He was an opinion journalist in Lithuania, then a historian (mostly of the Russian Empire), a theatrologist and an Ethnologist in Minsk.
He authored studies on economic geography, history, ethnography, agriculture, and banking.
He organized strikes in the Nowograd region and in Minsk, where he also led work on forming trade unions.
On 24 August 1906, Burbis was arrested in Dolnaya near Shchorsau in the Navahrad Region (he had a passport in the name of Henry Bukhovetsky).
He authored a memo to the Central Committee of the RCP(b) (14 January 1920), similar to the "Statement of the 32nd".
The note was accompanied by an appendix on the creation of an exemplary Belarusian Soviet Republic that contained information about the historical past, political and social order of Belarus, the first steps of the Soviet government in the republic, and made critical remarks in connection with the mistakes made in the implementation of the national-state policy by the leadership.
He wrote articles on the national liberation issue (after February 1917), and on the history, ethnography, and economy of Belarus.
He staged M. Krapivnytskyi's On Revision in the Petrouschyna estate near Minsk (1906, V. Dunin-Martsinkevich's Matchmaking in Vilnius (1915).
In August 1920, he finished the scientific monograph "Brief Sketch on the Economic Geography of Belarus" (published in Narodnoe hozyaztyo Belorussii.