«A Grass Flower, the Sister and Brother»

Annotation

The work written in 1857. Modern scholars consider its genre as a ballad. The events are set in the old past, the subject is based on folklore, the hero’s behaviour is evaluated according to the people’s criteria of self-consciousness and diligence. A wicked mother-in-law escaped from home together with her lover, a house-keeper, and took her husband’s daughter Alenka with herself. With the passing time, Alenka fell in love with a Сossaсk lieutenant Miron. The young people intended to get married but suddenly it turned out they were brother and sister. The loving couple, who did not stand the news and perished, were buried in the same grave.

The Belarusian State Archives-Museum of Literature and Art has a handwritten copy with corrections by I. Zamoitsin (the 1920s).