Belarus

The Statute of Lithuania of 1588, written in Ruthenian, is one of the most advanced legal codes of the European Renaissance. Francysk Skaryna printed a Bible in Ruthenian in Prague as early as 1517, a year after Erasmus's Greek New Testament.

The Belarusian lands formed the heart of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where Ruthenian served as chancery language. After the partitions of Poland-Lithuania the region passed to the Russian Empire and underwent a policy of Russification.

The territory was among Europe's most devastated in the twentieth century: a quarter of the population perished between 1941 and 1944, and most of its very large Jewish community was exterminated.

Independent in 1991, Belarus embarked from 1994 on a lasting authoritarian regime. The 2020 protests against Alexander Lukashenko's contested re-election were severely repressed; the country is excluded from the Council of Europe and subject to European sanctions, notably since its logistical role in the invasion of Ukraine.