The Journal of Byelorussian Studies
Vol. V, No. 2

THE KUPALA-KOLAS CENTURY 1882-1982 
by A. Adamovich 

 ... the role which Kupala and Kolas played in Soviet Byelorussia is unparalleled throughout the USSR. No Byelorussian Bolshevik ever assumed the role of a national leader of the Byelorussians - the leadership was in the hands of Kolas and Kupala. Instead of removing the two poets, the Soviet regime tried to direct their poetic creation into the right channels and use them for communist propaganda...

... It is not perhaps generally known that the very concept of the cultural awakening of the Byelorussian people was first put forward in 1882, the year of their birth - was born, so to speak, along with them-so that the Kupala-Kolas century is also the century of the cultural awakening of the Byelorussian people, indeed of the Byelorussian cause as a whole, since this awakening was the first task which that cause set itself...

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