Collection of poetry «Gapon»

Annotation

The first collection of poetry by Dunin-Martsinkevich. The book includes "a Belarusian novella based on a true story written in the language of the Belarusian people" "Gapon" (before 1854), a play in one act in Polish, a poem "Congratulation of a Village Head Navum" (1854) in Belarusian, and 14 verses in Polish (1848-1854).

A versed novella "Gapon" is the writer’s first large work written entirely in Belarusian. The author tried to show in it the conventionality of the class division of society. A young villager Gapon is in love with Katsiaryna, who also attracts a house-keeper. Having slandered Gapon before the landlady, the house-keeper managed to get him recruited. The landlady, who occasionally learned about Katsiaryna’s offence, sacked the house-keeper, hired the girl as her chamber-maid and taught her to read and write. In the meantime, Gapon became an officer. He took part in the recruiting commission, on which the former house-keeper, who attempted to avoid the army, found himself too. Gapon achieved that the house-keeper was taken as a soldier. The poem ends in Gapon and Katsiaryna’s marriage. 

The Belarusian State Archives-Museum of Literature and Art has a copy of Gapon‘s handwritten transcript in Latin, which is preserved at the University Library in Torun, Poland, the second edition of the novella printed in Latin in St. Petersburg by the publishing house "Zagliane sontsa i u nasha akontsa" in 1907, and a copy of the handwritten transcript of the panegyric poem "Congratulation of a Village Head Navum", kept at the University Library in Torun, Poland.