A-Z Browse

Previous Next

Béjart, Geneviève (French actress)
French actress and early member of Molière’s Illustre Théâtre company. Geneviève played as Mlle Hervé, adopting her mother’s name. She acted with the Béjart family company managed by her sister Madeleine before they joined forces with Molière. She attained note as a tragedienne....
Béjart, Joseph (French actor)
French actor, a strolling player who later joined Molière’s first company, the Illustre-Théâtre. Accompanying Molière in his theatrical wanderings, Béjart created the parts of Lélie and Éraste in the playwright’s L’Étourdi (1653; The Blunderer...
Béjart, Louis (French actor)
French actor, a member of the famous Béjart family theatrical troupe, and an original member of Molière’s Illustre Théâtre company. Louis created many parts in Molière’s plays, including Valère in Dépit amoureux, Dubois in Le Misanthrope...
Béjart, Madeleine (French actress and theatrical manager)
French actress and theatrical manager, a member of the Béjart family, and an intimate friend of the playwright Molière....
Béjart, Maurice (French dancer)
French-born dancer, choreographer, and opera director known for combining classic ballet and modern dance with jazz, acrobatics, and musique concrète (electronic music based on natural sounds)....
bejel (disease)
form of endemic (nonvenereal) syphilis occurring among Bedouin tribes and elsewhere in the Middle East....
Beka Lamb (novel by Edgell)
Belize’s best-known contemporary author is Zee Edgell. Her most widely read novel, Beka Lamb (1982), describes the emerging sense of nationalism in the 1950s in Belize City through the eyes of a young Creole girl. Another of Edgell’s novels, Time and the River (2007), looks at the slave society of Belize in the early 19th century....
Bekaa (valley, Lebanon)
broad valley of central Lebanon, extending in a northeast-southwest direction for 75 miles (120 km) along the Līṭānī and Orontes rivers, between the Lebanon Mountains to the west and Anti-Lebanon Mountains to the east. The valley contains nearly half of Lebanon’s arable land but is not as i...
Bekabad (Uzbekistan)
city, eastern Uzbekistan. It lies along both banks of the Syr River. The town arose originally in connection with a cement plant and until World War II was known as a cement and cotton centre. During World War II a small steel plant was constructed in Bekabad. It uses scrap and some ...
Bekasi (Indonesia)
Four of Indonesia’s five largest cities—Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, and Bekasi—are on Java; the other, Medan, is located on Sumatra. These five cities may be considered metropolitan areas rather than large provincial towns, since they contain the major government, financial, and business offices. Other large cities, such as Semarang, Padang, Palembang, and Makassar (Ujungpanda...
Bekdache, Khalid (Syrian politician)
Syrian politician who acquired control of the Syrian Communist Party in 1932 and remained its most prominent spokesman until 1958, when he went into exile....
Beke, Charles Tilstone (British explorer and biblical scholar)
English biblical scholar, geographer, and businessman who played an important role in the final phase of the discovery of the sources of the Nile River....
Beke, Joos van der (Flemish painter)
Flemish painter known for his portraits of royalty and his religious paintings. He is now often identified with the “Master of the Death of the Virgin.”...
Bekele, Kenenisa (Ethiopian athlete)
Ethiopian long-distance runner who won Olympic gold medals in the 5,000 metres in 2004 and in both the 5,000 metres and the 10,000 metres in 2008....
Bekennende Kirche (German Protestant movement)
movement for revival within the German Protestant churches that developed during the 1930s from their resistance to Adolf Hitler’s attempt to make the churches an instrument of National Socialist (Nazi) propaganda and politics. The German Protestant tradition of close cooperation between church and state, as well as d...
“Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull, Die” (novel by Mann)
novel by Thomas Mann, originally published in German as Die Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull in 1954; the first few chapters were published in 1922 as a short story....
Békés (county, Hungary)
megye (county), southeastern Hungary, occupying a vast area of agricultural flatland on the Great Alfold (Great Hungarian Plain, or Nagy Magyar Alföld). It is bordered by the counties of Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok to the no...
Békéscsaba (Hungary)
city of county status and seat of Békés megye (county), southeastern Hungary. A central point for road and rail communications, it is also connected by canal with the Körös River and serves as an agricultural and industrial centre for a large fertile countryside. A 13th-century Roman Catholic church (rebuilt in the 18th centu...
Békésy, Georg von (American physicist and physiologist)
American physicist and physiologist who received the 1961 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the physical means by which sound is analyzed and communicated in the cochlea, a portion of the inner ear....
Bekhterev spondylitis (pathology)
inflammation of one or more of the vertebrae. Spondylitis takes several forms; the most widely occurring forms are ankylosing spondylitis, hypertrophic spondylitis, and tuberculous spondylitis....
Bekhterev, Vladimir (Russian psychiatrist)
Russian neurophysiologist and psychiatrist who studied the formations of the brain and investigated conditioned reflexes....
Bekhterev, Vladimir Mikhaylovich (Russian psychiatrist)
Russian neurophysiologist and psychiatrist who studied the formations of the brain and investigated conditioned reflexes....
Bekkai, Mubarak (prime minister of Morocco)
...of the sultan were unrestrained. By French insistence, the first cabinet was composed of ministers representing the various groups of Moroccan society, including one from Morocco’s Jewish minority. Mubarak Bekkai, an army officer who was not affiliated with any party, was selected as prime minister. The sultan (who officially adopted the title of king in August 1957) selected the ministe...
Bekker, August Immanuel (German philologist)
German philologist and classical scholar who prepared a great array of critical editions of many classical Greek writers....
Bekobod (Uzbekistan)
city, eastern Uzbekistan. It lies along both banks of the Syr River. The town arose originally in connection with a cement plant and until World War II was known as a cement and cotton centre. During World War II a small steel plant was constructed in Bekabad. It uses scrap and some ...
Bektashi (Islamic sect)
any member of an order of Muslim mystics founded, according to their own traditions, by Ḥājjī Bektāsh Walī of Khorāsān, Iran. It acquired definitive form in the 16th century in Anatolia (Turkey) and spread to the Ottoman Balkans, particularly Albania....
Bektashiyah (Islamic sect)
any member of an order of Muslim mystics founded, according to their own traditions, by Ḥājjī Bektāsh Walī of Khorāsān, Iran. It acquired definitive form in the 16th century in Anatolia (Turkey) and spread to the Ottoman Balkans, particularly Albania....
Bektaşi (Islamic sect)
any member of an order of Muslim mystics founded, according to their own traditions, by Ḥājjī Bektāsh Walī of Khorāsān, Iran. It acquired definitive form in the 16th century in Anatolia (Turkey) and spread to the Ottoman Balkans, particularly Albania....
Bel (Babylonian god)
in Mesopotamian religion, the chief god of the city of Babylon and the national god of Babylonia; as such he was eventually called simply Bel, or Lord. Originally he seems to have been a god of thunderstorms. A poem, known as Enuma elish and dating from the reign of Nebuc...
Bel (Palmyran god)
The principal deity of the Aramaeans of Palmyra was Bol (probably an equivalent to Baal). Bol soon became known as Bel by assimilation to the Babylonian god Bel-Marduk. Both gods presided over the movements of the stars. The Palmyrenes associated Bel with the sun and moon gods, Yarhibol and Aglibol, respectively. Another heavenly triad formed around the Phoenician god Baal Shamen, the......
bel (measurement)
...of one sound can be compared to that of another of the same frequency by taking the ratio of their powers. When this ratio is 10, the difference in intensity of the sounds is said to be one bel, a unit named in honour of the United States inventor Alexander Graham Bell. Accordingly, the relative intensities of two sounds in bels is equal to the logarithm of the intensity......
Bel (Mesopotamian god)
Mesopotamian god of the atmosphere and a member of the triad of gods completed by Anu (Sumerian: An) and Ea (Enki). Enlil meant Lord Wind: both the hurricane and the gentle winds of spring were thought of as the breath issuing from his mouth and eventually as his word or command. He was sometimes called Lord of the Air....
Bel and the Dragon (religious work)
Greek apocryphal addition to the biblical Book of Daniel. It is a deuterocanonical work in that it is accepted in the Roman canon but not by Jews or Protestants. It tells of the Jewish hero Daniel, who refuses to worship the god Bel and kills the dragon, thus being forced into a den of lions, which he is allowed to leave after seven days because he is unharmed. His enemies, advocates of idolatry, ...
bel canto (vocal music)
style of operatic singing that originated in Italian singing of polyphonic (multipart) music and Italian courtly solo singing during the late 16th century and that was developed in Italian opera in the 17th, 18th, and early 19th centuries. Using a relatively small dynamic range, bel canto singing was based on an exact control of the intensity ...
Bel Canto (novel by Patchett)
With her fourth novel, Bel Canto, Patchett established her prominence among contemporary writers. The novel, set somewhere in South America, explores relationships between terrorists and hostages who, shut off from the rest of the world, find unexpected bonds. One of the hostages is a renowned operatic diva, and music becomes the medium by which the characters in the......
bel fruit (fruit)
(species Aegle marmelos), fruit of the bel tree of the family Rutaceae, found wild or cultivated throughout India. The trees bear strong spines; alternate, compound leaves, each with three leaflets; and panicles of sweet-scented white flowers. The tree is valued for its fruit, which is oblong to pyriform in shape and ...
Bel Geddes, Barbara (American actress)
American actress (b. Oct. 31, 1922, New York, N.Y.—d. Aug. 8, 2005, Northeast Harbor, Maine), first gained acclaim for her performances in such films as I Remember Mama (1948) and Vertigo (1958), for her roles on Broadway as the original Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955) and as the title character in Mary, Mary (1961), and for television appearances in Al...
Bel Ḥajj, ʿAlī (Algerian political leader)
deputy leader of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), an Algerian political party. Born to Algerian parents, he became a high-school teacher and an imam. He and the more moderate Abbasi al-Madani registered FIS as a political party in 1989. In 1990 FIS won a majority of votes in local elec...
Bel, Joseph-Achille Le (French chemist)
French chemist whose explanation of why some organic compounds rotate the plane of polarized light helped to advance stereochemistry....
Bel-Ami (work by Maupassant)
Maupassant’s most important full-length novels are Une Vie, Bel-Ami (1885; “Good Friend”), and Pierre et Jean (1888). Bel-Ami is drawn from the author’s observation of the world of sharp businessmen and cynical journalists in Paris, and it is a scathing satire on a societ...
Bel-ibni (king of Babylonia)
...enemies of Assyria. After nine months he was forced to withdraw when Sennacherib defeated a coalition army consisting of Babylonians, Aramaeans, and Elamites. The new puppet king of Babylonia was Bel-ibni (702–700), who had been raised in Assyria....
Bel-shar-usur (king of Babylonia)
coregent of Babylon who was killed at the capture of the city by the Persians....
Béla futása (opera by Ruzitska)
...In addition to staging works by Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, and Carl Maria von Weber, he revived József Ruzitska’s opera Béla futása (“Béla’s Flight”), which in 1822 had been the first Hungarian opera....
Béla I (king of Hungary)
king of Hungary (1060–63) who fought a successful war against the Holy Roman emperor Henry III to defend his country’s independence....
Béla II (king of Hungary)
king of Hungary (1131–41). He was the son of Prince Álmos, the younger brother of King Coloman (Hungarian: Kálmán)....
Béla III (king of Hungary)
king of Hungary (1173–96) under whom Hungary became the leading power of south-central Europe....
Béla IV (king of Hungary)
king of Hungary (1235–70) during whose reign the Mongol invasions left three-quarters of Hungary in ruins. He was the son of Andrew II....
Bela Pratapgarh (India)
...partially forested, although there are small, barren saline areas. Rice, barley, millet, and sugarcane are grown, and hemp and hides are produced. Salt, potassium nitrate, and limestone are mined. Bela Pratapgarh, the district headquarters, lies on the Sai River at a junction of roads and rail lines and is a trade centre for agricultural products. Area 1,440 square miles (3,730 square km).......
Béla the Blind (king of Hungary)
king of Hungary (1131–41). He was the son of Prince Álmos, the younger brother of King Coloman (Hungarian: Kálmán)....
Belad Ulid (Spain)
city, capital of Valladolid provincia (province), in the comunidad autónoma (autonomous community) of Castile-León,northwestern Spain. The city lies along the Pisuerga River at its confluence with the Esgueva, southwest of Burgos....
Belafonte, Harold George (American singer, actor, and activist)
American singer, who was a key figure in the 1950s popularity of folk music, and an actor and film producer as well....
Belafonte, Harry (American singer, actor, and activist)
American singer, who was a key figure in the 1950s popularity of folk music, and an actor and film producer as well....
Belagula (India)
An important manufacturing and trading centre, Mysore has textile (cotton and silk), rice, and oil mills, sandalwood-oil and chemical factories, and tanneries. The suburb of Belagula, to the northwest, produces chrome dyes and chemical fertilizer. The city’s industries are powered by the hydroelectric station near Sivasamudram Island to the east. Mysore’s cottage industries include c...
Belahan (Indonesia)
...was identified by the people with the sacred Mount Meru, and its natural springs were believed to have a magical healing power and a mystical purifying capacity. Another such bathing place is Belahan (11th century). Made of brick, it, too, has extensive ruined temples. Belahan is supposed to have been the burial place of King Airlangga, who probably died about 1049. One of the greatest......
Belaicázar, Sebastián de (Spanish conqueror)
Spanish conqueror of Nicaragua, Ecuador, and southwestern Colombia. He captured Quito and founded the cities of Guayaquil in Ecuador and Popayán in Colombia....
Bélain, Pierre, sieur d’Esnambuc (French trader)
French trader who in 1635 established the first colony for the Compagnie des Îles d’Amérique on the Caribbean island of Martinique, the first permanent French colony in the West Indies....
Belait River (river, Brunei)
short stream on the island of Borneo, politically in Brunei, near its far southwestern border with the Malaysian state of Sarawak. It flows southeast-northwest through swampy terrain for about 20 miles (32 km) and discharges into the South China Sea. At its mouth is Kuala Belait, one of Brunei’s i...
Belalcázar, Sebastián de (Spanish conqueror)
Spanish conqueror of Nicaragua, Ecuador, and southwestern Colombia. He captured Quito and founded the cities of Guayaquil in Ecuador and Popayán in Colombia....
Belamcanda chinensis (plant)
with red-spotted orange flowers, a popular garden flower. It is native to East Asia and is naturalized in some parts of North America....
Belamcanda flabellata (plant)
...iris family (Iridaceae) and has branching stems, lower, grassy foliage, a stout rootstalk, and blackberry-like seeds. The flowers have the six petallike segments. Shorter, with light-yellow flowers, B. flabellata is another East Asian ornamental of the same genus....
Belanger, Blade (American athlete)
American baseball player who won eight Gold Gloves and played in four World Series during his 16 seasons (1965-81) as a fielding shortstop with the Baltimore Orioles (b. June 8, 1944, Pittsfield, Mass.--d. Oct. 6, 1998, New York, N.Y.)....
Bélanger, François-Joseph (French architect, artist, landscape designer, and engineer)
architect, artist, landscape designer, and engineer, best known for his fantastic designs for private houses and gardens in pre-Revolutionary France....
Belanger, Mark Henry (American athlete)
American baseball player who won eight Gold Gloves and played in four World Series during his 16 seasons (1965-81) as a fielding shortstop with the Baltimore Orioles (b. June 8, 1944, Pittsfield, Mass.--d. Oct. 6, 1998, New York, N.Y.)....
Belanov, Igor (Ukrainian football player and coach)
...including the backbone of a number of Soviet and Ukrainian national teams. Two Kiev players, both strikers, have won the coveted European Footballer of the Year award: Oleg Blokhin in 1975 and Igor Belanov in 1986....
Belar, Herbert (American engineer)
The first electronic sound synthesizer, an instrument of awesome dimensions, was developed by the American acoustical engineers Harry Olson and Herbert Belar in 1955 at the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) laboratories at Princeton, N.J. The information was fed to the synthesizer encoded on a punched paper tape. It was designed for research into the properties of sound and attracted composers......
Belarius (fictional character)
...sends a servant to kill Imogen, but the servant instead warns her of the plan. Disguising herself as a young boy (Fidele), she sets out for Rome but loses her way in Wales. There she encounters Belarius and her two brothers, whom she had believed dead (Belarius had kidnapped Cymbeline’s sons in retribution for his unjust banishment). Posthumus (who has left Rome), Imogen, and her brother...
Belarmino and Apolonio (work by Pérez de Ayala)
Pérez de Ayala’s later novels, which are considered his finest works, show a greater mastery of characterization and novelistic technique. Belarmino y Apolonio (1921; Belarmino and Apolonio) is a symbolic portrayal of the conflict between faith and doubt. Luna de miel, luna de hiel (1923; Moons of Honey and Gall) and its sequel, Los trabajos de Urbano y...
“Belarmino y Apolonio” (work by Pérez de Ayala)
Pérez de Ayala’s later novels, which are considered his finest works, show a greater mastery of characterization and novelistic technique. Belarmino y Apolonio (1921; Belarmino and Apolonio) is a symbolic portrayal of the conflict between faith and doubt. Luna de miel, luna de hiel (1923; Moons of Honey and Gall) and its sequel, Los trabajos de Urbano y...
Belarus
country of eastern Europe. Until it became independent in 1991, Belarus, formerly known as Belorussia or White Russia, was the smallest of the three Slavic republics included in the Soviet Union (the larger two being Russia and Ukraine). While Belarusians share a distinct ethnic identity ...
Belarus, flag of
...
Belarus, history of
History...
Belarus, Republic of
country of eastern Europe. Until it became independent in 1991, Belarus, formerly known as Belorussia or White Russia, was the smallest of the three Slavic republics included in the Soviet Union (the larger two being Russia and Ukraine). While Belarusians share a distinct ethnic identity ...
Belarus: Year In Review 1993
A landlocked republic of Eastern Europe, Belarus borders Latvia on the north, Russia on the north and east, Ukraine on the south, Poland on the west, and Lithuania on the northwest. Area: 207,600 sq km (80,200 sq mi). Pop. (1993 est.): 10,353,000. Cap.: Minsk. Monetary unit: Belarusian rubel, with (Oct. 4, 1993) a free rate of 2,330 rubels = U.S. $1 (3,530 rubels = £ 1 sterling). Chairman o...
Belarus: Year In Review 1994
A landlocked republic of Eastern Europe, Belarus borders Latvia on the north, Russia on the north and east, Ukraine on the south, Poland on the west, and Lithuania on the northwest. Area: 207,595 sq km (80,153 sq mi). Pop. (1994 est.): 10,404,000. Cap.: Minsk. Monetary unit: Belarusian rubel, with (Oct. 7, 1994) a free rate of 5,854 rubels = U.S. $1 (9,312 rubels = £ 1 sterling). Chairmen o...
Belarus: Year In Review 1995
A landlocked republic of Eastern Europe, Belarus borders Latvia on the north, Russia on the north and east, Ukraine on the south, Poland on the west, and Lithuania on the northwest. Area: 207,595 sq km (80,153 sq mi). Pop. (1995 est.): 10,332,000. Cap.: Minsk. Monetary unit: Belarusian rubel, with (Oct. 6, 1995) an official rate of 11,500 rubli = U.S. $1 (18,180 rubli = £ 1 sterling). Chair...
Belarus: Year In Review 1996
A landlocked republic of Eastern Europe, Belarus borders Latvia on the north, Russia on the north and east, Ukraine on the south, Poland on the west, and Lithuania on the northwest. Area: 207,595 sq km (80,153 sq mi). Pop. (1996 est.): 10,322,000. Cap.: Minsk. Monetary unit: Belarusian rubel, with (Oct. 11, 1996) an official rate of 19,165 rubli = U.S. $1 (30,191 rubli = £ 1 sterling). Pres...
Belarus: Year In Review 1997
Area: 207,595 sq km (80,153 sq mi)...
Belarus: Year In Review 1998
Area: 207,595 sq km (80,153 sq mi)...
Belarus: Year In Review 1999
Prolonged political conflict and confrontation—both between the government of Pres. Alyaksandr Lukashenka and the opposition and within the best-known opposition party, the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF)—marked 1999 in Belarus....
Belarus: Year In Review 2000
The year 2000 in Belarus was dominated by political conflict centred on the parliamentary elections of October 15. On January 31 the upper chamber, the Council of the Republic, passed a new electoral code. The opposition, using the forum of the Coordinated Council of Democratic Forces, objected to the acceptance of the code without debate. Fur...
Belarus: Year In Review 2001
The year in Belarus was dominated by a controversial presidential election campaign and the vote on Sept. 9, 2001, which resulted in a victory for incumbent Pres. Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Initially 22 candidates filed applications, including prominent opposition leaders Zyanon Paznyak, exiled leader of the Conservative Christi...
Belarus: Year In Review 2002
The year 2002 was most uncomfortable for Pres. Alyaksandr Lukashenka (who was reelected in September 2001) as a result of his differences with Russian Pres. Vladimir V. Putin. Their disputes centred on the Russia-Belarus Union, the establishment of which had long been a goal of Lukashenka’s....
Belarus: Year In Review 2003
The year 2003 began promisingly in Belarus. The reopening in January of the Minsk office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe led to the lifting of visa bans on Pres. Alyaksandr Lukashenka and seven cabinet members by the United States...
Belarus: Year In Review 2004
The year 2004 in Belarus was dominated by a controversial referendum on whether to amend the constitution to allow Pres. Alyaksandr Lukashenka to run for a third term in office; presidential elections were scheduled for 2006. On September 7 the president announced that on Oct. 17, 2004, the day of the parliamentary election, a referendum would be held on the f...
Belarus: Year In Review 2005
The year 2005 saw significant moves by the political opposition to prepare for the Belarusian presidential elections of 2006. Following nationwide meetings to nominate 839 delegates to the Congress of Democratic Forces of Belarus, and after delays in obtaining a building for the event, the congress was opened on October 1 at the Palace of Culture of the Minsk Automobile Factory....
Belarus: Year In Review 2006
The year 2006 in Belarus was dominated by a contentious and violent presidential election campaign. Four candidates were registered for the March 19 election: Pres. Alyaksandr Lukashenka, Liberal Democratic Party leader Syarhey Haidukevich, Alyaksandr Kazulin of the Social Democratic Party, and the leader of the United Democratic opposition, Alyaksand...
Belarus: Year In Review 2007
The year 2007 began in Belarus with a fractious dispute with Russia over natural gas prices. Belarus agreed to pay Gazprom $100 per 1,000 cu m for imported Russian gas, more than double the 2006 rate. Moreover, it was agreed that the price would rise each year to reach the European rate (at that time about $265) by 2011. On January 12, after...
Belarus: Year In Review 2008
The year 2008 in Belarus was dominated by turbulent foreign relations between Belarus and Russia, the EU, and the U.S. and by parliamentary elections that were held on September 28. In addition, the U.S. sanctions imposed (Nov. 13, 2007) on the oil-processing firm Belnafttakhim were expanded in the sprin...
Belarus: Year In Review 2009
In 2009 Belarus achieved mixed economic results as it struggled to deal with the world recession. On January 2 the official currency, the Belarusian ruble (zaichik), was devalued by 20.5% against the U.S. dollar. Inflation hovered around 9–11%, and GDP dropped by 0.5% over the first nine months of the year. Export...
Belarus: Year In Review 2010
A fractious presidential election and fluctuating relations with Russia dominated 2010 in Belarus. The relationship with Russia deteriorated as a result of several factors. In April deposed Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev surfaced in Minsk, and Belarusian Pres. Alyaksandr Lukashenka refused to extradite him, angering Russia. In June Russi...
Belarusian (people)
Kazakhstan’s distinct regional patterns of settlement depend in part on its varied ethnic makeup. Slavs—Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians—largely populate the northern plains, where they congregate in large villages that originally served as the centres of collective and state farms. These populated oases are separated by wheat fields or, in the more arid plains to the sou...
Belarusian language
East Slavic language that is historically the native language of most Belarusians. Many 20th-century governments of Belarus had policies favouring the Russian language, and, as a result, Russian is more widely used in education and public life than Belarusian. Belarusian forms a link between the Russian and Ukrainian languages, since its dialects shade gradually into Russian dia...
Belarusian Popular Front (political party, Belarus)
...Party of Belarus; and the Agrarian Party. Opposition parties are permitted, but they have had little electoral success. They include the Party of Communists of Belarus (PKB); the Party of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF); the Conservative-Christian Party of the Belarusian Popular Front; the right-of-centre United Civic Party; and the left-of-centre Belarusian Social Democrats. The......
Belarusian Ridge (region, Belarus)
upland region in Belarus. From northeastern Poland the ridge runs southeast into western Belarus and then swings northeast. Its total length is 320 miles (520 km). The ridge, covered by marine sands and clays, is in reality a series of separate uplands, of which the highest point is Dzyarzhynskaya Hill, elevation 1,135 feet (346 metres), in the Minsk Upland. T...
Belaruskaya mova
East Slavic language that is historically the native language of most Belarusians. Many 20th-century governments of Belarus had policies favouring the Russian language, and, as a result, Russian is more widely used in education and public life than Belarusian. Belarusian forms a link between the Russian and Ukrainian languages, since its dialects shade gradually into Russian dia...
Belasco, David (American theatrical producer and playwright)
American theatrical producer and playwright whose important innovations in the techniques and standards of staging and design were in contrast to the quality of the plays he produced....
Belasitsa Mountains (mountains, Europe)
...at Musala Peak, which is the highest point in the country and indeed in the whole Balkan Peninsula; the Pirin Mountains, with Vikhren Peak reaching 9,560 feet; and a frontier range known as the Belasitsa Mountains. These majestic ranges discharge meltwater from montane snowfields throughout the summer, and their sharp outlines, pine-clad slopes, and, in the Rila and Pirin ranges, several......
Belau
country in the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of some 340 coral and volcanic islands perched on the Kyushu-Palau Ridge. The Palau (also spelled Belau or Pelew) archipelago lies in the southwest corner of Micronesia, with Guam 830 miles (1,330 km) to the northeast, New Guinea...
Belaúnde Terry, Fernando (president of Peru)
statesman, architect, and president of Peru (1963–68, 1980–85), known for his efforts at democratic reform and his pro-American stance....
Belavezhs Forest Preserve (forest, Eastern Europe)
forest in western Belarus and eastern Poland. One of the largest surviving areas of primeval mixed forest (pine, beech, oak, alder, and spruce) in Europe, it occupies more than 460 square miles (1,200 square km). The Belovezhskaya Forest is located near the headwaters of the Narev (Polish: Narew) and Lesna...