After the 10 Days that
Shook the World
A Belarusian state is born
1918
March 1918 was a busy time in the new Belarusian state.
On March 8, 1918, at its Seventh Congress, the Bolshevik Party of the Russian Social Democrat Labor Party (bolsheviks) gave itself a new name, the Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks), or RCP (b).1
On March 9, 1918, the Germans were in control in Minsk. The Belarusian National Council there, with no objection from the Germans, declared the establishment of the Belarusian People’s Republic.2 It has also been referred to as the Belarusian National Republic and the Belarusian Democratic Republic. We will use the term Belarusian National Republic, or BNR.
On March 25, 1918, the BNR leadership declared the country’s independence.3
The declaration began a carousel of governments. Between March 1, 1918, and November 1920, Belarusian statehood was proclaimed six times, as various political factions struggled to appropriate Belarusian nationalism for their own agenda.4
People's Secretariat of the Belarusian People's Republic, 1918.
Source: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Белорусская_Народная_Республика
Showing movies in the BNR continued as usual once the combat ended in March. In May of 1918, an advertisement in the Bobruisk Voice showed that the Giant, the Whole World, and the Art theaters were still functioning.5
Bobruisk Voice, 1 May 1918.
Гигант Где Правда? Чья Вина?
Giant Where is Truth? Who is at fault?
With Polonsky and Goncharova in the leading roles
Вeсь-Мір Похитители бриліантов
Whole World The Diamond Thieves
Художественный
Art
Бандиты шайки мертвой головы
Bandits of the Death’s Head Gant
As the reader can see above, the Giant was showing the two films Where is Truth? and Whose Fault? Where is Truth starred Ivan Khudoleev and Marie Gorcheva and was released on September 21, 1917. The ad also says that handsome leading man Vitold Polonsky stars in the film. However, the Russian cinema site KINO-TEATR.RU does not list him in the cast.6
Whose Fault? 7 starred Olga Preobrazhenskaya, Ivan Lazarev, and was initially released on July 24, 1916. Polonsky is not listed in this one, either.
Polonsky, though, had been a very popular actor. One of his most well remember roles was in the film Молчи, грусть… молчи/Silence, sadness, be silent.
Silence, sadness, be silent, 1918.
There is also, Жизнь за жизнь/A life for a life. It was also known as Her Sister’s Rival.
A life for a life, 1916.
Logo for the Itala Film Company, 1915 — L'emigrante (film 1915) .
Source: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=129218283
The Whole World theater was showing The Diamond Thief (which we could not track down). The Art was showing Bandits of the Death Head Gang.8 The ad claims the Itala Film Company made this movie. We know there was an Itala Film Company, but we found no evidence of a film called Bandits of the Death’s Head Gang.
A poster for the film Whose Fault?, 1916.
Source: https://www.kino-teatr.ru/kino/movie/empire/9079/annot/
The German Army left Minsk on December 9. The Russian Army occupied it the next day.9
The leadership of the Belarusian National Republic also left.10 The end of the fighting in World War I was the beginning of two more years of turmoil in the former Russian Empire, and it led to the division of Belarusian territory and stories for the future Belarusian state film company.
The withdrawal of the German Army after the signing of the Armistice.
The Armistice of November 11, 1918, which ended the fighting in World War I, also called for the nullification of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the withdrawal of the German military from occupied territories.
1 The USSR. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (English version) https://ussr-cccp.moy.su/publ/istorija_sssr/istorija_kpss/kommunisticheskoj_partii_sovetskogo_sojuza_kpss/159-1-0-908 Accessed April 17, 2025; Communist Party of the Soviet Union Britannica https://www.britannica.com/topic/Communist-Party-of-the-Soviet-Union Accessed August 17, 2025.
2 Kasmach, Lizaveta. Belarusian Nation Building in Times of War and Revolution. Central European Union Press, 2023, p. 226. The Belarusian People’s Republic was also known as the Belarusian Democratic Republic, Zaprudnik, Jan. Belarus, At a Crossroads in History Westview Press, 1993, p. 68.
3 Kasmach, Lizaveta. Belarusian Nation Building in Times of War and Revolution. p 207.
4 Rudling, Pers A. The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism, 1906-1931, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014, p. 121.
5 Голос Бобруйска/Bobruisk Voice, 1 May 1918, cited in «Кинематографическое эхо из прошлого: что видели жители Беларуси сто лет назад», “Cinematic echo from the past: what the inhabitants of Belarus saw a hundred years ago,” Национальная библиотека Беларуси/National Library of Belarus. https://www.nlb.by/content/news/proekt-svideteli-epokhi-belarus-na-stranitsakh-gazet-100-letney-davnosti/kinoekho-iz-proshlogo-chto-smotreli-zhiteli-belarusi-sto-let-nazad/ Accessed November 30, 2024.
6 Где правда?/Where is Truth? https://www.kino-teatr.ru/kino/movie/empire/93834/annot/
7 Чья вина/Whose fault? https://www.kino-teatr.ru/kino/movie/empire/9079/annot/.
8 Голос Бобруйска/Bobruisk Voice, 1 May 1918, cited in «Кинематографическое эхо из прошлого: что видели жители Беларуси сто лет назад», “Cinematic echo from the past: what the inhabitants of Belarus saw a hundred years ago,” Национальная библиотека Беларуси/National Library of Belarus.
9 Lubachko, Ivan S. Belorussia Under Soviet Rule, 1917-1957. University Press of Kentucky, 1972. p. 27. Citing Iz istorii ustanovleniia Sovetskoi vlasti/From the history of the establishment of Soviet power том 4/vol. 4 документ № 598/document no. 598, c. 428/p. 428.
10 Zaprudnick, Jan. Belarus: At a Crossroads in History, p. 70.