The Most Famous

POLITICIANS from Belarus

This page contains a list of the greatest Belarusian Politicians. The pantheon dataset contains 19,576 Politicians, 56 of which were born in Belarus. This makes Belarus the birth place of the 53rd most number of Politicians behind Thailand, and South Africa.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Belarusian Politicians of all time. This list of famous Belarusian Politicians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Belarusian Politicians.

1. Shimon Peres (1923 - 2016)

With an HPI of 79.16, Shimon Peres is the most famous Belarusian Politician. His biography has been translated into 96 different languages on wikipedia.

Shimon Peres ( shee-MOHN PERR-ess, -⁠ez; Hebrew: שמעון פרס [ʃiˌmon ˈpeʁes] ; born Szymon Perski, Polish: [ˈʂɨmɔn ˈpɛrskʲi]; 2 August 1923 – 28 September 2016) was an Israeli politician and statesman who served as the eighth prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as the ninth president of Israel from 2007 to 2014. He was a member of twelve cabinets and represented five political parties in a political career spanning 70 years. Peres was elected to the Knesset in November 1959 and except for three months out of office in early 2006, served as a member of the Knesset continuously until he was elected president in 2007. Serving in the Knesset for 48 years (with the first uninterrupted stretch lasting more than 46 years), Peres is the longest serving member in the Knesset's history. At the time of his retirement from politics in 2014, he was the world's oldest head of state and was considered the last link to Israel's founding generation. From a young age, he was renowned for his oratorical brilliance, and was chosen as a protégé by David Ben-Gurion, Israel's founding father. He began his political career in the late 1940s, holding several diplomatic and military positions during and directly after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. His first high-level government position was as deputy director general of defense in 1952 which he attained at the age of 28, and director general from 1953 until 1959. In 1956, he took part in the historic negotiations on the Protocol of Sèvres, which was described by British Prime Minister Anthony Eden as the "highest form of statesmanship". In 1963, he held negotiations with U.S. President John F. Kennedy, which resulted in the sale of Hawk anti-aircraft missiles to Israel, the first sale of U.S. military equipment to Israel. Peres represented Mapai, Rafi, the Alignment, Labor and Kadima in the Knesset, and led Alignment and Labor. Peres first succeeded Yitzhak Rabin as acting prime minister briefly during 1977, before becoming prime minister from 1984 to 1986. As foreign minister under Prime Minister Rabin, Peres engineered the 1994 Israel–Jordan peace treaty, and won the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize together with Rabin and Yasser Arafat for the Oslo Accords peace talks with the Palestinian leadership. In 1996, he founded the Peres Center for Peace, which has the aim of "promot[ing] lasting peace and advancement in the Middle East by fostering tolerance, economic and technological development, cooperation and well-being." After suffering a stroke, Peres died in 2016 near Tel Aviv.

2. Menachem Begin (1913 - 1992)

With an HPI of 75.04, Menachem Begin is the 2nd most famous Belarusian Politician. His biography has been translated into 78 different languages.

Menachem Begin (Hebrew: מְנַחֵם בֵּגִין Menaḥem Begin, pronounced [menaˈχem ˈbeɡin] ; Polish: Menachem Begin (Polish documents, 1931–1937); Russian: Менахем Вольфович Бегин, romanized: Menakhem Volfovich Begin; 16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. Before the creation of the state of Israel, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944, against the British mandatory government, which was opposed by the Jewish Agency. As head of the Irgun, he targeted the British in Palestine. Later, the Irgun fought the Arabs during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and, as its chief, Begin was described by the British government as the "leader of the notorious terrorist organisation". It declined him an entry visa to the United Kingdom between 1953 and 1955. However, Begin's overtures of friendship eventually paid off and he was granted a visa in 1972, five years prior to becoming prime minister. Begin was elected to the first Knesset, as head of Herut, the party he founded, and was at first on the political fringe, embodying the opposition to the Mapai-led government and Israeli establishment. He remained in opposition in the eight consecutive elections (except for a national unity government around the Six-Day War), but became more acceptable to the political center. His 1977 electoral victory and premiership ended three decades of Labor Party political dominance. Begin's most significant achievement as Prime Minister was the signing of a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, for which he and Anwar Sadat shared the Nobel Prize for Peace. In the wake of the Camp David Accords, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, which had been captured from Egypt in the Six-Day War. Later, Begin's government promoted the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Begin authorized the bombing of the Osirak nuclear plant in Iraq and the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 to fight PLO strongholds there, igniting the 1982 Lebanon War. As Israeli military involvement in Lebanon deepened, and the Sabra and Shatila massacre, carried out by Christian Phalangist militia allies of the Israelis, shocked world public opinion, Begin grew increasingly isolated. As IDF forces remained mired in Lebanon and the economy suffered from hyperinflation, the public pressure on Begin mounted. Depressed by the death of his wife Aliza in November 1982, he gradually withdrew from public life, until his resignation in October 1983.

3. Chaim Weizmann (1874 - 1952)

With an HPI of 72.63, Chaim Weizmann is the 3rd most famous Belarusian Politician. His biography has been translated into 60 different languages.

Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( KY-im WYTE-smən) 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born biochemist, Zionist leader and Israeli statesman who served as president of the Zionist Organization and later as the first president of Israel. He was elected on 16 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952. Weizmann was instrumental in obtaining the Balfour Declaration of 1917 and convincing the United States government to recognize the newly formed State of Israel in 1948. As a biochemist, Weizmann is considered to be the 'father' of industrial fermentation. He developed the acetone–butanol–ethanol fermentation process, which produces acetone, n-butanol and ethanol through bacterial fermentation. His acetone production method was of great importance in the manufacture of cordite explosive propellants for the British war industry during World War I. He founded the Sieff Research Institute in Rehovot (later renamed the Weizmann Institute of Science in his honor), and was instrumental in the establishment of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

4. Felix Dzerzhinsky (1877 - 1926)

With an HPI of 71.81, Felix Dzerzhinsky is the 4th most famous Belarusian Politician. His biography has been translated into 63 different languages.

Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky (Russian: Феликс Эдмундович Дзержинский; Polish: Feliks Edmundowicz Dzierżyński [ˈfɛliks ɛdmundɔvʲiʈ͡ʂ d͡ʑɛrʐɨj̃skʲi]; 11 September [O.S. 30 August] 1877 – 20 July 1926), nicknamed "Iron Felix", was a Soviet revolutionary and politician of Polish origin. From 1917 until his death in 1926, he led the first two Soviet secret police organizations, the Cheka and the OGPU, establishing state security organs for the Bolshevik regime. He was a key architect of the Red Terror and de-Cossackization. Born to a Polish family of noble descent in the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire (now in Belarus), Dzerzhinsky embraced revolutionary politics from a young age, and was active in the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania party. Active in Kaunas and Warsaw, he was frequently arrested and underwent several exiles to Siberia, from which he escaped every time. He evaded the tsarist secret police, the Okhrana, whose work he took interest in. Dzerzhinsky participated in the failed 1905 Revolution, and after a final arrest in 1912, was imprisoned until the February Revolution of 1917. He then joined Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik party, and played an active role in the October Revolution which brought them to power. In December 1917, Lenin named Dzerzhinsky head of the newly established All-Russian Extraordinary Commission (Cheka), tasking him with the suppression of counter-revolutionary activities in Soviet Russia. The Russian Civil War saw a vast expansion of the Cheka's authority, inaugurating a campaign of mass arrests, detentions (including in newly founded Gulag forced labour camps), and executions known as the Red Terror. An estimated 50,000 to 200,000 people were executed by the Cheka during the years of the civil war. The agency was reorganized as the State Political Directorate (GPU) in 1922, and then as the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) a year later, with Dzerzhinsky remaining as head of the powerful organization. He served as director of the Supreme Soviet of the National Economy (VSNKh) from 1924. Dzerzhinsky died of a heart attack in 1926, and was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. Remembered by secret police agents (known as "Chekists" throughout the Soviet era) as a hero of the revolution, a large statue of him stood in front of the security service headquarters at Moscow's Lubyanka Building until 1991. Meanwhile, he also became a prominent symbol of repression and brutality to critics of the Soviet regime. Felix Dzerzhinsky was born on 11 September 1877 to ethnically Polish parents of noble descent, at the Dzerzhinovo family estate, about 15 km (9.3 mi) from the small town of Ivyanets in the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire (now Belarus). In the Russian Empire, his family was of a type known as "column-listed nobility" (Russian: столбовое дворянство, stolbovoe dvorianstvo), whose nobility was formally acknowledged, but so old that they did not enjoy the privileges of the new nobility. His sister Wanda died at the age of 12, when she was accidentally shot with a hunting rifle on the family estate by one of her brothers. At the time of the incident, there were conflicting claims as to whether Felix or his brother Stanisław was responsible for the accident. His father, Edmund-Rufin Dzierżyński graduated from the Saint Petersburg Imperial University in 1863 and moved to Vilnius, where he worked as a home teacher for a professor of Saint Petersburg University named Januszewski and eventually married Januszewski's daughter Helena Ignatievna, who also was of Polish origin. In 1868, after a short period in Kherson gymnasium, he worked as a gymnasium teacher of physics and mathematics at the schools of Taganrog in the Don Host Province, Russia, particularly the Chekhov Gymnasium. In 1875, Edmund Dzierżyński retired due to health conditions and moved with his family to his estate near Ivyanets and Rakaŭ. In 1882, Felix's father died from tuberculosis. As a youngster Dzerzhinsky became a polyglot, speaking Polish, Russian, German and Latin. He attended the Vilnius Gymnasium from 1887 to 1895. One of the older students at this gymnasium was his future arch-enemy, Józef Piłsudski. Years later, as Marshal of Poland, Piłsudski recalled that Dzerzhinsky "distinguished himself as a student with delicacy and modesty. He was rather tall, thin and demure, making the impression of an ascetic with the face of an icon... Tormented or not, this is an issue history will clarify; in any case this person did not know how to lie." School documents show that Dzerzhinsky attended his first year in school twice, while he was not able to finish his eighth year. Dzerzhinsky received a school diploma which stated: "Dzerzhinsky Feliks, who is 18 years of age, of Catholic faith, along with a satisfactory attention and satisfactory diligence showed the following successes in sciences, namely: Divine law—"good"; Logic, Latin, Algebra, Geometry, Mathematical geography, Physics, History (of Russia), French—"satisfactory"; Russian and Greek—"unsatisfactory". Two months before he expected to graduate, the gymnasium expelled Dzerzhinsky for "revolutionary activity" and for posting signs with socialist slogans at the school. He had joined a Marxist group, the Union of Workers (Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego "SDKP"), in 1895. In late April 1896, he was one of 15 delegates at the first congress of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party (LSDP). In 1897, he attended the second congress of the LSDP, where it rejected independence in favor of national autonomy. On 18 March 1897, he was sent to Kaunas to take advantage of the arrest of the Polish Socialist Party (PPS) branch. He worked in a book-binding factory and set up an illegal press. As an organizer of a shoemakers' strike, Dzerzhinsky was arrested for "criminal agitation among the Kaunas workers"; the police files from this time state: "Felix Dzerzhinsky, considering his views, convictions and personal character, will be very dangerous in the future, capable of any crime." Dzerzhinsky envisioned merging the LSDP with the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) and took the same position as influential Social Democrat Rosa Luxemburg on what was referred to in contemporary writings as "The National Question," i.e., the right of nations to self determination. He was arrested on a denunciation for his revolutionary activities for the first time in 1897, after which he served almost a year in the Kaunas prison. In 1898, Dzerzhinsky was exiled for three years to the Vyatka Governorate (city of Nolinsk) where he worked at a local tobacco factory. There Dzerzhinsky was arrested for agitating for revolutionary activities and was sent 500 versts (330 mi) north to the village of Kaigorod. In August 1899, he returned to Vilnius. Dzerzhinsky subsequently became one of the founders of Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (Polish: Socjaldemokracja Królestwa Polskiego i Litwy, SDKPiL) in 1899. In February 1900, he was arrested again and served his time at first in the Alexander Citadel in Warsaw and later at the Siedlce prison. In 1902, Dzerzhinsky was sent deep into Siberia for the next five years to the remote town of Vilyuysk, while en route being temporarily held at the Alexandrovsk Transitional Prison near Irkutsk. While in exile, he escaped on a boat and later emigrated from the country. He traveled to Berlin, where at the SDKPiL conference Dzerzhinsky was elected a secretary of its party committee abroad (Polish: Komitet Zagraniczny, KZ) and met with several prominent leaders of the Polish Social Democratic movement, including Rosa Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches. They gained control of the party organization through the creation of a committee called the Komitet Zagraniczny (KZ), which dealt with the party's foreign relations. As secretary of the KZ, Dzerzhinsky was able to dominate the SDKPiL. In Berlin, he organized publication of the newspaper Czerwony Sztandar ("Red Banner"), and transportation of illegal literature from Kraków into Congress Poland. Being a delegate to the IV Congress of SDKPiL in 1903, Dzerzhinsky was elected as a member of its General Board. Dzerzhinsky visited Switzerland, where his fiancée Julia Goldman, the sister of Boris Gorev, was undergoing treatment for tuberculosis. She died in his arms on 4 June 1904. Her illness and death depressed him – in letters to his sister, Dzerzhinsky explained that he no longer saw any meaning for his life. That changed with the Russian Revolution of 1905, as Dzerzhinsky became involved with work again. After the revolution failed he was again jailed in July 1905, this time by the Okhrana. In October, he was released on amnesty. As a delegate to the 4th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in Stockholm, Dzerzhinsky entered the central body of the party. From July through September 1906, he lived in Saint Petersburg and then returned to Warsaw, where he was arrested again in December of the same year. In June 1907, Dzerzhinsky was released on bail. At the 5th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in London in May–June 1907, he was elected in absentia as a member of the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labor Party. In April 1908, Dzerzhinsky was arrested once again in Warsaw and again exiled to Siberia (Yeniseysk Governorate) in 1909. As before, Dzerzhinsky managed to escape (by November 1909). In 1910, he reached Italy, where he met Maxim Gorky on Capri; he then returned to Poland. Back in Kraków in 1910, Dzerzhinsky married RSDLP party member Zofia Muszkat, who was already pregnant. A month later she was arrested; she gave birth to their son Janek in Pawiak prison. In 1911, Zofia was sentenced to permanent Siberian exile, and she left the child with her father. Dzerzhinsky saw his son for the first time in March 1912 in Warsaw. In attending the welfare of his child, Dzerzhinsky repeatedly exposed himself to the danger of arrest. On one occasion, Dzerzhinsky narrowly escaped an ambush that the police had prepared at the apartment of his father-in-law. Dzerzhinsky continued to direct the Social Democratic Party (SDKPiL), while considering his continued freedom "only a game of the Okhrana". The Okhrana, however, was not playing a game; Dzerzhinsky simply was a master of conspiratorial techniques and was therefore extremely difficult to find. A police file from this time says: "Dzerzhinsky continued to lead the Social Democratic party and at the same time he directed party work in Warsaw, led strikes, published appeals to workers, and traveled on party matters to Łódź and Kraków." The police were unable to arrest Dzerzhinsky until the end of 1912, when they found the apartment where he lived in the name of Władysław Ptasiński. Dzerzhinsky spent the next 4+1⁄2 years in prisons, first at the notorious Tenth Pavilion of the Warsaw Citadel. When World War I began in 1914, all political prisoners were relocated from Warsaw into Russia proper. Dzerzhinsky was taken to Oryol Prison. He was very concerned about the fate of his wife and son, with whom he did not have any communication. Moreover, the Russian guards administered Dzerzhinsky frequent beatings, which caused permanent disfigurement of his jaw and mouth. In 1916, Dzerzhinsky was transferred to the Moscow Butyrka prison, where he was soon hospitalized because the chains that he had been forced to wear were causing severe cramps in his legs. Despite the prospects of amputation, Dzerzhinsky recovered and was put to work sewing military uniforms. Dzerzhinsky was freed from Butyrka after the February Revolution of 1917. Soon after his release, Dzerzhinsky's goal was to organize Polish refugees in Russia, then return to Poland and fight for the revolution there. He wrote to his wife, "Together with these masses, we will return to Poland after the war and become one whole with the SDKPiL." He remained in Moscow where he joined the Bolshevik party, writing to his comrades that "the Bolshevik party organization is the only Social Democratic organization of the proletariat, and if we were to stay outside of it, then we would find ourselves outside the proletarian revolutionary struggle." By April, he had entered the Moscow Committee of the Bolsheviks and soon thereafter was elected to the executive committee of the Moscow Soviet. Dzerzhinsky endorsed Vladimir Lenin's "April Theses", demanding uncompromising opposition to the new Russian Provisional Government, the transfer of all political authority to the Soviets, and the immediate withdrawal of Russia from the war. Dzerzhinsky's brother Stanisław was murdered on the Dzerzhinsky estate by deserting Russian soldiers that same year. Subsequently, in late July, Dzerzhinsky was subsequently elected to the Bolshevik Central Committee at the Sixth Party Congress. He then relocated from Moscow to Petrograd to begin his new responsibilities. In Petrograd, Dzerzhinsky participated in the crucial session of the Central Committee in October, and he strongly endorsed Lenin's demands for the immediate preparation of a coup, after which Felix Dzerzhinsky had an active role with the Military Revolutionary Committee during the October Revolution. With the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks, Dzerzhinsky eagerly assumed responsibility for making security arrangements at the Smolny Institute where the Bolsheviks had their headquarters. Lenin regarded Felix Dzerzhinsky as a revolutionary hero and appointed him to organize a force to combat internal threats. On 20 December 1917, the Council of People's Commissars officially established the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counter-revolution and Sabotage—commonly known as the Cheka (based on the Russian acronym ВЧК). Dzerzhinsky became its director. The Cheka received extensive resources, and became known for ruthlessly pursuing any perceived counterrevolutionary elements. As the Russian Civil War expanded, Dzerzhinsky also began organizing internal security troops to enforce the Cheka's authority. The Cheka became notorious for mass summary executions, performed especially during the Red Terror and the Russian Civil War. The Cheka undertook drastic measures as tens of thousands of political opponents and saboteurs were shot without trial in the basements of prisons and in public places. Dzerzhinsky said: "We represent in ourselves organized terror—this must be said very clearly". In 1922, at the end of the Civil War, the Cheka was dissolved and reorganized as the State Political Directorate (Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie, or GPU), a section of the NKVD. With the formation of the Soviet Union later that year, the GPU was again reorganized as the Joint State Political Directorate (Obyedinyonnoye gosudarstvennoye politicheskoye upravleniye, or OGPU), directly under the Council of People's Commissars. These changes did not diminish Dzerzhinsky's power; he was Minister of the Interior, director of the Cheka/GPU/OGPU, Minister for Communications, and director of the Vesenkha (Supreme Council of National Economy) in 1921–24. Indeed, while the (O)GPU was theoretically supposed to act with more restraint than the Cheka, in time its de facto powers grew even greater than those of the Cheka. At his office in Lubyanka, Dzerzhinsky kept a portrait of fellow Polish revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg on the wall. Besides his leadership of the secret police, Dzerzhinsky also took on a number of other roles; he led the fight against typhus in 1918, was chair of the Commissariat for Internal Affairs from 1919 to 1923, initiated a vast orphanage construction program, chaired the Transport Commissariat, organized the embalming of Lenin's body in 1924 and chaired the Society of Friends of Soviet Cinema. Dzerzhinsky became a Bolshevik as late as 1917. Therefore, it was wrong to assert (as official Soviet historians did subsequently) that Dzerzhinsky had been one of Lenin's oldest and most reliable comrades, or that Lenin had exercised some sort of spellbinding influence on Dzerzhinsky and the SDKPiL. Lenin and Dzerzhinsky frequently had opposing opinions about many important ideological and political issues of the pre-revolutionary period, and also after the October Revolution. After 1917, Dzerzhinsky would oppose Lenin on such crucial issues as the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the trade unions, and Soviet nationality policy. During the April 1917 Party Conference, when Lenin accused Dzerzhinsky of Great-Russian chauvinism, he replied: "I can reproach him (Lenin) with standing at the point of view of the Polish, Ukrainian and other chauvinists." From 1917 to his death in 1926, Dzerzhinsky was first and foremost a Russian Communist, and Dzerzhinsky's involvement in the affairs of the Polish Communist Party (which was founded in 1918) was minimal. The energy and dedication that had previously been responsible for the building of the SDKPiL would henceforth be devoted to the priorities of the struggle for Bolshevik power in Russia, to the defence of the revolution during the civil war, and eventually, to the tasks of socialist construction. Dzerzhinsky died of a heart attack on 20 July 1926 in Moscow, immediately after a two-hour speech to the Bolshevik Central Committee during which, visibly quite ill, he violently denounced the United Opposition directed by Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev. Upon hearing of his death, Joseph Stalin eulogized Dzerzhinsky as "a devout knight of the proletariat". Dzerzhinsky was buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. Today his grave is one of the twelve individual tombs located between the Lenin Mausoleum and the Kremlin Wall. Dzerzhinsky was succeeded as chairman of the OGPU by Vyacheslav Menzhinsky. Dzierżyńszczyzna, one of the two Polish Autonomous Districts in the Soviet Union, was named to commemorate Dzerzhinsky. Located in Belarus, near Minsk and close to the Soviet-Polish border of the time, it was created on 15 March 1932, with the capital at Dzyarzhynsk (in Russian Dzerzhynsk, formerly known as Kojdanów), not far from the family estate. The Dzerzhinsky estate itself remained inside Poland from 1921 to the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. The district was disbanded in 1935 at the onset of the Great Purge, and most of its administration was executed. Dzyarzhynskaya Hara (the highest point in Belarus), located near Dzyarzhynsk was named after Dzerzhinsky in 1958. His name and image were used widely throughout the KGB and the Soviet Union and other communist countries; there were numerous places named after him. In Russia, there is the city of Dzerzhinsk, a village of Dzerzhinsk, and three other cities called Dzerzhinskiy; in other former Soviet republics, there was a city named for him in Armenia and the aforementioned Dzyarzhynsk in Belarus. To comply with decommunization laws, the Ukrainian cities Dzerzhynsk and Dniprodzerzhynsk reverted to their historic names Toretsk and Kamianske in February and May 2016. A Ukrainian village in the Zhytomyr Oblast was also named Dzerzhinsk until 2005, when it was renamed to Romaniv. The Dzerzhinskiy Tractor Works in Stalingrad were named in his honor and became a scene of bitter fighting during the Second World War. The FED camera, produced from 1934 to around 1996, is named for him, as was the FD class steam locomotive. During the Communist era (1945–1989) in Poland, Dzerzhinsky was celebrated as a socialist hero. In 1951, a large-scale statue of Dzerzhinsky was designed by Zbigniew Dunajewski and erected in the northern side of Bank Square in Warsaw. The square bore Dzerzhinsky's name (Polish: Plac Dzierżyńskiego) until 1989. The statue was toppled on 16 November 1989, one of the many Soviet-era symbols removed that year to mark the end of Communism in Poland. The square was subsequently renamed Plac Bankowy (Bank Square). A 15-ton iron monument of Dzerzhinsky, which once dominated the Lubyanka Square in Moscow, near the KGB headquarters, also became known as "Iron Felix" (Russian: Железный Феликс – Zheleznyj Feliks). Sculpted in 1958 by Yevgeny Vuchetich, it served as a Moscow landmark during late Soviet times. Symbolically, the Memorial society erected the Solovetsky Stone, a memorial to the victims of the Gulag (using a simple stone from the Solovki prison camp in the White Sea) beside the Iron Felix statue on 30 October 1990). The Moscow Soviet (Mossovet) had the Dzerzhinsky statue removed to the Fallen Monument Park and laid on its side in August 1991, after the failed coup d'état attempt by hard-line Communist members of the government. A mock-up of the removal of Dzerzhinsky's statue can be found in the entrance hall of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. The figure of Dzerzhinsky remains controversial in Russian society. Between 1999 and 2013, six proposals called for the return of the statue to its plinth. The Monument Art Commission of the Moscow City Duma rejected the proposals due to concerns that the proposed return would cause "unnecessary tension" in society. According to a December 2013 VTsIOM poll, 46% of Russians favour the restoration of the statue to the Lubyanka Square, with 17% opposing it. The statue remained in a yard for old Soviet memorials at the Central House of Artists. In April 2012, the Moscow authorities stated that they would renovate the "Iron Felix" monument in full and put the statue on a list of monuments to be renovated, as well as officially designating it an object of cultural heritage. On 26 April 2021, it was announced by the prosecutor office of Moscow that the removal of the statue had no legal basis and was therefore illegal. Finally, the monument was reerected on 11 September 2023, but this time in front of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service headquarters outside Moscow. A smaller bust of Dzerzhinsky in the courtyard of the Moscow police headquarters at Petrovka 38 was restored in November 2005 (police officers had removed this bust on 22 August 1991). A 10-foot bronze replica of the original Iron Felix statue was placed on the grounds of the military academy in Minsk, Belarus, in May 2006. In 2017, on the 140th anniversary of Dzerzhinsky's birth, a monument to Dzerzhinsky was erected in the city of Ryazan, Russia. On 20 January 2017, the People's Public Security Academy in Hanoi, Vietnam, inaugurated a Dzerzhinsky statue. In 1943, the manor house of Dzerzhinovo, where Dzerzhinsky was born, was destroyed and family members (including Dzerzhinsky's brother Kazimierz) were killed by the Germans, because of their support for the Polish Home Army. In 2005, the Government of Belarus rebuilt the house (now on Belarusian territory) and established a museum. The graduating class of their KGB academy holds its annual swearing-in at the manor. Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies Chekism "Dzerzhinsky Division" of the Soviet Internal Troops Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment now defunct military unit of the East German Ministry for State Security (commonly known as the Stasi) Monument to F. E. Dzerzhinsky in Taganrog Provisional Polish Revolutionary Committee Polish Autonomous District Kang Sheng Blobaum, Robert. Felix Dzerzhinsky and the SDKPiL: A study of the origins of Polish Communism. 1984. ISBN 0-88033-046-5. Debo, Richard K. "Lockhart Plot or Dzerhinskii Plot?." Journal of Modern History 43.3 (1971): 413–439. Media related to Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky at Wikimedia Commons Picture of the Felix calculator FED history Archived 28 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine Newspaper clippings about Felix Dzerzhinsky in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

5. Alexander Lukashenko (b. 1954)

With an HPI of 71.12, Alexander Lukashenko is the 5th most famous Belarusian Politician. His biography has been translated into 119 different languages.

Alexander Grigoryevich Lukashenko (also transliterated as Alyaksandr Ryhoravich Lukashenka; born 30 August 1954) is a Belarusian politician who has been the president of Belarus since the office's establishment in 1994. This makes him the longest-serving European president. Before embarking on his political career, Lukashenko worked as the director of a state farm (sovkhoz) and served in both the Soviet Border Troops and the Soviet Army. In 1990, Lukashenko was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, he assumed the position of head of the interim anti-corruption committee of the Supreme Council of Belarus. In 1994, he won the presidency in the country's inaugural presidential election after the adoption of a new constitution. Lukashenko opposed economic shock therapy during the 1990s post-Soviet transition, maintaining state ownership of key industries in Belarus. This spared Belarus from recessions as devastating as those in other post-Soviet states and the former Eastern Bloc countries which prevented the rise of oligarchy. Lukashenko's maintenance of socialist economic model is consistent with the retaining of Soviet-era symbolism, including the Russian language, coat of arms and national flag. These symbols were adopted after a controversial 1995 referendum. Subsequent to the same referendum, Lukashenko acquired increased power, including the authority to dismiss the Supreme Council. Another referendum in 1996 further facilitated his consolidation of power. Lukashenko has since presided over an authoritarian government and has been labeled by the media as "Europe's last dictator". International monitors have not regarded Belarusian elections as free and fair, except for his initial win. The government suppresses opponents and limits media freedom. This has resulted in multiple Western governments imposing sanctions on Lukashenko and other Belarusian officials. Lukashenko's contested victory in the 2020 presidential election preceded allegations of vote-rigging, amplifying anti-government protests, the largest seen during his rule. Consequently, the United Kingdom, the European Union, and the United States do not recognise Lukashenko as the legitimate president of Belarus following the disputed election. Such isolation from parts of the West have increased his dependence on Russia, with whom Lukashenko had already maintained close ties with despite some disagreements related to trade. This has been particularly the case following the rise to power of Vladimir Putin, replacing reformist president Boris Yeltsin. Lukashenko played a crucial role in creating the Union State of Russia and Belarus, enabling Belarusians and Russians to travel, work, and study freely between the two countries. He also reportedly played a crucial role in brokering a deal to end the Russian Wagner Group rebellion in 2023, allowing some Wagner soldiers into Belarus.

6. Stanisław August Poniatowski (1732 - 1798)

With an HPI of 70.50, Stanisław August Poniatowski is the 6th most famous Belarusian Politician. His biography has been translated into 56 different languages.

Stanisław II August (born Stanisław Antoni Poniatowski; 17 January 1732 – 12 February 1798), known also by his regnal Latin name Stanislaus II Augustus, and as Stanisław August Poniatowski, was King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1764 to 1795, and the last monarch of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Born into wealthy Polish aristocracy, Poniatowski arrived as a diplomat at the Russian imperial court in Saint Petersburg in 1755 at the age of 22 and became intimately involved with the future empress Catherine the Great. With her aid, he was elected King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania by the Sejm in September 1764 following the death of Augustus III. Contrary to expectations, Poniatowski attempted to reform and strengthen the large but ailing Commonwealth. His efforts were met with external opposition from neighbouring Prussia, Russia and Austria, all committed to keeping the Commonwealth weak. From within he was opposed by conservative interests, which saw the reforms as a threat to their traditional liberties and privileges granted centuries earlier. The defining crisis of his early reign was the War of the Bar Confederation (1768–1772) that led to the First Partition of Poland (1772). The later part of his reign saw reforms wrought by the Diet (1788–1792) and the Constitution of 3 May 1791. These reforms were overthrown by the 1792 Targowica Confederation and by the Polish–Russian War of 1792, leading directly to the Second Partition of Poland (1793), the Kościuszko Uprising (1794) and the final and Third Partition of Poland (1795), marking the end of the Commonwealth. Stripped of all meaningful power, Poniatowski abdicated in November 1795 and spent the last years of his life as a captive in Saint Petersburg's Marble Palace. A controversial figure in Poland's history, he is viewed with ambivalence as a brave and skillful statesman by some and as an overly hesitant coward by others, and even as a traitor. He is criticized primarily for his failure to resolutely stand against opposing forces and prevent the partitions, which led to the destruction of the Polish state. On the other hand, he is remembered as a great patron of arts and sciences who laid the foundation for the Commission of National Education, the first institution of its kind in the world, the Great Sejm of 1788-1792, which led to the Constitution of 3 May 1791 and as a sponsor of many architectural landmarks. Historians tend to agree that, taking the circumstances into account, he was a skillful statesman, pointing out that passing the Constitution was a sign of bravery, although his unwillingness to organize a proper nationwide uprising afterward is seen as cowardice and the key reason for the Second Partition and the subsequent downfall of Poland.

7. Andrei Gromyko (1909 - 1989)

With an HPI of 68.44, Andrei Gromyko is the 7th most famous Belarusian Politician. His biography has been translated into 66 different languages.

Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (Russian: Андрей Андреевич Громыко; Belarusian: Андрэй Андрэевіч Грамыка; 18 July [O.S. 5 July] 1909 – 2 July 1989) was a Soviet politician and diplomat during the Cold War. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs (1957–1985) and as Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (1985–1988). Gromyko was responsible for many top decisions on Soviet foreign policy until he retired in 1988. In the 1940s Western pundits called him Mr Nyet ("Mr No") or "Grim Grom", because of his frequent use of the Soviet veto in the United Nations Security Council. Gromyko's political career started in 1939 in the People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (renamed Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1946). He became the Soviet ambassador to the United States in 1943, leaving that position in 1946 to become the Soviet Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. Upon his return to Moscow he became a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and later First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. He went on to become the Soviet ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1952. As Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union, Gromyko was directly involved in deliberations with the Americans during the Cuban Missile Crisis and helped broker a peace treaty ending the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War. Under the leadership of Leonid Brezhnev, he played a central role in the establishment of détente with the United States by negotiating the ABM Treaty, the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the SALT I & II among others. When Brezhnev suffered a stroke in 1975 impairing his ability to govern, Gromyko effectively dictated policymaking alongside KGB Chairman Yuri Andropov, Defense Minister Andrei Grechko and Grechko's successor, Marshal Dmitry Ustinov. Even after Brezhnev's death, Gromyko's rigid conservatism and distrust of the West continued to dominate the Soviet Union's foreign policy until Mikhail Gorbachev's rise to power in 1985. Following Gorbachev's election as General Secretary, Gromyko lost his office as foreign minister and was appointed to the largely ceremonial post of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Subsequently, he retired from political life in 1988, and died the following year in Moscow.

8. Zalman Shazar (1889 - 1974)

With an HPI of 65.53, Zalman Shazar is the 8th most famous Belarusian Politician. His biography has been translated into 36 different languages.

Zalman Shazar (Hebrew: זלמן שז"ר; born Šnejer Zalman Rubašow; Belarusian: Шнэер За́льман Рубашо́ў; Russian: Шне́ер За́лмен Рубашо́в; November 24, 1889 – October 5, 1974) was an Israeli politician, author and poet. Shazar served as the third President of Israel for two terms, from 1963 to 1973.

9. Sviatopolk I of Kiev (978 - 1019)

With an HPI of 64.51, Sviatopolk I of Kiev is the 9th most famous Belarusian Politician. His biography has been translated into 33 different languages.

Sviatopolk I Vladimirovich (also called Sviatopolk the Accursed or the Accursed Prince; Old East Slavic: Свѧтоплъкъ, romanized: Svętoplŭkŭ; c. 980 – 1019) was Prince of Turov from 988 to 1015 and Grand Prince of Kiev from 1015 to 1019. He earned his sobriquet after allegedly murdering his brothers during his bid to take the throne. His actual responsibility is disputed by historians. The Svyatopolk-Mirsky family of Rurikid origin attribute their descent from Sviatopolk. Tsar Peter the Great recognized their descent during his reign.

10. Mstislav I of Kiev (1076 - 1132)

With an HPI of 63.94, Mstislav I of Kiev is the 10th most famous Belarusian Politician. His biography has been translated into 37 different languages.

Mstislav I Vladimirovich Monomakh (Old East Slavic: Мьстиславъ Володимѣровичъ Мономахъ, romanized: Mĭstislavŭ Volodiměrovičŭ Monomakhŭ; Christian name: Fedor; February 1076 – 14 April 1132), also known as Mstislav the Great, was Grand Prince of Kiev from 1125 until his death in 1132. After his death, the state began to quickly disintegrate into rival principalities. He was the eldest son of Vladimir II Monomakh by Gytha of Wessex. He is figured prominently in the Norse Sagas under the name Harald, to allude to his grandfather, Harold II of England.

People

Pantheon has 63 people classified as Belarusian politicians born between 978 and 1987. Of these 63, 24 (38.10%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Belarusian politicians include Alexander Lukashenko, Anatoly Chubais, and Ivonka Survilla. The most famous deceased Belarusian politicians include Shimon Peres, Menachem Begin, and Chaim Weizmann. As of April 2024, 9 new Belarusian politicians have been added to Pantheon including Radasłaŭ Astroŭski, Romuald Traugutt, and Jan Piotr Sapieha.