Veterinarian who chaired the First All-Belarusian Congress and, as chairman of the Rada, presided over the declaration of independence
Born in Zadzvieja in the Minsk Governorate in 1879, he graduated from the veterinary school in Warsaw in 1903 and worked as a veterinarian and as a teacher at the agricultural college in Marjina Horka. He served in the Russo-Japanese War and was active in the Belarusian Socialist Hramada. Elected chairman of the First All-Belarusian Congress in December 1917, he was arrested when it was dispersed. In February 1918 he was a Belarusian delegate at the Brest-Litovsk peace talks; as chairman of the Rada from March he presided over the session of 24–25 March that proclaimed independence, and from July to November he headed the People’s Secretariat. In the 1920s he worked in agriculture in Soviet Byelorussia; arrested in 1930 in the case of the “Union of Liberation of Belarus”, he passed through exile and the Gulag, and his fate after his release in 1943 is unknown.
Career timeline
1907–1911Veterinarian in the Minsk Governorate; teacher at the Marjina Horka agricultural college
1917Chairman of the First All-Belarusian Congress
1918Member of the Belarusian delegation at the Brest-Litovsk peace talks
1918Chairman of the Rada of the Belarusian People’s Republic
1918Chairman of the People’s Secretariat and secretary for foreign affairs
1925–1929Docent at the Belarusian Agricultural Academy
Chairman of the Rada of the Belarusian People’s Republic from 1919 until his death, leading it in exile from Prague
Born in 1879 into the family of a village church deacon in the Grodno Governorate, he graduated from the seminary in Vilnius, worked as a teacher and from 1909 was employed at the Vilnius State Bank. In 1917, as chairman of the Borisov Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, he was a delegate to the First All-Belarusian Congress and joined its executive committee. In 1918 he was state controller and then secretary for finance and for trade in the People’s Secretariat, and became one of the leaders of the Socialist Federalist party. He became chairman of the Rada on 13 December 1919, went into exile in 1920 and represented the Rada from Kaunas and Berlin and, from 1923, Prague. In 1921 he organised a conference in Prague that condemned the Peace of Riga, and in 1925 he refused to accept the decision to dissolve the government in exile. He died in Prague in 1928.
Career timeline
1902Graduated from the Vilnius seminary; teacher
1909Employee of the Vilnius State Bank
1917Chairman of the Borisov Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies
1918State controller, then secretary for finance and for trade in the People’s Secretariat
1918Secretary of the Rada of the Belarusian People’s Republic
1919–1928Chairman of the Rada of the Belarusian People’s Republic
Worker-poet known as Tsishka Hartny who headed the first Soviet government of Byelorussia
Born into a peasant family in Kapyl in 1887, he worked as a tanner, joined the Hramada in 1904 and wrote for Nasha Niva. From 1913 he worked in Petrograd factories and wrote poetry under the pen name Tsishka Hartny. In 1918, as secretary of the Belarusian National Commissariat, he campaigned for a Belarusian republic against Vilgelm Knorin and Alexander Myasnikov and won the support of Lenin and Stalin. From 1 January to 3 February 1919 he headed the Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Government of the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia. He later ran publishing and cultural institutions and became an academician, but was expelled from the party in 1931, arrested in 1936 and died in 1937 in a psychiatric hospital in Mogilev; some accounts say he took his own life.
Career timeline
1913Worker at the Vulkan plant in Petrograd
1918Secretary of the Belarusian National Commissariat
1919Head of the Provisional Workers’ and Peasants’ Government of the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia
1920–1931Member of the Central Executive Committee of the BSSR
1928Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR
Architect of Byelorussian Soviet statehood who turned the gun on himself
On 16 June 1937, publicly denounced at the Party congress for insufficiently purging 'enemies of the people,' Chervyakov returned to his office during the recess and shot himself. Officials attributed it to 'family reasons.'
He signed the 1919 manifesto proclaiming the Byelorussian SSR and served as its first head of government and state (1920–1937). A USSR Central Executive Committee co-chairman, he championed Belarusisation and founded the Belarusian State University. He shot himself in 1937 amid the Great Purge after Party censure.
Career timeline
1909–1915Rural teacher in Vilna Governorate; graduated from Vilna Teachers' Institute (1915)
1915–1917Served in the Imperial Russian Army; graduated from Alexandrovsk Military School (1916), ensign
1917.05Joined RSDLP(b); helped lead the founding of the Belarusian Social Democratic Labour Party
1918.01–06Commissar for Belarusian Affairs (Belnatskom), RSFSR People's Commissariat of Nationalities
1919.01Signed the BSSR proclamation manifesto as member of the Provisional Workers' and Peasants' Government; People's Commissar for Education, Litbel SSR
1920–1924Chairman, Council of People's Commissars (first) and Chairman, CEC of the BSSR
1922–1937Co-chairman of the USSR Central Executive Committee (four-member presidium alongside Kalinin, Petrovsky, Narimanov)
1924–1937Chairman, Central Executive Committee of the BSSR
The nuclear physicist who demanded Chernobyl truth, hosted the meeting that dissolved the USSR, and called Gorbachev to tell him
Gorbachev asked, 'Have you thought about the international reaction?' I answered, 'Yeltsin is on the phone with Bush right now. Bush seems to be in favor!'
A nuclear physicist from Minsk, he was a professor at Belarusian State University and a specialist in radio electronics. In 1986, as a member of the Chernobyl investigation commission, he demanded the truth be made public against the Soviet cover-up and was removed, an experience that propelled him into politics. As chairman of the Belarusian Supreme Soviet in 1991, he hosted Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk at the Viskuli hunting lodge for what was billed as a discussion of oil and gas supplies; when the conversation turned to dissolving the USSR, he was the first to say he would sign, and he was the one who telephoned Gorbachev to inform him the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. The first head of state of independent Belarus, he was ousted in 1994 by Alexander Lukashenko's corruption allegations and spent his final decades in Minsk as an unyielding opposition elder.
Career timeline
1956Graduated, Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, BSU
1963–1965Associate Professor, Nuclear Physics, BSU
1966–1970Vice-Rector for Research, Minsk Radio Engineering Institute
