Original sentence: By the 16th century, the  term "ruski" ("Russian" or "Ruthenian" in Latin) continued to refer to the language spoken in modern-day Ukraine and Belarus, not the language of Muscovy (the modern Russians).For example, according to the 1897 Imperial Russian census, in Belarusian towns of more than 50,000 residents, only 7.3% respondents reported Belarusian as their mother tongue (the criterion in defining nationality for the purposes of the census).Hundreds of people were shot or sent to Siberia.In the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century, very few people wrote in Belarusian, peasants being mostly illiterate, and urban dwellers preferring Russian, Polish or Yiddish.On March 25, 1918, Belarusians proclaimed the independence of the Belarusian National Republic, but it was short-lived and didn't manage to stay independent.One of the reasons for this situation is the minority status of Belarusian speakers in urban areas—traditional cultural centers.Still there existed a minor movement for returning to the Belarusian language; it was important in the circle of friends of Adam Mickiewicz.The orthographic reform of 1933 clearly "russified" the Belarusian spelling rules.This state of affairs greatly contributed to a perception that Belarusian is a "rural", "uneducated" language
Edited sentence: By the 16th century, the  term "ruski" ("Russian" or "Ruthenian" in Latin) continued to refer to the language spoken in modern-day Ukraine and Belarus...For the peasents, however, most continued to refer to themselves as Russian.In the 1897 most refered to their native language as Belarusian, not Russian as they did during the Polish rule.Initially Imperial Russian athorities thought that the language spoken by Belarusian peasents was nothing but Polonised Russian, nevertheless as Polish influence over the territory slackened, the Russification of Belarusian peasents proved counter productive.On March 25, 1918, Belarusians proclaimed the independence of the Belarusian People's Republic, but it was short-lived and didn't manage to stay independent.The orthographic reform of 1933 changed the Belarusian spelling rules and somewhat brought it closer to Russian