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Article: Belarus
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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BELARUS
BELARUS.
From the decline of Kievan Rus' to the mid-fourteenth century, the Belarusian principalities were gradually taken over by Lithuanian princes. Initially, the Belarusian elites, who for a long time had shared with their Ukrainian counterparts a common Ruthenian identity, were an influential political and cultural force within the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Lithuanian princes often converted to Orthodoxy, accepted the Ruthenian language as the official language of their realm, and allowed many norms of the Rus' Law to function in their state. The Union of Lublin (1569) between the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which created a Polish-Lithuanian ...