Voice, Soul and Heart of Belarus: Yakub Kolas Named People’s Poet 100 Years Ago
On October 18, 1926—exactly 100 years ago—Yakub Kolas was awarded the title of People’s Poet of Belarus.
Today, the memory of the great Belarusian writer lives on and is preserved in many parts of the country. His life, biography and works continue to attract great interest among younger generations.
The future People’s Poet of Belarus, Kanstantsin Mitskevich—known to everyone by his pen name, Yakub Kolas—was born in the Stowbtsy district. The writer’s entire family came from the area near Stowbtsy.
Olga Shavel, research associate at the Yakub Kolas Museum branch in Smolnya:
“When Yakub Kolas came here to visit his relatives in Smolnya in September 1911, imagine what he found: one empty house, with bare land all around it. He and his uncle Anton dug some holes and went into the forest. This little linden tree we’ve just passed was planted by Kolas himself in September 1911.”
The People’s Poet’s father and brother were foresters, so the family often moved from place to place. But Smolnya is noteworthy because it was here that two men who would later become Belarus’s first People’s Poets—Yakub Kolas and Yanka Kupala—met for the first time.
“In the spring of 1912, he was already working as a teacher. He came to Smolnya to visit his relatives during the summer holidays. It was at this table that our two future People’s Poets sat when they first met. Kolas later wrote that he felt a little embarrassed because the table was so modest. He even wrote about it in The New Land: ‘My dear Yanka, my Kupala! Fate has swept us into the same current. Why, oh why, did we not meet at that time, so that the poet’s soul might have been cheered by the feast at a peasant’s table?’” Olga Shavel said.
Yakub Kolas always returned to these places from Minsk—even in the year he died.
Elena Zhestkova, head of the public education and outreach section at the Yakub Kolas State Literary Memorial Museum:
“Before you is the poet’s desk. This is where Yakub Kolas died. His heart stopped as he was writing a letter to his friend and translator, Yevgeny Mozolkov. His eldest son, Danila, found him here. Time has stood still in this study. The clock is stopped at 1:20 p.m.—the recorded time of Yakub Kolas’s death. The calendars are open to July 13, 1956, and the unfinished letter to Yevgeny Mozolkov is still here.”
The Yakub Kolas Memorial House Museum in Minsk, near the Academy of Sciences, continues to draw visitors. The museum has preserved the interior and way of life that surrounded the great Belarusian writer. As he did at his birthplace in the Stowbtsy district, Kolas planted trees here too, and they can still be seen today.
“Yakub Kolas never forgot his peasant origins. Of course, a garden was planted on the estate between 1945 and 1947. In 1945, Yakub Kolas planted three oak trees there, symbolising himself and his sons, Danila and Mikhas. A birch tree grew among the oaks, symbolising his wife. She did not live in this house, as she died after Victory Day had officially been declared,” Elena Zhestkova noted.
Yakub Kolas also had a middle son, Yurka, who went missing in the first months of the war, in 1941. Kolas waited all his life for Yurka to return, and even dreamed that he would. When hope had almost faded, in 1947 he went to the botanical garden with his youngest son, Mikhas, bought an oak sapling and planted a fourth tree. Strangely enough, that fourth oak grew to be the largest and thickest of them all.
“Yakub Kolas’s work and name are always remembered because we have a memorial museum. It is a real home where Yakub Kolas lived—a house built for him to live in,” Elena Zhestkova emphasised.
The title of People’s Poet is a rare distinction. The title itself was established in 1925, when it was awarded to Yanka Kupala. Yakub Kolas became its second recipient. Then came a 26-year pause: the third People’s Poet, Petrus Brovka, received the title much later.