Sculptors: Lev Gumilevsky, Anatoly Anikeichik, Andrey Zaspitsky
Architects: Leonid Levin, Yuri Gradov.
The monument to Yanka Kupala in Minsk was installed in 1972 for the 90th anniversary of the birthday of the national Belarusian poet.
Yanka Kupala was a famous Belarusian poet, a playwright and a publicist, a winner of many prestigious literary awards. Streets, squares, theaters and libraries not only in Belarus, but also in Russia are named in his honour. The works by Yanka Kupala have been translated into many foreign languages and are known far beyond the borders of Belarus. Along with his friend Yakub Kolas, Yanka Kupala is considered the founder of the new Belarusian literature.
There are only a few monuments to Janka Kupala: in Minsk, in Moscow (Russia), Vyazynka ( the poet’s homeland), in the city of Monroe (the USA, New York) and in the city of Ashdod (Israel). The monument in Minsk is set up in the park of Yanka Kupala near the Svisloch river. The park itself was founded in 1949. The first monument to Kupala in Minsk was installed on June 23, 1949 in the Central Square. It was the poet’s bust placed on a granite pedestal. When this monument was erected in 1972, the bust was moved to the poet’s homeland in Vyazynka, where it is now. Here before the installation of the monument to Yanka Kupala, the bust of the twice-hero of the Soviet Union pilot Grytsevets stood at this place. Now it is situated in Lenin Street opposite GUM.
The monument itself represents a full-length figure of Yanka Kupala with a staff in his hand. At the foot of the pedestal there is a fern flower and a spring. The flower is a symbol of the national holiday Kupalye, in honour of which Ivan Lutsevich took his creative pseudonym.
