Third Constituent Charter
The Third Constituent Charter () is a legal act adopted by the Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic on 25 March 1918 in Minsk (in Malin's house), according to which the Belarusian People's Republic was proclaimed an independent state. The anniversary of this historic event is traditionally celebrated by Belarusians as the Freedom Day. A copy of the Third Constituent Charter is kept in the National Archives of Belarus. History The adoption of the Third Charter took place in conditions when, according to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Soviet Russia agreed to the occupation of most of Belarus by the German Empire. The document summed up the results of the internal struggle in the leadership of the Belarusian Democratic Republic and the Belarusian Socialist Assembly for the adoption of the Second Constituent Charter, which dissatisfied the independence movement in the Belarusian Socialist Assembly, Branislaw Tarashkyevich and others. On 9 March 1918, the de facto leader of the BSA, Arkadź Smolič, wrote a letter to Ivan Luckievič, in which he claimed that the republic's leadership did not have enough conscious supporters of the independence of Belarus. On 18 March 1918, at a meeting of the Council of the All-Belarusian Congress of 1917,