Press releases

MINSK, 22 September (BelTA) – An exhibition featuring assets from the collection of the Yakub Kolas State Literature and Memorial Museum will open in the Wladyslaw Broniewski Museum (a branch of the Adam Mickiewicz Literature Museum) in Warsaw, Poland on 22 September, BelTA learned from representatives of the Belarusian museum.

The exhibition is dedicated to the 135^th anniversary since the People’s Artist of Belarus Yakub Kolas was born. His life was closely related to representatives of other literatures.

Yakub Kolas (Konstantin Mikhailovich Mitskevich, 1882-1956) has written the internationally recognized poems Novaya Zyamlya and Symon Muzyka, the trilogy Na Rosstanyakh. He was born in Stolbtsy District, Minsk Oblast. He was encouraged by parents to read works of various writers from an early age. He was particularly fond of Adam Mickiewicz, whose small drawing portrait was on the wall of the parents’ house as a tribute of respect to the great Polish poet. Later on Yakub Kolas wrote: “Adam Mickiewicz is a brilliant Slavonic poet. With his comprehensive talent, with the breadth of this talent Adam Mickiewicz is truly one of the top genius poets.”

Yakub Kolas’ family just like the poet himself thought much of the art of the Polish poet Maria Konopnicka, the Polish writer Henryk Sienkiewicz, and the Belarusian writer Wladyslaw Syrokomla.

Yakub Kolas’ translated works were introduced in Poland back in the 1950s.

The exhibits on display in Warsaw will allow visitors to take a closer look at the life and art of the brilliant man of letters, one of the founders of the new Belarusian literature.

Part of the exhibition is dedicated to Yakub Kolas’ ties with Polish writers. Yakub Kolas had a working relationship with the Polish poet Wladyslaw Broniewski. Yakub Kolas is also known as a talented translator, who can keep peculiarities of the original text’s author’s style intact. A piece of poetry by Adam Mickiewicz in Belarusian translation by Yakub Kolas is one of the exhibits in Warsaw.

Excerpts from a Polish translation of Yakub Kolas’ Novaya Zemlya poem with illustrations by the People’s Artist of Belarus Vasily Sharangovich are also in the spotlight of the exhibition.