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TheBelarusian diaspora (Belarusian:Беларуская дыяспара,romanized: Biełaruskaja dyjaspara) refers to emigrants fromBelarus which includes their descendants.
According to different researchers, there are between 2.5 and 3.5 million Belarusian descendants living outside the territory of theRepublic of Belarus. This number includes descendants of economic emigrants from Belarus in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,Second World War-era emigrants and the 1990s-present period of emigration. Another part of the Belarusian diaspora are people who migrated within theUSSR before 1991 and who after its dissolution became inhabitants of other post-Soviet countries. A separate faction usually associated with the Belarusian diaspora are ethnic minorities in the borderlands of Belarus withPoland,Lithuania,Latvia,Russia andUkraine.
A separate group of emigrants from Belarus areBelarusian Jews who have established significant communities in the United States and Israel.
There is a tendency to underestimate the number of people identifying themselves as Belarusians according to official censuses.
TheMinsk-basedWorld Association of Belarusians is the international organization uniting people of Belarusian descent from around the world. Thegovernment of the short-livedBelarusian Democratic Republic has been in exile since 1919 and acts as a consolidating centre for many politically active Belarusians abroad, especially inNorth America andWestern Europe.
The earliest Belarusian emigrants came in the seventeenth century to theNetherlands and theUnited States under the pressure of the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Counter-Reformation in Belarus. Belarusians later migrated toSiberia and theFar East after their lands were occupied in the eighteenth century by theRussian Empire. This continued throughout the nineteenth century.
Belarusians immigrated in large numbers to the United States oncea rebellion from 1863 to 1864 that was led byKastus Kalinouski was crushed by Tsarist forces. Between 1880 and 1920, many Jewish Belarusians and Belarusian peasants participated in immigration to the United States due to extreme poverty in the Russian Empire's Western province. Belarusians continued emigrating in the 1920s through the 1930s during Soviet leaderJosef Stalin's repressions.[1]
The end of World War II saw the second-largest emigration wave from Belarus. The demographics included a mix of people "who were running from the Soviets, victims of Stalin’s pre-war repressions, some Nazi collaborators and thousands of young Belarusian forced laborers who stayed in Europe after WWII." Most of these Belarusian immigrants moved toCanada,Australia,Brazil, and the US while some stayed in Germany, France, and the UK. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the third wave began and continues today. It began as a wave of socio-economic emigration and turned intopolitical asylum emigration when PresidentAlexander Lukashenko established a dictatorial regime in 1994. Most Belarusians immigrated to European Union countries, the US, Australia, Canada and Russia. The latest wave of emigration from Belarus includes professionals such as software and other engineers, scientists, students and athletes.
In 1949, theGovernment of the Belarusian Democratic Republic in exile prepared an estimation of the total number of Belarusian migrants in the main countries of Belarusian emigration. The numbers included pre-war immigrants, mostly fromWest Belarus, as well as those who identified themselves as Russian or Polish.[2]
| Country | Number of Belarusian immigrants as of 1 May 1949 |
|---|---|
| United States | 500,000 |
| Argentina | 100,000, of which 60 thousand lived aroundBuenos Aires |
| Canada | 30,000 |
| Great Britain | 11,000 |
| Brazil | 10,000 |
| France | 10,000 |
| West Germany | 10,000 |
| Belgium | 1,500 |
| Australia | 500 |
| Austria | below 500 |
| Venezuela | 150 |
| Sweden | 100 |
| Turkey | 100 |
| Italy | 50 |
| Denmark | 50 |
Prague was an important centre of the Belarusian diaspora in the 1920s and 1930s. For most of the interwar years, it was the seat of thegovernment in exile of theBelarusian Democratic Republic. Two presidents of the Rada BNR are buried in Prague, at theOlšany Cemetery. The interwar Belarusian diaspora of Czechoslovakia ceased to exist followingWorld War II and the Soviet occupation ofCzechoslovakia.
After 1991, Prague once again became an important centre of the Belarusian diaspora in the West, along withWarsaw andVilnius. TheBelarusian edition of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty relocated to Prague in the 1990s. A number of political refugees from Belarus have also settled in Prague. In 2013, Belarusians were officially recognized as an ethnic minority in theCzech Republic.[3]
The first organisation of the Belarusian diaspora in the country (theBelarusian Union in France) was established byWest Belarusian migrant workers in 1930.[4]Several thousand Belarusian refugees and soldiers of theAnders' Army landed in France after World War II. They established a Belarusian cultural and religious centre in Paris.
AfterWorld War II many Belarusians came asdisplaced persons to Allied-occupied Germany. From 1945 to 1950 there was a Belarusian Secondary School inRegensburg, West Germany named afterYanka Kupala.[5] In 1948 Belarusian emigrants created a monument to the participants of theSlutsk Defence Action inMittenwald.Nowadays Germany is home to 22,980 individuals withBelarusian passports.[6]
As a result of the2020–2021 Belarusian protests against Lukashenka's dictatorial rule, theBelarusian community "RAZAM" e.V., the first interest group of and for people with a Belarusian background living in Germany, was founded in August 2020.[7]
Several thousand Belarusian refugees and soldiers of theAnders Army landed in Great Britain afterWorld War II. They established a Belarusian cultural and religious centre in London. In 1971 theFrancis Skaryna Belarusian Library and Museum was founded and nowadays it is the largest Belarusian library outsideBelarus.
According to the latest Latvian population census, currently there are 57 319 (2022) Belarusians in the country, who form 3.5 per cent of the total population of Latvia; 41,300 of them havenon-citizen status. The majority of Belarusians live in large towns such asRiga,Daugavpils,Liepāja,Ventspils, andJelgava as well as in small towns of theLatgale region. About 70 per cent of the students at the RigaJanka Kupala School are ethnic Belarusians. The republic of Belarus has assisted in the development of this school since many Belarusian citizens reside in, and attend the school in Riga. In February 2024, it became known that the Janka Kupala is going to be liquidated by August 2024.[8] Latvia has a number of Belarusian public organisations with goals to promote the Belarusian culture, language and traditions, to preserve the national identity of the Belarusians in Latvia. These Belarusian organizations hold events to promote the traditions, culture and language of Belarus.
According to censuses of the early 20th century, Belarusians consisted a majority in the region of Vilnius. As the capital of theGrand Duchy of Lithuania, the city has historically been the centre of Belarusian cultural life. In 1939 part ofVilnius region was transferred toByelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic By Stalin. There is a sizeable Belarusian minority in Lithuania today, consisting of Soviet-era migrants and post-Soviet arrivals, including political refugees. According to Lithuania's migration authorities, over 62,000 Belarusian nationals lived in the country in 2024.[9] The Belarusian andPolish-Lithuanian communities sought more representation in the Lithuanian government, as well the mass movement of Belarusian contract labourers via Poland into Western Europe in the 2000s.
Poland is home to a shrinking Belarusian minority that was part of the largerBiałystok Voivodeship; annexed byJoseph Stalin in 1939 and incorporated into theBelarusian SSR, and returned to Poland afterWorld War II. Aside from that, a stream of Belarusian immigrants has been coming into Poland from the 1990s, including political immigrants andBelarusian Poles. Now there are also Belarusian communities in larger cities likeWarsaw andKraków.
The Belarusian minority in Russia consists mainly of emigrants from Belarus during Soviet times and the times of theRussian Empire as well as of remainders of the indigenous Belarusian population of the regions ofSmolensk andBryansk, now largely assimilated. According to official 2002 census, over 800 thousand Russians identified themselves as people of Belarusian descent. The number drastically declined from over 1 million just a decade before (the1991 Soviet Census) due to processes ofassimilation, and factors affecting the population decline in Russia such as low birthrate and high death rate caused by the economic hardships of the 1990s. Most Russian Belarusians live inMoscow,St. Petersburg and Siberia.
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The number of Belarusian in Serbia is around 5,501 people, as stated by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Serbia, between February 24 and November 2, 2022.[10] Most of these Belarusians do not haveSerbian citizenship, and have arrived during theRussian invasion of Ukraine. These numbers include all temporary passing residence and registered emigrants, including statistics from required registration after 30 days of visa free residence. Because of this, actual number of residence with Belarusian citizenship is smaller from the statistical numbers given my the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
InUkraine, the number of Belarusians is estimated at over 275,000 (the2001 Ukrainian Census)[11] Most of the Belarusians diaspora in Ukraine appeared as a result of the migration of Belarusians to theUkrainian SSR during theSoviet Union.Lviv has been an important center of Belarusian social and cultural life during theRussian Empire andinterwar Poland. There are now Belarusian organizations in major cities like Lviv,Sevastopol in theCrimea, and others. A notable Ukrainian of Belarusian descent isViktor Yanukovych, the fourth president ofUkraine.
Belarusian immigrants have been coming to Canada since the 19th century. Another wave of refugees came after theWorld War II, and establishedBelarusian Canadian Alliance, the oldest Belarusian diaspora organization, in 1948.[12] It is difficult to estimate the real number of Canadians of Belarusian descent because immigrants from Belarus were often classified asPoles orRussians (sometimes Lithuanians, i.e.,Litviny), or sometimes asUkrainians. According to the2011 Census there were 8,050 Canadians who claimed Belarusian ancestry.[13]
Belarusian immigrants have been coming to the USA since the 19th century. A large group of Belarusian immigrants from Belarus wereBelarusian Jews, who came to the country in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Another wave of refugees came after theWorld War II. It is difficult to estimate the real number of Americans of Belarusian descent because immigrants from Belarus were often classified asPoles orRussians (sometimes Lithuanians, i.e.,Litviny), or sometimes asUkrainians.
The largest concentrations of Belarusian Americans live in themetropolitan New York area,New Jersey (especiallyHighland Park andSouth River),Cleveland (and its suburbs),Chicago (recent immigrants concentrated aroundWheeling),Los Angeles, andDetroit.
The First organized Belarusian diaspora inArgentina appeared in the first half of the 20th century. In theinterwar period, the Belarusian diaspora counted between 10 and 20 thousand people.[14] Almost all Belarusian immigrants of that time came to Argentina from Poland-occupiedWest Belarus. Unlike in other western countries, Belarusian organizations in Argentina were pro-Soviet and fell under influence of the Soviet embassy. There was a wave of repatriation to theBelarusian SSR in 1956.[14]
