Latyšonak Alieh

In 1980-1982 Latyšonak worked as a history teacher at the agricultural college in Suprasl. In 1982, he was arrested for participation in the underground Solidarity movement, and spent eight months under arrest. After his release, he moved to Krakow (Poland), where he worked at the Krakow Historical Museum and the Institute of Polonia Research of Jagiellonian University.

In the late 1980s he joined the Belarusian student movement. He was one of the founders of the Basowiszcza rock festival and the author of its name. He was a founding member of the informal Belarusian Club, which was engaged in training the Belarusian opposition elite. In 1991 he returned to Bialystok and began to work at the Museum of the Army. In 1992-1994 he became chairman of the General Council of the Belarusian Democratic Union, the only party of the national minority in Poland. In 1993-1997 he worked as a journalist for the Niva weekly. Since 1995 he has been a member of the Belarusian Union in Poland, and since 1997 deputy chairman of the Center for Civic Education in Poland-Belarus. In 1998 he co-founded Racyja, a Belarusian radio station.

In 1996 he defended his PhD thesis, and in 2007 finished his habilitation at the University of Nicolaus Copernicus in Torun. Since 1997 he has taught at the Department of Belarusian culture at Bialystok University. In 2008, he transferred to the Department of International Relations at the Institute of History of the University of Bialystok.