Kastus Kalinovsky the Fighter for Independence of Belarus.

K. Kalinovsky was born in 1838 on the 21-st of January not far

from Grodno in Belarus. His parents were not rich. There were 18

children in the family. Kalinovsky's mother Veronica Rybinskaya

died early and the elder brother, Victor, a student of Moscow

University, took care of Kastus. In 1855 Kastus graduated from a

secondary school in Svisloch and entered Moscow University. But

in 1856 he changed his mind and became a student of St.Petersburg

University. There Kalinovsky met Russian democrats Belynsky,

Chernyshevsky, Dobrolubov. He shared their ideas and followed

them. In 1861 K. Kalinovsky came back to Belarus. He took an

active part in organizing the uprising of 1863 in Belarus and

Lithuania. But the tsarist army dispersed the uprising. In 1864

Kastus Kalinovsky was arrested and hanged as the learder of the

uprising. He fought for national independence of Byelorussian

people, the development of national culture and education. His

name became a symbol of action and struggle for the rights of

oppressed people in Belarus and Lithuania.