Verse My Destiny (Мая доля)
One of the poet’s debut verses written in the Belarusian language is My Destiny (Мая доля) (PDF) (this is the only remaining work he wrote in that time).
It dates from 15 July, 1904. Kupala didn’t include it in his poetry collection The Flute (Жалейка), but this verse is interesting as a departing point for the poet’s ideological and aesthetical evolution.
This verse witnesses that the tenseness of existence, its menacing chaos, the sense of the edge to which the reality of the time had approached, from the very beginning was the flesh and blood of Kupala’s poetry. It is obvious that the verse is people-oriented. Through a voice from the people’s chorus it reflects psychological and emotional self-consciousness of a man from common people, his spiritual depression and the predetermination of his life, a particular fatalism. In fact, the poet showed the dependence of a person on the environment, the personality on the circumstances and the lack of any choice. Such living conditions suppress completely any attempt for a personal initiative.
The question arises as to whether a person has any different social and psychological standards and ways of behavior in spite of being a slave to his destiny? Such a question is the core of early writing of Yanka Kupala. The theme of man’s search for himself and for his real destiny runs through all early books of the poet…
