The poetry collection “Guslar”, 1910

Huślar : [zbornik wieršaŭ] / Janka Kupała. – Pieciarburh : wydannie A. Hryniewiča, 1910. – 76 с.

The edition is printed in roman type. The collection consists of the poems written between 1906 and 1910. In these works author brings to the forefront the romanticized image of the lyrical hero. The lyrical experience reflects to a greater and greater extent the inward life of the poet. One of the central themes of the collection is the artist and the world, the artist and people. The collection "Guslar" opens the inner world of a man in his aspiration to full liberation and freedom in the scale of all mankind. The poet goes back to the wide open spaces of spirituality, and the ideals of social liberation and political freedom in his consciousness are organically united with the idea of spiritual self-improvement. "Guslar" incorporates a global sensation of the epoch, the depth and scale of its conflicts and cataclysms. The change in the way of perception of the world is appreciable. The point of view and the prospects of vision vary; the sight "from above", which in “The Flute” was not, now appears; the original “space consciousness” opens.

On October, 21st, 1910, in the newspaper Nasha Niva appears the review by Olgerd Bulba of the collection "Guslar", the first critical review of the book. As a whole the positions-conclusions of A. Bulba’s article and his estimation of the second collection of Y. Kupala have never been challenged by criticism, and remain actual in present days.