Belarusian language in the context of "Metropolis of Kyiv"

Barysaw or Borisov (Belarusian: Барысаў, romanized: Barysaŭ, IPA: [baˈrɨsaw]; Russian: Борисов, IPA: [bɐˈrʲisəf]) is a city in Minsk Region, Belarus. It serves as the administrative center of Barysaw District. It is located on the Berezina River and 74 kilometres (46 mi) north-east from the capital Minsk. As of 2025, it has a population of 134,732.

Strochytsa (Belarusian: Строчыца, Strochytsa - Russian: Строчица), is a village in Minsk District, Minsk Region, Belarus. It is located by the river Ptsich and the Vowkavichy Reservoir [be] (a.k.a. Ptsich Reservoir) on it.

In the 19th century it was called Strochytsy, Polish: Stroczyce.

Belarusians (Belarusian: беларусы, romanized: biełarusy [bʲeɫaˈrusɨ]) are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Belarus. They natively speak Belarusian, an East Slavic language. More than 9 million people proclaim Belarusian ethnicity worldwide. Nearly 7.99 million Belarusians reside in Belarus, with the United States and Russia being home to more than 500,000 Belarusians each. The majority of Belarusians adhere to Eastern Orthodoxy.

Ukrainian (українська мова, ukrainska mova, IPA: [ʊkrɐˈjinʲsʲkɐ ˈmɔwɐ]) is an East Slavic language, spoken primarily in Ukraine. It is the first (native) language of a large majority of Ukrainians.

Written Ukrainian uses the Ukrainian alphabet, a variant of the Cyrillic script. The standard language is studied by the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and Potebnia Institute of Linguistics. Comparisons are often made between Ukrainian and Russian, another East Slavic language, yet there is more mutual intelligibility with Belarusian, and a closer lexical distance to West Slavic Polish and South Slavic Bulgarian.

Ch is a digraph in the Latin script. It is treated as a letter of its own in the Chamorro, Old Spanish, Czech, Slovak, Igbo, Uzbek, Quechua, Ladin, Guarani, Welsh, Cornish, Breton, Ukrainian Latynka, and Belarusian Łacinka alphabets. Formerly, ch was also considered a separate letter for collation purposes in Modern Spanish, Vietnamese, and sometimes in Polish; now the digraph ch in these languages continues to be used, but it is considered as a sequence of letters and sorted as such.

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (Russian: Лев Семёнович Выготский, IPA: [vɨˈɡotskʲɪj]; Belarusian: Леў Сямёнавіч Выгоцкі; November 17 [O.S. November 5] 1896 – June 11, 1934) was a Russian and Soviet psychologist, best known for his work on psychological development in children and creating the framework known as cultural-historical activity theory. After his early death, his books and research were banned in the Soviet Union until Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, with a first collection of major texts published in 1956.

Russification (Russian: русификация, romanized: rusifikatsiya), Russianisation or Russianization, is a form of cultural assimilation in which non-Russians adopt Russian culture and Russian language either voluntarily or as a result of a deliberate state policy.

Russification was at times pursued by the governments of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, either as a goal in itself or as a consequence of policies aimed at centralisation and modernisation.

A selsoviet (Belarusian: сельсавет, romanized: sieł'saviet; Russian: сельсовет, romanized: sel'sovet, IPA: [sʲɪlʲsɐˈvʲet]; Ukrainian: сільрада, romanized: sil'rada) is the shortened name for Selsky soviet, i.e., rural council (Belarusian: се́льскi саве́т; Russian: се́льский сове́т; Ukrainian: сільська́ ра́да). It has three closely related meanings:

• The administration (soviet) of a certain rural area.
• The territorial subdivision administered by such a council.
• The building of the selsoviet administration.

Selsoviets were the lowest level of administrative division in rural areas in the Soviet Union. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, they were preserved as a third tier of administrative-territorial division throughout Ukraine, Belarus, and many of the federal subjects of Russia.

The Christianization of Kievan Rus' was a long and complicated process that took place in several stages. In 867, Patriarch Photius of Constantinople told other Christian patriarchs that the Rus' people were converting enthusiastically, but his efforts seem to have entailed no lasting consequences, since the Russian Primary Chronicle and other Slavonic sources describe the tenth-century Rus' as still firmly entrenched in Slavic paganism. The traditional view, as recorded in the Russian Primary Chronicle, is that the definitive Christianization of Kievan Rus' dates happened c. 988 (the year is disputed), when Vladimir the Great was baptized in Chersonesus (Korsun) and proceeded to baptize his family and people in Kiev. The latter events are traditionally referred to as baptism of Rus' (Russian: Крещение Руси, romanized: Kreshcheniye Rusi; Ukrainian: Хрещення Русі, romanized: Khreshchennia Rusi; Belarusian: Вадохрышча Русі, romanized: Vadokhryshcha Rusi) in Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian literature.

The Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR, Byelorussian SSR or Byelorussia; Belarusian: Беларуская Савецкая Сацыялістычная Рэспубліка; Russian: Белорусская Советская Социалистическая Республика), also known as Soviet Belarus or simply Belarus, was a republic of the Soviet Union (USSR). It existed between 1920 and 1922 as an independent state, and afterwards as one of fifteen constituent republics of the USSR from 1922 to 1991, with its own legislation from 1990 to 1991. The republic was ruled by the Communist Party of Byelorussia. It was also known as the White Russian Soviet Socialist Republic. Minsk was the capital and largest city of the republic.

Following the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918, which ended Russia's involvement in World War I, the Belarusian Democratic Republic (BDR) was proclaimed under German occupation; however, as German troops left, the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia was established in its place by the Bolsheviks in December, and it was later merged with the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1919 to form the Socialist Soviet Republic of Lithuania and Belorussia, which ceased to exist as a result of the Polish occupation during the Polish–Soviet War. Following a peace treaty with Lithuania, the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia was re-founded on 31 July 1920 and later became known as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic.