Radasłaŭ Kazimiravič Astroŭski (; ; Radoslav Kazimirovich Ostrovskiy; 25 October 1887 – 17 October 1976) was a Byelorussian collaborator with Nazi Germany who served as president of the Belarusian Central Rada, a puppet Belarusian administration under German hegemony from 1943–1944, and in exile from 1948-1976. Early years Radasłaŭ Astroŭski was born on 25 October 1887 in the town of Zapolle, Slutsk Uyezd, Minsk Governorate. He studied at the Slutsk gymnasium, but was expelled for participating in the Russian Revolution of 1905–1907. In 1908 he was accepted to the mathematical faculty of Saint Petersburg University. In 1911, he was arrested for taking part in revolutionary riots and was imprisoned at Saint Petersburg and Pskov. After his release in 1912, he re-entered the university and later transferred to the University of Tartu, from where he graduated with a degree in physics and mathematics. After University, Astroŭski worked as a teacher in Częstochowa, Poland and in Minsk. From 1915 to 1917 he taught at the Minsk Teaching Institute. After the February Revolution of 1917 he became the commissar of the Provisional Government in Slutsk paviet. In September of the same year he founded the Slutsk Belarusian Gymnasium and became its principal. Astroŭski opposed the October Revolution of 1917. He was a delegate to the December 1917 First All-Belarusian Congress and published articles where he supported the idea of Belarusian independence. In 1918 Astroŭski was Education Minister in the government of the Belarusian Democratic Republic under Prime Minister Raman Skirmunt. He also took part in the 1920 Slutsk defence action against the Red Army. Political activity in West Belarus In 1921, he moved into West Belarus in the Second Polish Republic. He served as principal of the Belarusian Gymnasium of Vilnia from 1924 to 1936. In the second half of the 1920s, he radically changed his political views. In 1924 he initiated the creation of a Polish-Belarusian Society that supported the Polish government. After the breakdown of the Society, Astroŭski cooperated with the Belarusian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) and with the Communist Party of West Belarus, and managed the illegal komsomol cell in his gymnasium. In 1925 and 1926 he was the vice-chairman of the Belarusian Peasants' and Workers' Union, the chairman of the Belarusian School Society, and the principal of the Belarusian Cooperation Bank in Wilno, used to transfer finances to the BPWU. In 1926, Astroŭski joined the Communist Party of West Belarus