Zianon Paźniak

Zianon Stanisłavavič Pazniak (born 24 April 1944) is a Belarusian nationalist politician, archaeologist, and pro-democracy activist. He was a founding figure of the Belarusian Popular Front (BPF) and served as the chairman of its parliamentary fraction in the Supreme Council of Belarus from 1990 to 1995. He rose to prominence in politics in 1988 after revealing the NKVD's mass executions during the Great Purge in Kurapaty, which galvanized the Belarusian independence movement and anti-Soviet sentiment. He was a candidate in the 1994 election, the first presidential election of Belarus following its independence, in which Pazniak placed fourth. Since then, he has remained a vocal critic of President Alexander Lukashenko and Russian influence in Belarus, and after the BPF's split in 1999 became Chairman of the Conservative Christian Party – BPF.