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.