLIGRAM, spol s r.o., 2012. — 400 pages. : illustrated. — Hardcover.

ISBN 978-8081-01692-9

This book for the general reader offers a survey of the history of Belarus from the earliest period up to the beginning of the 20th century. On its pages readers will meet the great figures of Belarusian history. They will discover how Belarusians lived at different stages of their history, what wars they had to fight and how they developed culturally.

The book contains more than two thousand illustrations, including unique manuscript miniatures, mediaeval engravings and rare photographs. Many of the illustrations have never previously been published. The history of Belarus is here presented as an integral part of the development of European civilization as a whole.

CONTENTS

Before the coming of Homo sapiens
The evidence for early human habitation in Belarus
Homo sapiens discovers metals
Religion and art in prehistoric times
At the dawn of the Middle Ages
The Slavs
Kryvičians, Dryhavičians and Radzimičians
How people lived in the early Middle Ages
Pre-Christian beliefs
The Principality of Polacak
The coming of Christianity
Polacak regains its independence
Prince Usiaslaŭ the Sorcerer
The fight with Kyiv
The Principality of Smaliensk
The Principality of Turaŭ
The prince and the popular assembly
Feudal disintegration
Peasants and lords
Urban settlements between the 10th and the 13th centuries
St Eŭfrasińnia of Polacak
St Kiryla of Turaŭ
The culture of old Belarus
The struggle against the crusaders
A new state
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Grand Duke Aĺhierd
The Union of Kreva
Vitaŭt the Great
The Battle of Grunwald
The structure of the state
Rural life in the 14th and 15th centuries
Belarusian towns and the Magdeburg Law
The Belarusian people
Belarusian culture in the 14th and 15th centuries
The armed forces of the Grand Duchy
Defence of the realm
Francišak Skaryna
The Renaissance in Belarus
The Livonian War
The Union of Lublin
The Statutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
Lieŭ Sapieha
The Reformation
The Church Union of Bieraście
The century of bloodshed
Belarusians in Muscovy
The Great Northern War
The final years of the Commonwealth
Science and culture in the period from the mid-17th to the late 18th centuries
The insurrection of 1794 and Tadevuš Kaściuška
Belarus in the Russian Empire
The war of 1812
Secret societies
The 1831 uprising
National oppression
Education and science in the first half of the 19th century
Literature and art in the first half of the 19th century
Liberal reforms
Kastuś Kalinoŭski
The 1863 uprising
The Belarusian narodniki The Belarusian nation
The culture of Belarus in the second half of the 19th century
Francišak Bahuševič
Revolutionary events: choosing the way forward
Belarus awakens
The newspaper Naša Niva
The First World War
The First All-Belarusian Congress
The Belarusian Democratic Republic

Translator's Note to the Reader

This book tells the story, from a uniquely Belarusian perspective, of how Belarus came to be. For the reader this means that place names and the names of prominent historical figures appear in guises that differ, sometimes markedly, from what is traditionally regarded as 'standard'.

For instance, the hero of both the American Revolution and the anti-Russian insurrection of 1794, Tadeusz Kościuszko, was actually born in what is now Belarus and appears in this book as Tadevuš Kaściuška. The capital of Belarus is usually known as Minsk; in Belarusian it is Miensk; the regional centres often called Brest and Hrodna are for Belarusians Bieraście and Horadnia, respectively. The name of the Belarusian city where Marc Chagall was born is usually spelt as Vitebsk; in Belarusian it is in fact Viciebsk.

Cities in lands adjacent to what is now the Republic of Belarus also played a crucial role in the history of the region as a whole. Of these the most important is undoubtedly what is now the capital of the modern Republic of Lithuania, Vilnius. For Belarusians it is Viĺnia.

This principle is extended to Ukrainian names. The capital of Ukraine is Kyiv, rather than Kiev; the name of the ruler who brought Orthodox Christianity to this part of the world is Volodymyr, not Vladimir.

It has to be remembered that the small modern Baltic state called Lithuania (Lietuva in its official language) should not be confused with the multiethnic historical Grand Duchy of Lithuania, in which the dominant part was played by the ancestors of modern Belarusians.

As an aid to the reader, when a place or personal name is mentioned for the first time in its Belarusian form, the more familiar form - usually Polish - is sometimes given in brackets. The system of transliteration from the Belarusian Cyrillic script employed in this book is the only one permitted by law for use in the Republic of Belarus.