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Yanka Kupala Days kick off in Minsk

Famous Belarusian authors on June 28 laid flowers at the Yanka Kupala monument at Minsk’s Military Cemetery in a ceremony that marked the beginning of the traditional Kupala Days organized by the Yanka Kupala State Literature Museum every year to commemorate the great Belarusian poet, BelaPAN reports.

In attendance were Museum Director Alena Matsevasyan, literature expert Vyachaslaw Rahoysha, writers Anatol Butevich and Mikhas Paznyakow, poet and translator Henadz Pashkow, artist and radio presenter Aleh Vinyarski and Mikhas Mitskevich, a son of great Belarusian writer Yakub Kolas.

Aleh Vinyarski read out Kupala’s poems.

Alena Matsevasyan said that the museum was organizing the Days at the end of June every year.

“I am very pleased that increasingly more friends join us every year,” she said. “Yanka Kupala has been no longer with us for 68 years, but his heritage remains to be holy for Belarus even today: it brings all Belarusian people closer to each other.”

Vyachaslaw Rahoysha said that he did not know another poet who, like Kupala, had not only called people to "run from bonds to freedom, from darkness to light but also written about this artistic credo skillfully.”