Реферат: Yanka Kupala

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                                         YANKA KUPALA

                                                                                        

YankaKupala


Kupala is the pen name of theoutstanding Byelorussian poet, Ivan Lulsevich. According to folk legends, theshort July night of Ivan Kupala (St. John the Baptist) — a very popular Slavicholiday -is when fern begins to bloom in the thick of the forest. This herb isbelieved to possess some magic power. He who finds it and tears away its flowershall forever be happy…

The son of a landlessByelorussian peasant, Dominik Lutsevich, Ivan (or simply Yanka) sought thelegendary'flower of happiness not in the thick of the forest but in the depthsof human life. Not for himself, but for his downtrodden people who forcenturies had been destined to bear the unbearable yoke of national and socialoppression.

For the first time, thename of Yanka Kupala appeared on May 15, 1905, in the newspaper Severo-ZapadnyKrai (The North-Western Land), under his poem A Muzhik. Both theperiod and the circumstances surrounding his poetic debut seem unusual andsignificant, as tokens of the future ascend, above the horizon of Byelorussianand world culture, of not simply another literary star, but of a whole galaxy.Together with Kupala, or thanks to him, such extraordinarily endowedpersonalities as Tsiotka, Maxim Bogdanovich and Yakub Kolas emerged. However,Yanka Kupala was the first, the founder of a new Byelorussianliterature, its architect and constructor. He was that trailblazer which isfound in the culture of every nation, as Pushkin was in Russian culture,Shevchenko in Ukrainian, Mickiewicz in Polish, and so on.

The special place whichKupala occupies in Byelorussian literature may be determined from the words ofYakub Kolas, his distinguished contemporary; «Differences in genrenotwithstanding, the creations of Yanka Kupala seem to me as a single book,even as one song glorifying the work of the people.

»Half of this song isangry and sad -these are the works of the pre-October period, when the poetused his inspired verse to place himself, courageously and selflessly, in thecamp of those fighting for the social and national liberation of their people.

«The second half ischeerful, permeated with the enthusiasm of creativeness. It belongs to theperiod when the Byelorussian people achieved their statehood and, guided bycxoerienced leaders, embarked upon the road leading to socialism and, further,to communism.»

Kupala launchedByelorussian literature to high world-embracing orbits, treeing it from thetriteness of unimaginativeness, stylishness and bookishness. His civicdetermination and ardent enthusiasm of an innovatr gave birth to new ideas and,more importantly, to new poetic forms, genres, rhythms andones, ll marked byfinesse and stylistic flair.     <img src="/cache/referats/15915/image004.jpg" v:shapes="_x0000_i1026">

                                      Yanka          Kupala

However, Kupala's majorcontribution to literature in the period before 19l7 was his voice of socialprotest. In his poem The Song of a Free Man, he openly calls on thepeople wage a struggle. Czarist censors qualified it as «antiState,»since, reading it, «one cannot but notice an open encouragement ofobviously rebellious actions.»

His humane verse, his«love of the sun» («I bow to the Earth and the Sun, / I'm a sonof the Earth, a free son of the Sun.») brought him close to his greatcontemporaries like Maxim Gorky, Ivan Franko and Lesya Ukrainka.

After the OctoberRevolution, the poet envisioned his nation liberated, free from its social andnational shackles. In place of zhaleika folk songs of grief, the poet,with trumpet in hand, urges his kin toward building a new life.

Living for twenty yearsunder Soviet rule proved an important landmark on the poet's road towardcreative accomplishment. This period dictated new poetic themes, ideas andimages.

One by one, his collectionsof verse were published, having their effect on extensive reading circles. Hisworks were translated into other languages -particularly into Russian whichmade Yanka Kupala known internationally.

In his verse after theRevolution, his lyrical hero seems to merge with the masses, reaching thatsupreme unity of which Pavlo Tychyna, a celebrated Soviet Ukrainian poet, oncesaid, «I'm the people.» At the same time, Yanka Kupala paid muchattention to the individuality of his characters, thus asserting the impetuousprogress of the personality and the richness of the soul of the people, asrevealed in the new social epoch.

The bard of rejuvenatedByelorussia, Kupala was amongst the first to lay golden bridges between his andother nations. In 1921, he translated into Byelorussian The Internationaleand The Lay of the Host oflgor. He was an internationalist poet. As anadmirer of Pushkin, Shevcheriko, Mickiewicz and Slowacki, as a keen interpreterof the Indian epic Mahabharata and the Armenian David Sasunski.the Byelorussian poet glorified brotherhood of nations and literatures in TheUkraine, Georgia, To Djambul, To Shining Shota Rustaveli, On the Memory ofSuleiman Stalski.

When the Soviet country wasinvaded by the Nazi hordes, the poet raised his wrathful voice at theAll-Slavic Assembly in Moscow. Together with outstanding Ukrainian culturalfigures Maxym Rylsky and Olexander Dovzhenko, he signed The Appeal toBrother Slavs.

Yanka Kupala was bound tothe Ukraine and her literature by ties of unbreakable, fraternal affection.Ukrainian themes, national coloration and Ukrainian folk images are found insuch works as Am I a Cossack?, I Saw It. Bondarivna, etc.

Shevehenko's Kobzar was oneof the books Kupala read in his youth. Later, the Byelorussian poet admittedthat this book became that stimulus which stirred him to creative awakening, tobecoming aware of himself as a son of an oppressed nation.

In 1909, Yanka Kupala wrotetwo poems The Memory of Shevchenko (February 25. 1909) and Shevchenko'sMemory — which started the Byelorussian Shevchenkiana poetic series.In the first of these impassioned creative tributes, the Byelorussian bardacknowledges the truly boundless influence of the Kobzar's revolutionary Museon vast social strata and expresses heartfelt admiration of this impact as ason of the Byelorussian people:

In the north, in the south, in the east, In the west, where the sunsets, The Kobzarplucks the strings of human souls. In a cabin, a palace, a prison cell, atavern, He stirs hearts as a warden does with his bells.

«Hisverse reaches us every time, We listen happily to our neighbor, We add ourflowers to his garland. Brother, dear, Byelorussians salute you»

This motif is stressedeven more in the second poem. Kupala refers to the Kobzar as the father of notonly Ukrainians but also Byelorussians.

Shevchenko's imageprompted Kupala to write the epic poem The Fate ofTaras. It turned out as a kind oflife story of the great Ukrainian bard, full of charming lyricism, a softpoetic narration.

The meter of The Fate of Taras ischaracteristic of Shevchenko's kolomiyka — a lively Western Ukrainianfolk song or dance. Maxim Gorky, the great Russian author, noted at one timethat he knew of no other poet, except Yanka Kupala, who had so completely andprofoundly utilized the Kobzar's creative principles.

Early in his poetic career,Yanka Kupala translated A Thought, To Gogol and other work5 ofShevchenko. In the post-October period, Kupala edited his earlier translationsof Shevchenko and began to work on others with great enthusiasm. His pen lentnew splendor to such poems as A Dream. My Testament, The Caucasus, Kalerina.The Night of Taras and Ivan Pidkova, In fact, most of Kupala's translationsof Shevchenko served as the basis of the first complete Byelorussian version ofKobzar which he edited.

In 1939, Byelorussiacelebrated Shevchenko's 125th birth anniversary, together with the rest of thecountry. Yanka Kupala appeared with a number of speeches and articles,dedicated to the occasion.

In the 1930's and 1940's,Kupala often visited the Ukraine. He readily admitted, «I love Ukrainianliterature — perhaps, more than any other. Needless to say, Shevchenko remainsmy number one Ukrainian poet. Of modem poets, Pavlo Tychyna takes first place.....».His personal contacts with Ukrainian literati contributed fruitfully to theenhancement of unity between Byelorussian and Ukrainian literature. One of thefirst Byelorussian academicians, Kupala was voted a member of the Academy ofSciences of the Ukrainian SSR. To this end, one is reminded of Maxym Rylsky whosaid, «I don't exaggerate when I say that, to Yanka Kupala, the Ukrainewas like a second homeland.»

Beginning in the 1900's,his name appeared in the, Ukrainian reading circles. A prominent UkrainianSlavist, Ilarion Sventsitsky, included Kupala's Why Do You Sleep? and There,in the language of the original, into his book The Renaissance ofByelorussian Literature (1908). He kept in touch with the poet who suppliedhim with his books and manuscripts. Much was also done to popularize YankaKupala by Tsiotka (lit… Auntie, pen name of Aloiza Pashkevich, a prominentByelorussian revolutionary poetess) who spent some time in Lviv.

Maxim Gorky sent MikhailoKotsyubynsky his translation of Kupala's And Who Goes There togetherwith the notes, pointing out that «this Byelorussian hymn» hadexcited him tremendously. In 1916, this poem was recited, in Byelorussian, at apoetry evening in Poltava. According to those present, it made a greatimpression.

Many of Kupala's books wereprinted dozens of times in the Ukraine. A number of leading Ukrainian men ofletters contributed their translations of the poet and dedicated to him theirown verse. The unforgettable Maxym Rylsky perhaps most eloquently presented theimage of his Byelorussian counterpart. He wrote a poetic triptych, entitled ToYanka Kupala, For Yanka Kupata and Yanka Kupala. The last of thethree has the following lines:

… Those in acquaintancewith him

Shall never forget

The human warmth in hiseyes;

He was the knight of alofty dream And fought what was false and sly. He cut a precious stone

of the Byelorussian tongue,Working on it with so much loving care. He was a wonder himself. Held in esteemby the nations of kin, Just like Shevchenko was held. He taught us to respect Apair of able hands the best. Down in history our Yanka went, As ever alive asthe image, with wings, Of his Byelorussian land."

The first rays of the hotJuly sun illuminate a sizable spot of land not far from a log house in thevillage of Vyazintsi where a child, christened Yanka, was bom almost onehundred years ago. It is here that the traditional Kupala festivals of poetryare held, attracting people from neighboring towns and villages and from theByelorussian capital. Yanka Kupala created an imposing poetic image of hispeople, revealing for all to see the wealth of their soul in his verse, epic,publicistic and epistle writings and plays.

By tradition, the GeneralAssemblies of the UN are attended by celebrated Byelorussian men of letters asmembers of delegations of the Byelorussian SSR. All of these have, at one timeor another, been able to visit Arrow Park to place flowers at the foot of themonument to their famous countryman which proudly stands beside the monumentsto Taras Shevchenko, Alexander Pushkin and Walt Whitman. The song of theByelorussian lyre is heard amidst the swishing of the ocean surf, the rustlingof copper-red maples. In the poet's staring eyes, one can discern theglimmering reflection of an ever-flaming torch. That torch gives the eerielight of the Kupala night, the light recaptured from the sinister darkness ofthe night. That torch is being raised high over the bearer's head, so it can beseen by all who are determined to be «called human.»

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