The Belorusskaya was bred in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, principally in the western part of what is now Belarus,[6]: 226 which was for much of the twentieth century the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. The aim was to create an agricultural draught horse adapted to local conditions, capable of working on sandy, swampy or woodland terrain.[4]: 321 Local mares, many of them of Polesian type, were put to imported stallions. The majority of these were of the Norwegian Dølehest draught breed, but there was also some Ardennes and Brabant influence.[5]: 443 By the 1980s the breeding programme was close to completion;[4]: 273 two volumes of the stud-book had been issued, in which 616 mares and 135 stallions were recorded.[4]: 321
In 1980 the total breed population was some 93000, of which almost 28000 were pure-bred.[4]: 321
The breed was officially recognised in Belarus in 2000.[6]: 226
^ abcdeN.G. Dmitriev, L.K. Ernst (1989). Animal genetic resources of the USSR. FAO animal production and health paper 65. Rome: Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. ISBN9251025827. Archived 13 November 2009. Also available here, archived 29 September 2017.