Context: The 15th Republican Festival of National Cultures, marking its anniversary edition, took place in Hrodna on June 5–6, 2026. The festival is held every two years and has a 30-year history. Aleksandr Lukashenko, a rare guest at this event, was the speaker at the opening ceremony and described the festival as one of a kind. Belarusian state media reported that more than 80,000 people attended the event.
The results of the Republican Festival of National Cultures were announced on Main Broadcast, a show on the First News Channel, on June 7, 2026. According to the report, the celebration brought together representatives of 150 different nationalities.
“The fifteenth edition of the festival, featuring representatives of 150 nationalities, reflects the true tolerance of Belarusians better than any other event — toward all religions, all nations, all languages, and all people.”
Although the number seems impressive, it has nothing to do with the festival itself. The latest census shows that about 150 different nationalities are represented among the people living in Belarus. The festival featured only 42 of those nationalities — about 3.5 times fewer. The first Festival of National Cultures, held in 1996, brought together representatives from 11 different ethnic groups.
On June 5, 2026, the program Editors’ Club on News.by* also discussed Belarusians’ tolerance of people of different nationalities. Andrey Krivosheev, the CEO of the Minsk News Agency and chairman of the board of the Belarusian Union of Journalists, stated that the size of the Polish community in Belarus has remained stable since the early 2000s.
“The Polish-Belarusian issue. Remember the early 2000s? The way we treated Belarusian Poles. There was a Polish national-cultural community in Belarus — not a minority, we do not even use that word — 200,000 strong! And today we still have roughly the same number of ethnic Poles who are Belarusian citizens, living here and holding high-ranking positions. How many ethnic Belarusians are left in Poland?”
According to data from Statistics Poland, approximately 49,000 people in Poland identified as Belarusian in 2002. By 2021, that number had increased by 7,000. In other words, the number of ethnic Belarusians in Poland has expanded, not decreased. Following the mass protests and crackdown in Belarus in 2020, an even larger number of Belarusians moved to Poland, which may have further increased their presence there.
The situation is different for the Polish community in Belarus. According to the most recent census, approximately 280,000 people identified as Polish. However, there used to be many more. Nearly 400,000 residents of Belarus identified as Polish in 1999. Ten years later, the Polish community had shrunk by more than 100,000 people, and over the following decade it declined by another roughly 10,000. Thus, the number of ethnic Poles in Belarus has decreased significantly over the past few decades.
Moreover, since the 2000s, the Polish minority in Belarus has faced mounting pressure. The first problems arose surrounding the Union of Poles in Belarus. Starting in 2021, activists have been subjected to raids and arrests, and criminal cases were brought against them. Andrzej Poczobut is one of the most prominent members of the Polish community to have suffered persecution.
* News.by is another name for the First News Channel, which is owned by Belteleradiocompany.
