 The emancipation of the serfs in 1861, followed by the January Uprising fully left the Polish influence on Belarus behind.A number of authors started publishing in the Belarusian language, including Jan Czeczot, Władysław Syrokomla and Konstanty Kalinowski.What followed was the Industrial Revolution under Alexander III and with it the arrival of the railways  Peasants sought a better lot in growing industrial centres in Belarus and a further 1.5 million people leaving to other parts of the Empire in the half-century preceding the Russian Revolution of 1917.