Czesław Niemen (Polish pronunciation: [t͡ʂɛswaf ɲemɛn]; February 16, 1939 – January 17, 2004), born Czesław Juliusz Wydrzycki, and often credited as just Niemen, was one of the most important and original Polish singer-songwriters and rock balladeers of the 20th century, singing mainly in Polish.
Niemen was born in Stare Wasiliszki in the Nowogródek Voivodeship of the Second Polish Republic (now in the Grodno Region of Belarus). Czesław Niemen belonged to a community of Belarusians and Poles, living outside the eastern borders of contemporary Poland, on the eastern lands of the historical Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (called 'Kresy' – 'borderlands' – in Polish). Czesław Niemen studied in Grodno at "State college.
In the dawn of World War II these ethnic Polish lands were annexed by the Soviet Union, when Poland was split due to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and became a part of the Belorussian SSR, which was affirmed by Europe's post-war reorganization performed during the Yalta Conference.

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