Belarus Lew Saphieha – Series: Strengthening and Defending the State 2010 Proof Silver 20 Roubles 38.61mm (33.63 grams) 0.925 Silver (1.0001 oz. ASW) Reference: KM# 338 (Mintage: 3,000) РЭСПУБЛІКА БЕЛАРУСЬ Ag 925 20 РУБЛЁЎ 2010, Representation of an excerpt from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s Statute Book of 1588, the State Coat-of-Arms of the Republic of Belarus atop. ЛЕЎ САПЕГА 1557-1633, Leu Sapieha and on the right side — the Fox Coat-of-arms of the Sapiehas. Edge Lettering: УМАЦАВАННЕ І АБАРОНА ДЗЯРЖАВЫ
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Lew Sapieha (Lithuanian: Leonas Sapiega; Belarusian: Леў Сапега or Lieŭ Sapieha; 4 April 1557 – 7 July 1633) was a nobleman and statesman of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He became Great Secretary of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1580, Great Clerk of the Grand Duchy in 1581, Crown Chancellor in 1585, Grand Chancellor from 1589 until 1623, Voivode of Vilnius in 1621, Great Lithuanian Hetman in 1623 and governor of Slonim, Brest and Mogilev.
Sapieha is considered as a great political figure of the Commonwealth. A rich and powerful magnate, he was known for his wisdom as a statesman, lawyer and military commander, he was one of the greatest leaders of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania at the times of the Duchy’s highest cultural flourishing. He was of Ruthenian ethnicity. Modern Belarusian sources interpret his Ruthenian heritage as Belarusian, however many facts presented by the modern Belarusian sources about the Grand Duchy of Lithuania are often distorted and unanimously not recognized by Lithuanian and Polish historians.
He supported a political union with Muscovy in 1584–1600 and led the diplomatic mission to Moscow in 1600 that proposed the union to tzar Boris Godunov, who declined the proposal. He also participated in wars with Muscovy under rule of Stephen Báthory and King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Sigismund III Vasa. He became an adviser of Sigismund III and supported his radical plans to take over the Muscovite throne and reclaim Smolensk by force.
He participated in establishing the Lithuanian Tribunal in 1578.
As Chancellor he was the main editor and publisher of the last version of the Statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. He laid grounds for the establishment of the Law Faculty in the University of Vilnius, which was created in 1641.
He was co-initiator and a participant in the military expedition to Moscow in 1618 by King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania Władysław IV.
As Sejm Marshal he led the ordinary Sejm in Warsaw from 4 October to 25 November 1582. He was a benefactor of many catholic churches in the Grand Duchy. He established the long-term power and wealth of the Sapieha family.
Sapieha died on 1633 and was interred in the cellars of the Church of St. Michael the Archangel in Vilnius, which he himself commissioned. His tomb remains there to the present day and is still the largest piece of art of its kind in the territory of Lithuania.
Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east and northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus covers an area of 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi), with a population of 9.4 million, and is the thirteenth-largest and the twentieth-most populous country in Europe. The country is administratively divided into seven regions, and is one of the world’s most urbanized, with over 40% of its total land area forested. Minsk is the country’s capital and largest city.
Until the 20th century, different states at various times controlled the lands of modern-day Belarus, including Kievan Rus’, the Principality of Polotsk, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution in 1917, different states arose competing for legitimacy amidst the Civil War, ultimately ending in the rise of the Byelorussian SSR, which became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union in 1922. After the Polish-Soviet War, Belarus lost almost half of its territory to Poland. Much of the borders of Belarus took their modern shape in 1939, when some lands of the Second Polish Republic were reintegrated into it after the Soviet invasion of Poland, and were finalized after World War II. During WWII, military operations devastated Belarus, which lost about a quarter of its population and half of its economic resources. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years. In 1945, the Byelorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union.
The parliament of the republic proclaimed the sovereignty of Belarus on 27 July 1990, and during the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Belarus declared independence on 25 August 1991. Following the adoption of a new constitution in 1994, Alexander Lukashenko was elected Belarus’s first president in the country’s first and only free election post-independence, serving as president ever since. Lukashenko’s government is widely considered to be authoritarian and human rights groups consider human rights in the country to be poor. Belarus is the only country in Europe officially using the death penalty. Lukashenko continued a number of Soviet-era policies, such as state ownership of large sections of the economy. In 2000, Belarus and Russia signed a treaty for greater cooperation, forming the Union State.
Belarus is a developing country ranking very high in the Human Development Index. It has been a member of the United Nations since its founding; and a member of the CIS, the CSTO, the EAEU, and the Non-Aligned Movement, it has shown no aspirations for joining the European Union but nevertheless maintains a bilateral relationship with the Union, and likewise participates in two EU projects: the Eastern Partnership and the Baku Initiative.
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