Minsk

“ The dawn of day found us in a thick fir-wood, the trees so loaded with snow that the light could hardly reach us. When we had found our way out of it it was full daylight, the rim of the rising sun peeping over the edge of the great snow-plain and turning it crimson from end to end. I halted my Hussars and Lancers under the shadow of the wood, and I studied the country. Close to us there was a small farm-house. Beyond, at the distance of several miles, was a village. Far away on the sky-line rose a considerable town all bristling with church towers. This must be Minsk. ”

“ The emperor began by remarking that "too great familiarity with victory was often the precursor of great disasters, but that recrimination was now out of the question." He then mentioned the capture of Minsk, and, admitting the skilfulness of Kutusoff's persevering manœuvres on the right flank, he said that "it was his intention to abandon his line of operations on Minsk, unite with the Dukes of Belluno and Reggio, cut his way through Wittgenstein's army, and regain Wilna by turning the sources of the Berezina." ”

“ Brest, Homyel', Horad Minsk*, Hrodna, Mahilyow, Minsk, Vitsyebsk
note: administrative divisions have the same names as their administrative centers Independence: 25 August 1991 (from Soviet Union) National holiday: Independence Day, 3 July (1944) ; note - 3 July 1944 was the date Minsk was liberated from German troops, 25 August 1991 was the date of independence from the Soviet Union Constitution: 30 March 1994; revised by national referendum of 24 November 1996 giving the presidency greatly expanded powers and became effective 27 November 1996 ”

“ The fall of Minsk, although a serious matter, was one to which the Emperor attached little importance, for he relied on crossing the Beresina at Borisoff, where there was a bridge protected by a fort, in good condition and manned by a Polish regiment. The Emperor was so confident about this that, in order to speed the march of his army he burned all his bridging equipment at Orscha. ”

“ I have word from a Russian deserter that much corn has been stored in the town-hall. I wish you to take as many men as you think best, set forth for Minsk, seize the corn, load any carts which you may collect in the town, and bring them to me between here and Smolensk. If you fail it is but a detachment cut off. If you succeed it is new life to the army. ”

“ Out of 441 census divisions, there are about 13 in which the Jews exceed 20 per sent of the population. The old Russian provinces of Minsk and Volhynia have the largest percentage of Jewish inhabitants. In general, the percentage of Jews increases toward the eastward, and with the exception of Warsaw, Lodz, and some smaller cities in Congress Poland, is largest in the region running northeast from Warsaw to Wilna, and in the district extending south from Minsk across the Prypec toward the Dniester River. ”

“ I am a Russian woman, and my first duty is to my country. Would you not wish a French girl to have acted as I have done? Had I translated the message correctly you would not have gone to Minsk and your squadron would have escaped. ”

“ Belarus Government
Country name: conventional long form: Republic of Belarus
conventional short form: Belarus
local long form: Respublika Byelarus'
local short form: none
former: Belorussian (Byelorussian) Soviet Socialist Republic
Government type: republic
Capital: Minsk
Administrative divisions: 6 voblastsi (singular - voblasts') and one municipality* (harady, singular - horad) ; Brestskaya (Brest) , Homyel'skaya (Homyel') , Horad Minsk*, Hrodzyenskaya (Hrodna) , Mahilyowskaya (Mahilyow) , Minskaya, Vitsyebskaya (Vitsyebsk) ”

“ Army recruiting staff ‘Mitte,’ hitherto stationed in Minsk, must continue its activities with regard to the recruitment of young White Ruthenian and Russian workers for military employment within the Reich. ”

“ A fellow may be wrong, sometimes."
But I could see he felt relieved that it would not have to be the Minsk route. His trip must have been ghastly. It took him a week to recuperate from it.
The Lithuanian visa was granted for two weeks. A transit through Latvia was obtained without much trouble. We could leave any day. The certainty made us feel doubly the plight of the comrades and friends whom we were leaving behind --- in want, distress, fettered and utterly helpless in the Soviet void. The Taganka men awaiting deportation were still kept in uncertainty. ”

“ Davoust anticipated Bagration there by taking possession of Minsk on the 8th of July, as well as the entire country from the Vilia to the Berezina; accordingly when the Russian prince and his army, summoned by Alexander, to the north, pushed forward their piquets, in the first instance upon Lida, and afterwards successively upon Olzania, Vieznowo, Troki, Bolzoï, and Sobsnicki, they came in contact with Davoust, and were forced to fall back upon their main body. ”

“ Economic relations with Russia, which will have an important bearing on the future course of the economy, will be strengthened if Minsk adopts the necessary legislation to implement a customs union agreed to in January 1995. ”

“ If mortal men could bring it, then the corn should come from Minsk. I said so, and spoke a few burning words about a brave man's duty until the Marshal was so moved that he rose and, taking me affectionately by the shoulders, pushed me out of the waggon.
It was clear to me that in order to succeed in my enterprise I should take a small force and depend rather upon surprise than upon numbers. A large body could not conceal itself, would have great difficulty in getting food, and would cause all the Russians around us to concentrate for its certain destruction. ”

“ Lithuania we know to be now a Russian province, governed by its own laws, except as they may be modified by the Emperor's edicts. It is divided into three governments, Wilna, Grodno, and Minsk, with a Governor-General over them. The decree of the Assembly of the Department of Grodno, is an exemplified copy of that made on the 7th May, 1843, in the case of the heirs of Kosciusko, and contains the genealogical chart of the descendants of the sisters of Kosciusko. ”

“ The Kahal of Minsk sent an inquiry to Vilna, and in reply received, in September, 1796, a new energetic appeal of the Gaon addressed to all the gubernatorial Kahals of Lithuania, White Russia, Volhynia, and Podolia.
Ye mountains of Israel—cried the great zealot—ye spiritual shepherds, and ye lay leaders of every Government, also ye, the heads of the Kahals of Moghilev, Polotzk, Zhitomir, Vinnitza, and Kamenetz-Podolsk, you hold in your hands a hammer wherewith you may shatter the plotters of evil, the enemies of light, the foes of the [Jewish] people. Woe unto this generation! ”

“ COL. POKROVSKY: This document has not yet been read into the record. Permit me, Your Honor, to read a few excerpts. I quote Page 183:
“The prison camp in Minsk, covering a space about the size of the Wilhelmsplatz, accommodates about one hundred thousand prisoners of war and forty thousand civilian prisoners. The prisoners, crowded together in this small space, can hardly move, and are therefore forced to relieve nature at the very place where they happen to be. The camp is guarded by a detail of soldiers on active duty, of company strength. ”

“ At Czestochowa both civilians and soldiers took part in the disorders. At Minsk the excesses were essentially the fault of one officer. In Lemberg, Lida, Wilno, and Minsk the excesses were committed by the soldiers who were capturing the cities and not by the civilian population. In the three last cities the anti-Semitic prejudice of the soldiers have been inflamed by the charge that the Jews were Bolsheviki while at Lemberg it was associated with the idea that the Jews were making common cause with the Ukrainians. These excesses were, therefore, political as well as anti-Semitic in character. ”

“ In 1782 representatives of the lower classes, principally artisans, of the Jewish population of Minsk, lodged a complaint with the Lithuanian Financial Tribunal against the local Kahal administration, which "was completely ruining the community of Minsk." They alleged that the Kahal leaders embezzled the receipts from taxation, and misappropriated the surplus for their own benefit, that by means of the herem (excommunication) they squeezed all kinds of revenues from the poor and appropriated their hard-earned pennies. ”

“ In Lithuania, with the exception of Wilna and environs, the proportion of Poles nowhere passes 25 per cent. In Wilna itself the Poles are variously estimated at 20 to 43 per cent, with some present claims as high as 55 per cent. In White Russia, on the contrary, the Polish population is extremely small, especially in the Province of Minsk, where it does not exceed 10 per cent, although the city of Minsk, has about 25 per cent. ”

“ Oh, these relief stations beginning to be built after the fugitives had already arrived!
The peasants were really affronted by the people of Holm province
—The Holm people, these are the ones who were rude to us.
This is the general saying
In Kaluga province, in Mogilef, in Smolensk, and in Minsk.
The Holm peasants—are the most exasperating people.
Especially exasperating
How they talk of their own province!
—And is your land good?
—Our land? There's no such land anywhere else in the world. Do you call your ground land? I shouldn't think it worth cultivating. Now ours is land. ”

“ Kmita could not have others. After the defeat of the grand hetman, the enemy deluged the whole country. The remnants of the regular troops of the Lithuanian quota withdrew for a certain time to Birji and Kyedani, in order to rally there. The nobility of Smolensk, Vityebsk, Polotsk, Mstislavsk, and Minsk either followed the army or took refuge in the provinces still unoccupied. Men of superior courage among the nobility assembled at Grodno around the under-treasurer, Pan Gosyevski; for the royal proclamation summoning the general militia appointed that as the place of muster. ”

“ At last on arrival there I joined a troop-train with reinforcements going to Minsk, where I duly alighted, to discover that General Brusiloff's headquarters were out at a village called Gorodok, about five miles distant, in the direction of Vilna. The evening was bitterly cold, and as I drove along I became filled with ineffable disgust of Rasputin [177] and the disgraceful camarilla who were slowly but surely hurling the nation to its doom. ”

“ The White Russian inhabits Mohilev, Vitebsk, Grodno, Minsk—a region possessing some of the finest forests in Russia, but whose soil is marshy and unwholesome. United politically with the Little Russian, the two have been classed under the name Western Russians. Subjected at an early date by Lithuania, whose dialect became its official language, White Russia was with the greater part of Little Russia united to Poland, and was for centuries the object of strife between that nation and the Muscovite czars, from the effects of which strife she still bleeds. ”

“ They organized a tailors', dyers', and shoemakers' union in Kharkov, and a carpenters' union in Minsk, for mutual support in the struggle for existence, and for the construction of sanitary workingmen's houses. The cultural desire of the handicraftsmen, constituting twelve per {294} cent of the Russo-Jewish population and occasionally fifty-two per cent (Odessa) , seventy-three per cent (Kovno) , and even ninety per cent (Byelostok) , is phenomenal. Their object is not only physical improvement. ”

“ How could it be expected that with twenty-eight thousand men he could so long keep sixty thousand in check? In that situation, if Tchitchakof stole a few marches on him, was it at all wonderful? Had he then hesitated to follow him, to leave Gallicia, his point of departure, his magazines, and his depôt? If he ceased his pursuit, it was only because Regnier and Durutte, the two French generals, summoned him in the most urgent manner to come to their assistance. Both they and he had reason to expect that Maret, Ouidinôt, or Victor, would provide for the safety of Minsk. ”

“ At present he brings the early Fin frontier to Minsk and Pinsk:
There it touched that of the Lithuanians. To make these the most eastern members of the Sarmatian stock is, at the first view, to fly in the face of the testimony of their present position. They are, in one sense, the most western. The Germans of Prussia touch them on the side of Europe. Between them and the Fins of Asia, the vast Russian area of the Governments of Smolensko, Novogorod &c. intervene. Speaking laxly, one may say that all Russia lies beyond them. ”

“ Napoleon's plans, however, were all frustrated by the inconceivable blunders and follies of the generals, to whom were entrusted the task of carrying them out. Everywhere, in turn, they suffered themselves to be deceived and caught napping. The important positions entrusted to them were wrested from their hands. Minsk, where there were supplies for the whole army for months, had been captured, and now Borizow, where the passage of the Berezina was to be made, was captured almost without resistance. ”

“ The book includes sketches of President Pilsudski, Prime Minister Paderewski, the capture of Minsk from the Bolsheviks and the Jewish pogrom which followed, the Polish Diet in session, the political parties, the battlefields of the Great War, and the rabbinical schools. ”

“ There are considerable tracts of land in what once was Russian Poland, the population of which, owing to the havoc of war, is abnormally sparse. Some districts, like that of the Pripet marshes, which even at the best of times had but five persons to the kilometer, are practically deserts. For the Russian army, when retreating before the Germans, drove before it a huge population computed at eight millions, who inhabited the territory to the east of Brest-Litovsk and northward between Lida and Minsk. Of these eight millions many perished on the way. ”