Zianon Pazniak

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Zianon Pazniak

Dr. Zianon Paźniak (Belarusian: Зянон Пазьняк, * April 24, 1944) is a famous Belarusian politician and public activist, one of the founders of the Belarusian Popular Front and leader of the Christian Conservative Party of the BPF.

Biography

Zianon Pazniak was born in Subotniki, Hrodna Province. In 1967 he absolvated from the Belarusian Academy of Arts (at that time — Belarusian State Institute of Theatre and Arts).

After the university Pazniak worked as arts researcher. After a wave of Soviet political-administrative repressions in 1974 and losing of his workplace in the Arts Institute he worked as archaeologist at the Archaeological Division of the History Institute of the Belarusian Science Academy. His specialisation was the Late Middle Age in Belarus. He has made a huge activity in defending the historical centre of Minsk that was massively destroyed by Soviet administration beginning from the end of the Second World War.

In 1988 Pazniak made public his researches of alledged NKVD mass executions in the forest of Kurapaty near Minsk. At that time he became a leader of the Belarusian national revival movement. In 1988 Along with Vasil Bykau he was among the founders of the Belarusian Popular Front and the Belarusian Martyrologue.

From May, З 1990 till January 1996 Pazniak was a deputy of the Belarusian parliament. As a deputy he led a fraction of the BPF, that has made many achievements concerning public investigations of the Chernobyl accident (1989 – 1990), declaration of Independence by Belarus (1991), restoration of the Belarusian national symbols - the white-red-white banner and the Pahonia, returning of Belarusian military forces back from conflicts regions on the territory of the collapsed USSR.

In 1992 the BPF fraction under Pazniak created an independence-oriented "Concept of the economic development of the democratic independent Belarus".

In 1996 Zianon Pazniak chose to leave the country citing a potential arrest or even liquidation by the forces of the Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenka. He was granted political asylum in the United States.

On the emigration, Zianon Pazniak is still very active leading the CCP-BPF and as a public activist. Besides that, he is still considered one of the most charismatic opposition leaders and tried to run for presidential elections to take place in 2006, but did not manage to gather enough signatures for to become a candidate.

Pazniak and his followers refuse to join the oppositional coalition led by Alaksandar Milinkievic.

External links

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