Yakub Kolas: Founder of Modern Belarusian Literature

Yakub Kolas (birth name — Konstantin Mikhailovich Mitskevich) is an outstanding Belarusian writer whose creative legacy spans poetry, prose, drama, and translation. Born on November 3, 1882 in the small village of Akinchitsy, in what is now the Stowbtsy District of the Minsk Region, he became one of the principal pillars of Belarusian national culture. Konstantin was born into an Orthodox family of a forester, Mikhail Kazimirovich Mitskevich, and a homemaker, Anna Yuryevna Lyosik. Interestingly, the writer’s paternal ancestors professed Catholicism.

Formation of personality and first steps in education

As early as 1883, the Mitskevich family moved to the village of Lastok, where they spent the next seven years. Here, young Konstantin, together with his older brothers, received his first education from the itinerant teacher Ales Fursevich. From 1892, the boy continued his studies at the Nikolayevshchina public school, where he first encountered the treasures of Russian literature — Krylov’s fables, the poetry of Pushkin, the prose of Gogol, and the poems of Lermontov, Zhukovsky, Nekrasov, as well as the works of Tolstoy. A particularly strong impression on the young man was made by the poems of the Belarusian poet Yanka Luchina. His first literary attempts date back to 1894 — at that time, the twelve-year-old Konstantin wrote the fable “The Fox and the Crow” and the poem “Spring.” His father, having read his son’s work, was so delighted that he gave him a whole ruble — a considerable sum for that era.

The path to the teaching profession

After completing public school, the future writer settled in Albut, where he helped his parents run the household while preparing to enter a teacher-training institution. In August 1898, he became a student of the Nesvizh Teachers’ Seminary, which he successfully graduated from in 1902. Over the next four years, Kolas devoted himself to teaching in Polesia and the Minsk region. His first publication appeared on September 1, 1906 — the Belarusian-language newspaper “Nasha Dolya” published the poem “Native Land” (alternative title — “Our Native Land”), signed with the pseudonym Yakub Kolas. In 1907, the writer headed the literary section of the Vilnius newspaper “Nasha Niva,” although his tenure in this position was short-lived.

Trials and creative growth

Years of imprisonment and creativity behind bars

For active participation in organizing an illegal teachers’ congress in 1906, Kolas was sentenced to three years of imprisonment. From 1908 to 1911, he served his sentence in the Minsk prison. Remarkably, this difficult period proved extremely productive creatively. Behind bars, the poet worked on major works, sending manuscripts out for publication. In 1910, his first significant poetry collection, “Pesni-zhalby”, was published in Vilna (the facsimile edition was reissued in 1982). After his release, the writer returned to teaching. From 1912 to 1914, he worked as a teacher at the third parish school in the city of Pinsk. During this time, the prose books “Apavyadanni” (1912) and “Rodnyya z’yavy” (1914) were published. In Saint Petersburg, in 1913, the stories “Toustaye Palena,” “Nemanau Dar,” and other works were published as separate editions.

Family life and the war years

On June 3, 1913, Konstantin Mikhailovich married the teacher Maria Dmitrievna Kamenskaya. The wedding took place at the St. Barbara Church in Pinsk. The couple had three sons. In 1914, their eldest son Daniil was born; he later became the founder and first director of his father’s museum. The middle son, Yury Konstantinovich, was born in 1917 and tragically went missing in 1941. The youngest son, Mikhail Konstantinovich (Mikhas), was born in 1926 and lived until 2020. In 1915, when World War I began, Kolas evacuated his family to the Moscow region, to the Dmitrovsky district, where he found work as a teacher in the village of Starikovo. In September of the same year, he was mobilized into the army. In 1916, he graduated from the Alexander Military School in Moscow and served in a reserve regiment in Perm. Meanwhile, his family moved to the town of Oboyan in the Kursk Governorate. In the summer of 1917, holding the rank of second lieutenant, Kolas was sent to the Romanian Front, but he fell seriously ill and was evacuated back to Oboyan. After demobilization in early 1918, by decree of the Soviet government, he was discharged from the army as a teacher and continued his teaching work in Oboyan.

The Soviet period: flourishing and trials

Move to Minsk and academic activity

In May 1921, at the invitation of the government of the BSSR, Yakub Kolas moved to Minsk, where he fully devoted himself to creative and scholarly work. He taught at the Minsk Belarusian Pedagogical College and the Belarusian State University, lectured at teacher-training courses, and engaged in research at the Institute of Belarusian Culture. In 1926, the writer was awarded the honorary title People’s Poet of the Belarusian SSR. In 1928, he became an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, and from January 1, 1929, for the rest of his life, he held the position of Vice President of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR. In 1934, he joined the Union of Writers of the USSR. In 1935, he took part in the Congress in Defense of Culture in Paris.

Interwar creative work

In the 1920s–1930s, many significant works were created and published: the short story collection “Kazki Zhytstsya” (1926, first edition in Kaunas, 1921), the poetry collection “Vodgulle” (1922), the poem “New Land” (1923), the novellas “In the Polesian Wilderness” (1923), “Across the Expanses of Life” (1926, filmed in 1929), “In the Depths of Polesia” (1927), the poem “Symon the Musician” (1925), the novellas “The Outcast” (1932) and “The Bog” (1934), and the poetry collection “Our Days” (1937). Kolas also created works for young readers: the poem “Mikhas’s Adventures” (1935), the verse fairy tale “The Mustached Crayfish” (1938), the collections “By the River in Winter” (1941) and “Among Old Oaks” (1941). He adapted many Belarusian folk tales and authored the textbooks “Second Reading for Belarusian Children” (Saint Petersburg, 1909) and “Methodology of the Native Language” (1926).

The Great Patriotic War

During the war years, Yakub Kolas lived in evacuation — first in Klyazma near Moscow, then from August 1941 to November 1943 in Tashkent, and afterward in Moscow. He continued his creative and public activities, producing patriotic works. The poetry collections “We Shall Take Revenge” (1942) and “The Voice of the Land” (1943) were published, as well as the poems “The Trial in the Forest” (Moscow, 1943) and “Retribution” (1946). In December 1944, the writer returned to liberated Minsk. In 1944, Kolas received the title Honored Scientist of the Belarusian SSR, and in 1945, he joined the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).

Postwar years and recognition

After the war, the writer held important public positions: he was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the BSSR (1938–1956) and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR (1946–1956), and chaired the Belarusian Republican Committee for the Defense of Peace. He served as one of the editors of the academic “Russian–Belarusian Dictionary” (1953). In the postwar period, the poetry collection “My Home” (1946), the poem “The Fisherman’s Hut” (1947), the monumental trilogy “At the Crossroads” (1955, staged in 1958 under the title “The Storm Is Coming,” filmed in 1960–1961), the poetry collection “A Genius Lives Among Us” (1952), and the children’s collection “The Morning of Life” (1950) were published.

Awards and prizes

For his outstanding contribution to literature and culture, Yakub Kolas was awarded five Orders of Lenin (including awards on January 31, 1939; December 30, 1948; November 6, 1951; November 3, 1952; and in 1955), the Order of the Red Banner (September 16, 1943), the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (November 11, 1946), and the Medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War,” First Class. The writer twice became a laureate of the Stalin Prize: First Class in 1946 for wartime poems (“Salar,” “The Voice of the Land,” “To the West,” “To My Friend,” “The Native Path,” “In the May Days,” “The Road of Victory”) and Second Class in 1949 for the poem “The Fisherman’s Hut.”

Final years and death

In the last decade of his life, the poet’s health deteriorated significantly. He suffered 26 bouts of pneumonia. Presumably, as with his father, Kolas was diagnosed with lung cancer. Several courses of chemotherapy slowed the progression of the disease, but the writer’s body was severely weakened. On August 13, 1956, Yakub Kolas died at home at his writing desk. On that day, he had visited his granddaughter Maria — the daughter of his son Mikhas — who had turned five, gave her a box of chocolates, and planned to return in the evening for the celebration. However, after returning home, the poet, whose body was exhausted by prolonged illness and chemotherapy, suddenly passed away. The immediate cause of death was a rupture of the cardiac aorta. The writer was buried at the Military Cemetery in Minsk. In 1970, a granite monument created by sculptors Vladimir Ananko, Nikolai Yakovenko, and architect Mikhail Myznikov was erected on his grave.

Creative legacy and translation activity

Yakub Kolas left an exceptionally rich literary legacy, including poetry, prose, drama, journalism, and translations. His dramatic works include the plays “Antos Latа” (1917, staged in the 1920s), “The Strikers” (1925), “War Against War” (1927, final version 1938, staged in 1937), “In the Forests of Polesia” (1938, staged in 1937), and the one-act plays “On the Road of Life” (1917). The writer was actively engaged in translation, rendering into Belarusian the poem “Poltava” by A. Pushkin, as well as selected works by T. Shevchenko, P. Tychyna, A. Mickiewicz, Rabindranath Tagore, and other authors. In 1957, the collection “Journalistic and Critical Articles” was published, demonstrating his talent as a publicist and literary critic. Many of Yakub Kolas’s poems were set to music and became folk songs. His work had a significant influence on the development of Belarusian literature and culture, and he is rightfully considered one of the founders of modern Belarusian literature alongside Yanka Kupala.

Memory of the great writer

The name of Yakub Kolas is commemorated in the names of numerous sites: squares and metro stations in Minsk, streets in various cities of the former USSR, the National Academic Drama Theatre in Vitebsk, the Central Scientific Library of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, and the Nesvizh State College. In Minsk, at 5 Akademicheskaya Street, the State Literary and Memorial Museum of Yakub Kolas operates. In his homeland, in the village of Nikolayevshchina, a branch of the museum has been opened, uniting four memorial estates — Smolnya, Okintsy, Albut, and Lastok. For works of prose and studies in literary scholarship and criticism, the Yakub Kolas State Prize is awarded in the Republic of Belarus. In 1972, a monument to the poet was erected in Minsk, and in 2022, another monument was unveiled in Stowbtsy, timed to the 140th anniversary of the birth of the classic writer.