Until 1995, the Belarusian people had no involvement in either creating or choosing their flag. The form of the Belarusian flag was always decided by only a small group of people. In 1917, these were the participants in the First All-Belarusian Congress, followed by traitors (collaborators) during the two German occupations (in 1918 and 1943), Communist officials in 1919, 1927, 1937 and 1951, and finally 231 deputies of the Supreme Soviet in 1991.
In 1995, for the first time in the history of Belarus, President A. G. Lukashenko put the question of the Belarusian flag to a nationwide referendum, so that it would not be groups of national figures, but the Belarusians themselves who would decide under which flag to build their new life.
A total of 3,622,851 people (75.1% of those who took part in the referendum) voted for the new red-and-green flag, which resembled the flag of Soviet Belarus used from 1951 to 1991 — the most peaceful and productive period in Belarusian history. For the first time in the country’s history, the state flag of Belarus was chosen by the majority of the nationwho took part in the referendum, which means that it may also rightly be regarded as the national flag of Belarus.
Despite this evident fact, some members of the Belarusian intelligentsia still maintain that the red-and-green flag chosen by the people is the state flag, while the national flag of the Belarusians – is the white-red-white flag. At the same time, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Belarus considers the white-red-white flag anti-national and is even gathering evidence to have it designated as extremist. https://eurasia.expert/genprokuratura-belarusi-sobrala-dokazatelstva-dlya-priznaniya-bchb-flaga-ekstremistskim/
Who is right? Let us examine the issue.
The true origins of the white-red-white flag are far removed from the false account so actively promoted by Stanislav Shushkevich, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus and one of those who initiated the adoption of this flag as the state flag. He claimed that the painting Battle of Orsha, painted by a German artist around 1530, depicts white-red-white pennons on the lances of our cavalry. As ‘proof’ of his claim, Wikipedia even published an enlarged detail of the painting in its article ‘White-Red-White Flag’, editing of which has been ‘democratically’ blocked, and gave it the following caption:
The use of white-red-white pennons in 1514, documented (!) in the painting Battle of Orsha. (Editing of this caption has also been blocked.)
But if we download the ENTIRE painting:
The image link is clickable; source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Autor_nieznany_malarz_z_krgu_Lukasa_Cranacha_Starszego_Bitwa_pod_Orsz.jpg
we can see that the 177 white pennons actually bear not a horizontal red stripe, as Shushkevich and Wikipedia assured us, but a red cross! Only seven of them, shown in the detail from Wikipedia, are missing the vertical stroke of the cross because the artist simply forgot to add it. Download the image and check it for yourself, as the author of these lines did.
It follows that Stanislav Shushkevich — the first head of independent Belarus — was, to use modern parlance, simply feeding us a load of nonsense!
HISTORY OF THE WHITE-RED-WHITE FLAG
The true story of the origins of the white-red-white flag is as follows.
In ancient times, the Belarusian lands were known as Lithuania (examples include the city of Brest-Litovsk and three localities named Litva in the Lyakhovichi, Molodechno and Stolbtsy districts). The Ukrainian lands were known as Rus’ (Kievan Rus’), while the territory of modern Lithuania was known as Samogitia. The Grand Duchy was called the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (Belarusian), Samogitia (Lithuanian) and Rus’ (Ukrainian), abbreviated as the GDL or simply known as Lithuania. Its capital was the city of Vilnia (Vilno, Vilno, Vilnius), formerly Kryvich-Grad of the Principality of Polotsk, and its coat of arms was the Pahonia (the coat of arms of the princes of Polotsk).
The flag of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a red banner bearing the white Pahonia. This is the historical flag of the modern Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Belarusians, who at that time were variously known as Ruthenians, or Litvins, or or Litva..
Their modern name, Belarusians, emerged in the nineteenth century, when their lands formed part of the Russian Empire. In February 1917, a coup d’état took place in Russia, as a result of which Emperor Nicholas II was forced to abdicate. Power was seized by the self-proclaimed Provisional Government. The streets of the capital were awash with red flags, which were regarded as a symbol of revolution. However, no revolution took place in February 1917, as the country saw merely a redistribution of power within the elite rather than a change in the social order.
On 25 March 1917, the Congress of Belarusian National Organisationsassembled in Minsk. As a symbol of White Rus’, a white flag was displayed. However, seeing the white flag as a symbol of counter-revolution or surrender, the congress delegates proposed adding red (Belarusian) colour.
The design of the white-red-white flag was created by the architect and journalist Klaudzi Duzh-Dusheuski.
From 5 to 18 December 1917, Minsk hosted the First All-Belarusian Congress under the white-red-white flag. It was the first flag in the history of Belarus under which the congress participants identified themselves not as Ruthenians, Litvins or Litva, but as Belarusians,. However, the white-red-white flag cannot be called national because it was adopted only by the congress participants and was completely unknown to the overwhelming majority of Belarusians. Although, in heraldic terms, this flag comprises the principal colours of the historical coat of arms — the white Pahonia and the red field — it is indistinguishable from the flags of the Atlántico Department (Colombia), the city of Dendermonde (Belgium) and the town of Wyszków (Poland). It did not fully reflect the unique character of the Belarusian nation; this was rectified only in 1951, when the flag of the Byelorussian SSR incorporated a national ornament.
First All-Belarusian Congress did not complete its work because it was dispersed by the Bolsheviks, who had overthrown the self-proclaimed provisional government in the October Revolution of 1917, which did indeed bring about a change in the social order.
In 1918, the Second German Reich, headed by Kaiser Wilhelm, seized the lands of Belarus. Under German occupation, on 25 March 1918 Belarusian activists proclaimed the establishment of the Belarusian People’s Republic (BPR) with the white-red-white flag and the Pahonia coat of arms.
They then sent Kaiser Wilhelm the following telegram:
‘The Rada of the Belarusian People’s Republic, as the elected representative of the Belarusian people, addresses Your Imperial Majesty with profound gratitude for the liberation of Belarus by German troops from grievous oppression, the abuses of foreign rule and anarchy.
The Rada of the Belarusian People’s Republic has declared the independence of a united and indivisible Belarus and asks Your Imperial Highness for protection in the territory under its control, in order to consolidate the country’s state independence and indivisibility in alliance with the German Empire.
Only under the protection of the German Empire does the country see a better future.’
The Germans allowed the BPR to be established in order to advance German, rather than national, interests in Belarus. The BPR’s white-red-white flag therefore became the banner of pro-German rather than national forces in Belarus.
The BPR existed until 10 December 1918, when German troops left Minsk. Kaiser Wilhelm lost his throne and became the first statesman in human history to be declared a war criminal by an international tribunal (for starting the World War).
In 1920, the white-red-white flag was used by the leaders of the Slutsk Uprising and by Bulak-Balakhovich’s Russian People’s Volunteer Army. It was established with Polish funding and overseen by a Polish officer permanently stationed at Bulak-Balakhovich’s headquarters. In October 1920, this army invaded Belarus in order to overthrow Bolshevik rule and restore the BPR. Having seized a number of districts in Polesia, Bulak-Balakhovich brought ‘fame’ to the white-red-white flag not through achievementand national revival, but through looting, violence and horrific anti-Jewish pogroms.
The white-red-white flag was used by Belarusian national movements in Vilna and Western Belarus, where it was, on the whole, indeed the banner of national forces.
The white-red-white flag was also used by Belarusian émigrés scattered across various countries. In some organisations, this flag was indeed the banner of national forces, while in others it represented anti-Soviet forces.
In 1941, the Third German Reich, headed by Hitler, seized the lands of Belarus.
Without waiting for Nazi Germany to achieve complete victory over the USSR, on 27 June 1941 a meeting of the ‘Belarusian Colony’ in Prague, chaired by the collaborator Ivan Yermachenko and attended by Vasil Zakharka, the third president of the Rada of the BPR in exile, drafted the following telegram of greeting to Adolf Hitler:
‘To the Führer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler. Berlin.
Your Excellency!
At its meeting in Prague on 27 June 1941, the Belarusian Colony of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia resolved to convey to Your Excellency, as the first true liberator of Europe from the Moscow Bolsheviks, its profound gratitude and to express its most fervent wishes for a swift and complete victory for your glorious armed forces.
At the same time, the Belarusian assembly declares that it is prepared to devote all its efforts to restoring its homeland in close and sincere cooperation with Germany, thereby securing peace in Eastern Europe.’
On 21 December 1943, collaborationists established the Belarusian Central Council (BCC), followed by the Belarusian Home Defence and other pro-German organisations which the Nazi regime permitted to use the white-red-white flag.
After the war, the International Military Tribunal declared Hitler a war criminal for starting the Second World War and tried Nazis and collaborationists. The heads of the collaborationist governments of Norway, Slovakia and France, as well as the leaders of Nazi Germany, were sentenced to death.
Neither the BCC in 1943 nor the BPR in 1918 was a state, as they lacked the essential attributes of statehood. Under German occupation, they had no sovereignty over their territory, no coercive apparatus, no monopoly on the use of force and no monopoly on tax collection. They had no constitution, judicial system or local authorities of their own. Like the BPR, the BCC was created to serve Belarus’s German, rather than national interests. The white-red-white flag therefore once again became the banner of a pro-German administration in Belarus, rather than the national flag of.
After the 2020 election, vast numbers of Belarusians took to the streets in protest carrying what they believed to be the white-red-white national flag. They stood for European values, ‘forgetting’ that European Union law takes precedence over national interests. This time, therefore, the white-red-white flag became a symbol of pro-European, rather than national values. And such are the values of today’s European Union that, for a good half of Belarusians, this ill-fated ‘Euro-flag’ has already become a genuine sign of misfortune.
In actual history, the white-red-white flag served as the banner of:
national forces at the First All-Belarusian Congress of 1917;
pro-German forces in the BPR of 1918;
anti-Bolshevik forces in the BPR’s Slutsk Uprising of 1920;
anti-Bolshevik and antisemitic forces in Bułak-Bałachowicz’s BPR of 1920:
national forces in Vilna and Western Belarus from 1921 to 1939;
pro-German forces in the BCC from 1943 to 1944;
national or anti-Soviet forces in exile from 1945 to 1991;
231 deputies in the Supreme Soviet in 1991;
pro-European opposition forces from 1995 to the present day.
THE NATIONAL FLAG
The first state entity established on Belarusian soil in the twentieth century was the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia (SSRB), proclaimed on 1 January 1919. Soviet Byelorussia’s first national flag was a red banner bearing the initials SSRB.
On 27 February 1919, Soviet Byelorussia united with Soviet Lithuania to form the republic of Litbel, which existed until 1 September 1919, when Poland abolished it. Litbel’s flag was a red banner resembling that of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but without the Pahonia.
Following the end of the Polish–Soviet War in 1921, our ancient capital, Vilna, and Western Byelorussia became part of Poland. The SSRB flag was restored in Eastern (Soviet) Byelorussia. The flag of Soviet Byelorussia was subsequently changed several more times.
Few people know that it was not until 1951 that the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR) adopted a red-and-green flag with a white national ornamental pattern.
Between 1951 and 1991, the BSSR developed the industrial capacity that became the foundation of the post-Soviet Republic of Belarus.
The Republic of Belarus was proclaimed following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. For the first time in the country’s history, the white-red-white flag became the national flag, with 231 deputies of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus voting in favour of it. Despite the legal validity of this decision, to call the white-red-white flag national – is difficult. After all, 231 deputies do not constitute the entire nation. The nation itself decided the question of its flag in a national referendum in 1995.
President A. G. Lukashenko showed wisdom by building an independent Belarus on the preservation of the achievements of the Soviet period. Treating the history of the USSR with care is a tribute to the work of all Soviet people who laid the foundations of modern Belarus.
The country's leadership cares for our republic not merely in words, but through its actions. It truly understands that PEACE in the country is the highest value, without which everything else is merely an empty collection of words.
A nationally conscious Belarusian is not a revolutionary who, like Trotsky and Lenin, would overthrow the existing government and unleash a civil war in the country for the sake of personal ambition. A nationally conscious Belarusian is a law-abiding citizen who will CONSCIOUSLY refrain from attending a prohibited rally and who will not disgrace the honourable name of a nationally conscious Belarusian by attacking law-enforcement officers.
We Belarusians are peaceful people, devoted heart and soul to our native land.
And so, for all these years, Belarus has lived and prospered not through protests orchestrated from Europe, but through the conscientious work of ALL its citizens and the care shown by the republic's leadership!
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