The Belarusian Statehood (the beginning of the 20th c.)

Stankievič Adam, Rev. (also spelled: Stankiewicz, Stankevich; Станкевіч Адам), religious and political leader, scholar, historian. Adam Stankievič was born into a peasant family in the village of Arlaniaty, in the Ašmiana region, on December 24, 1891. He studied by himself while performing his duties as a shepherd. Then he studied in the parochial school in the township of Baruny, and later on, in the towns of Halšany and Ašmiana. As a youngster, he became a correspondent of the newspaper Naša Niva. Adam Stankievič graduated from the Catholic Theological Seminary in Vilnia and then from the Catholic Academy in St. Petersburg. While in St. Petersburg, he became one of the leaders of the Belarusian students and one of the founders of a political party, the Belarusian Christian Democracy. After the February Revolution, he came to Miensk where he became extremely active in Belarusian activities. He assisted in organizing the first Belarusian political conference in March of 1917 and the conference of the Belarusian Roman Catholic Clergy in May of the same year. He was one of the most outstanding activists during the entire period of Belarusian political activities of 1917-1920.

In Western Belarus, Rev. Adam Stankievič was one of the most active and respected political and religious leaders among the Belarusians. He was elected to the Polish Sejm, he edited the Belarusian newspaper Chryścijanskaja Dumka, and participated in numerous international conferences on behalf of the Belarusians. Father Stankievič was one of the most prolific Belarusian political and sociological authors. Several of his books, such as Chryścijanstva i Biełaruski Narod, Vilnia, 1940, and Biełaruski Chryścijanski Ruch, Vilnia, 1939, remain the major scholarly works in the field down to the present day. During World War II, Rev. Adam Stankievič remained outside of the Belarusian political movement, rejecting any possibility of collaborating with the Nazi Germans. In many ways he assisted the anti-German resistance and especially the persecuted Jews whom he often harbored in his church. Some time after the Soviets came to Vilnia in 1944, Father Stankievič was imprisoned and exiled. According to some unofficial sources, he died in a Soviet concentration camp in the mid-1950s. However, printed sources — including the Belarusian-American newspaper Biełarus, which provides a photograph of a symbolic tombstone with an inscription — indicate that Adam Stankievič died in a concentration camp in the Irkutsk region in 1949.

References: Božym Šlacham, Paris, nos. 68-69, Oct.-Dec. 1955, pp. 16-20; Biełarus, New York, nos. 125, 1967: 209, 1974; 374, 1988; Jan Šutovič, red.., Ksiondz Adam Stankievič u 25-yja uhodki śviaščenstva i biełaruskaj nacyjanalnaj dziejnaści (10.01.1915-10.01.1940); Belarusian Institute of Arts and Sciences, New York, Archives, Marian Piaciukievič.

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