Zachar Šybieka

Šybieka was born on July 30, 1948, in the village of Asinauka, Belitskiy Rural Council of the Sennenskiy Region in the Vitebsk Region of the Byelorussian SSR.

In 1972, he graduated from the history department of Belarusian State University, where in 1977 he defended his candidate's dissertation, and in 1998 his doctor's dissertation.

Šybieka worked as a teacher of history (1972–1974), then as a research fellow at the History Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (1974–1991), and as director of the Department of Belarusian Studies at the Francysk Skaryna National Education Center (1991–1998).

In 1999 he became director of National Museum of History and Culture of the Republic of Belarus.

His work on Belarusian History in the 19th to 20th centuries received an award from the Polish magazine "Przegląd Wschodni" in 2001, and also, in 2003, the Francysk Bogushevich Prize of the Belarusian PEN Center.