He was born on December 15, 1934 in Minsk. His parents are teachers who come from peasant families. His father, :ru:Шушкевич, Станислав Петрович|Stanislav Petrovich Shushkevich was arrested in the 1930s and was released from prison in 1956. In the early 1960s, while working as an engineer in electronics factory, he was in charge of teaching Lee Harvey OswaldRussian when Oswald lived in Minsk. Shushkevich has been married to his wife Irina since 1976. According to him, she forced him to start a healthy lifestyle. He has a son named Stanislav and daughter named Elena.
Political activity
When Supreme Soviet chairman Mikalay Dzyemyantsyey was ousted for his support of the 25 August coup attempt, Shushkevich was voted as his successor, and presided over Byelorussia voting to secede from the Soviet Union. He thus became the newly minted nation's first leader. When the republic changed its name to Belarus on 25 September, Shushkevich was voted as Supreme Soviet chairman on a permanent basis. On December 8, 1991, in Belavezhskaya Pushcha and together with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine, he signed a declaration that the Soviet Union was dissolved and replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States; the declaration later became known as the "Belavezha Accords". Shushkevich withdrew from Belarus the vestigial Soviet nuclear arsenal, without preconditions or compensation from Russia or the West. However, other reforms became stalled due to the opposition from a hostile parliament as well as from Prime Minister Vyacheslav Kebich. In late 1993, Alexander Lukashenko, the then-chairman of the anti-corruption committee of the Belarusian parliament, accused 70 senior government officials, including Shushkevich, of corruption, including stealing state funds for personal purposes. Lukashenko's accusations forced a vote of confidence, which Shushkevich lost. Shushkevich was replaced by Vyacheslav Kuznetsov and later by Myechyslau Hryb. The accusations against Shushkevich turned out to be without merit. with Leonid Kravchuk and Boris Yeltsin in 1991 In July, 1994 the first directpresidential elections were held in Belarus. Six candidates stood, including Lukashenko, Shushkevich and Kebich, with the latter regarded as the clear favorite. In the first round Lukashenko won 45% of the vote against 17% for Kebich, 13% for Paznyak and 10% for Shushkevich. In 2002 the world learned about a highly unusual court case. Shushkevich sued the Belarusian Ministry of Labor and Social Security: due to inflation, his retirement pension as a former head of state was the equivalent of US$1.80 monthly. To earn income, Shushkevich lectures extensively in foreign universities including in Poland, the United States and Asian countries. In 2004 he attempted to participate in parliamentary elections, but was refused registration by the electoral commission. He continues to be active in politics, heading the Belarusian Social Democratic Assembly party.
