Dominik Semashko

Dominik Semashko was a Belarusian activist. In the 1890s, he joined the Polish Socialist Party and other socialist groups advocating workers' rights. The police forced him to flee to Switzerland where he received engineering education and firefighting training. During World War I, he was fire chief in Vilnius from 1915 to 1918. In 1918, he was elected to the Rada of the Belarusian Democratic Republic and then became part of the Council of Lithuania. Initially, he was a supporter of a union between Lithuania and Belarus along the lines of the old Grand Duchy of Lithuania but later became more aligned with Lithuania. He represented Lithuania at the Paris Peace Conference and during the negotiations of the Soviet–Lithuanian Peace Treaty. In 1920–1922, he was Minister for Belarusian Affairs. He then retired from politics and devoted his time to firefighting.