State System

From the beginning of the 10th century up to the 13th century there were several state formations on the territory of the present-day Belarus. The most important ones were Principalities of Polatsk, Turau, Novgorod and some others.

First, these principalities were parts of the Kievan Rus, which was an original, very vast medieval federation, where the relations between the princes were based on suzerainty-vassalage. During the 10th-12th centuries, some of the major principalities actually became independent and were being ruled by local dynasties.

From the middle of the 13th century up to the end of the 18th century, the Belarusian lands belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (the GDL). The Duchy passed through two main stages in its state and political development: 1) from the middle of the 13th century till 1569, when the GDL existed as a fully independent sovereign state; 2) from 1569, when the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Poland formed the Polish Commonwealth (Rzecz Pospolita), till the end of the 18th century.

Retrospectively, the state system of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the end of the 16th century to the 18th century was an early form of the bourgeois (the szlachta) democracy, the first step to the civil society. After its incorporation into the Russian Empire, Belarus lost its status as a state. The change found reflection in its official name: from 1840 it was named "the North-Western Lands." No special laws were issued regarding Belarus, which could have treated it as a region with a special legal status. From 1801 the ethnic territory of the Belarusians was part of the Minsk, Mogilev, Vitebsk, Grodno and Vilnia provinces.

On the 25th of March 1918, under the conditions of occupation by the German troops, the Belarusian People's Republic was proclaimed, as a national bourgeois-democratic state. It failed, however, to turn into a fully-fledged state: it had no Constitution, no state boundaries, it had no armed forces of its own, the financial system and other attributes of statehood were not formed.

On the 1st of January 1919, the Byelorussian Soviet Socialistic Republic (the BSSR) was formed, in which political and economic life was under control of the central authority. Non-communist parties and organizations were banned, and the administrative functions were performed by the party machinery. At the same time, the Constitution of the BSSR declared that all the power was vested in the Soviets of Workers', Peasants' and Soldiers' deputies.

On the 27th of July 1990, the "Declaration of State Sovereignty" was adopted. According to the Constitution, the Republic of Belarus is a presidential republic. The President is the head of the state. The National Assembly is the country's supreme legislative authority, and the Constitutional Court is the country's supreme judicial authority.