AT THE DRAFTY CROSSROADS OF THE CENTURY...
Sviatlana Hrymuta
That was at the end of last year when the „Mastatskaia Litaratura” Publishing House printed the new book by Mikola Mikulich „Maksim Tank: at the drafty crossroads of the century” (M. Mikulich „Maksim Tank: at the drafty crossroads of the century”. – Mn.: Mastatskaia Litaratura, 1999. - 254 s.). The book became the natural and logical continuation of the previous long-term and fruitful work of the literary critic who has been working on evaluation of peculiarities of life and creative work of Maksim Tank, an outstanding Belarusian poet and a famous public figure. Multilateral exposure of various aspects of mental and artistic personality of Maksim Tank could have been achieved only thank to the thoroughly compiled by M. Mikulich a rich set of factual materials. The said materials comprise not only personal critical observations and archives discoveries but also direct talks and interviews conducted by the critic within the last several years and months of the poet’s life. In his book the author, as a researcher, aimed to „apply absolutely new materials to reveal characteristic peculiar features of life and creative work of Maksim Tank as well as to uncover his attractive humane traits of character and personal qualities and leading signs of his poetic creative gift, to trace definite peculiarities within the process of formation of spiritual and artistic individuality of the poet”.
It is worth mentioning that meetings and interviews with Maksim Tank directly influenced upon the personality of a critic, the character and style of his book, the latter being characterized by its saturation with numerous interesting facts and documents, credulous sincerity and unconstraint of the author’s narration, by his attempt to penetrate into the essence of creative work of the People’s Poet and to reveal peculiar features of the nature of intellectual consciousness of his lyrical characters and such. Scientific and creative approach, used by M. Mikulich towards the object of his study, does not lack deep analytical and detailed evaluation as well as large scale views on the artistic individuality of the classicist of the Belarusian literature and on his life and creative work. In this case we can make an absolutely authoritative statement that there exists spiritual and psychological compatibility of an object and the subject of study, organic unity of an author and the object of his thinking. Also, we can speak about successful creative union of M. Mikulich, a critic and literary specialist, and Maksim Tank, the People’s Poet of Belarus and the Lenin Prize winner.
Metaphoric capacity of the title of the book under analysis tends to neatly reveal its problematic scope and character as well as to specify the essence of the concept of the author in his treatment of the object of study. It also in this or that way specifies the set of issues that are current for the whole modern literary thought of Belarus. Special emphasis should be given to the original character of the genre of the book, i.e. talks between M. Mikulich and Maksim Tank get mixed up with the archives documents and materials; deep literary critical analysis, evaluation of definite works of the poet and evaluative conclusions of the author are expanded by its publicist reasonings and generalizations.
Unbelievable sensitiveness towards the artistic word, lumped and meditative penetration into the depth of the spiritual world of an outstanding creative worker enabled the author of the book to reveal various verges of poetic gift of Maksim Tank and to disclose determinant traits of character of the author of the famous poems „Spatkanne” and „Pesnia kulikou”, „Liutsiyan Tapolia” and „Ave Maria”.
In what way does the critic present Maksim Tank in his book? The poet is depicted as an extraordinary gifted poet individual who is grown wise with experience. This is a person who is sensitive to such invisible changes and shifts in the society and inner world of his contemporary. M. Mikulich points out that „sincerity and simplicity, modesty and exactingness towards himself as well as delicacy and kind-heartiness towards the people around him happened to the fundamental and determinant traits of his character in general and in his mode of life in particular”.
The book „Maksim Tank: at the drafty crossroads of the century” consists of several chapters that specify definite stages in critic’s work with the outstanding Belarusian poet. The structure of the said chapters is logically verified, i.e. M. Mikulich does not only enclose materials of his personal talks with the People’s Poet but also defines typological parallels, comprehends definite periods of life and creative work of Maksim Tank –the pre-September period, the period of War and the modern one. Besides, every chapter of the books ends up with a characteristic poem that sums up the previously narrated and adds the feeling of completeness to the chapter itself.
Initial chapters of the book are dedicated to analysis of life and creative work of the poet within the Western-Belarusian and War periods of time. The author also gives much consideration to the mutual relationships between Maksim Tank and other writers, young poets and classical authors of the national literature as well as public and cultural activists, i.e. Yanka Kupala, Yakub Kolas, Yazep Drazdovich, Natallia Arsen’yeva, Adam Stankevich ... Poetry of the young poet from Western Belarus is known to be based on the ideological and esthetic traditions of Yanka Kupala and Yakub Kolas. He made his talent ripen based on their favorable influence. „You know, it is next to impossible for me to define what I liked in Kupala’s works best of all” - says Maksim Tank, remembering the faraway 30s in Belarus. „Everything somehow tended to wake up my thought and was very so close and dear to me”. And then he went ahead:
„I think, nothing needs to be defined more exactly as both Yanka Kupala and Yakub Kolas were our key leaders and mentors...”. The young Maksim Tank adored social and philosophical character of works of the classical authors of Belarusian literature, their deep patriotic sense and highly artistic culture.
The chapter of the book, dealing with trying to understand family life and interrelations with Liubou Andreiauna, a wife of the poet, turned out to be a success. Poems and letters of Maksim Tank, found by M. Mikulich at the archives department, reveal unusual easiness, emphasize lyrical softness on the one hand, and great depth and exciting tension of sincere and live feeling, that every times moves by its unconstrained frankness, on the other hand. Now we known, that Maksim Tank was not only a talented poet but also an attentive husband, a careful father and a tender grandfather.
Book pages with reminiscences of Maksim Yauhenavich, the poet’s son, also present a great deal of interest and they get organically enclosed into the book contents as well as deepen our notion about the personality of a poet and add more new features to his creative portrait.
Special emphasis should be given to the chapter dealing with correspondence between Maksim Tank and Larisa Heniyush. The authors sound in their exciting letters as very attentive, sincere and tender people in their attitude towards each other as well as to numerous colleagues of theirs. Yes, they are not simply two brilliant individuals, two Personalities. The are known to be the outstanding artists whose life was organically welded to the poetry, whose highly sensitive civic and patriotic concern was depicted in sensitive metaphoric associations and lyrical and psychological impressions.
There is no doubt, that the author of the book skillfully compiled views and opinions of numerous poets and novel writers about the outstanding poet. They depict in their own specific ways various personal qualities of Maksim Tank. At the same time, they nicely demonstrate strength and character of his influence upon the modern literary process as well as on the formation of inner artistic individualities among the young generations of Belarusian writers.
It is obvious that all the materials in the book as well as analysis of rich creative heritage of Maksim Tank are presented by the author through the prism of his own perceptions. M. Mikulich bases his analysis on deep penetration into the essence of the phenomenon; he feels close unity with the object of the study and therefore verifies more and more new qualities and sides of creative individuality of the poet. All the above said enabled M. Mikulich to speak about such traits of creative work of the poet as the emphasized contextual load of a verse line, figurative and associative brightness, high level of philosophical and meditative thinking, esthetic order of a poem.
The book by Mikola Mikulich „Maksim Tank: at the drafty crossroads of the century” attracts attention of the reader by its pithiness, analytical comprehension of the material under study, original character of his literary genre, stressed accuracy of all the notes and proofs, that got organically united by the author with a feeling of unusually keen sincerity and open-mindedness as well as unconstraint of his narration.
One can keep debating about the importance of creative work of the People’s Poet. One can argue about some of the conclusions made by the author. This can lead to new ideas and thoughts. And this is natural. However, one can hardly agree with the words by M. Mikulich that seem to completely define the role and place of Maksim Tank in the history of national literature, i.e. „One can not stop respecting him, one can not stop admiring him. His human and creative gift was given to him by God. It is unbounded, clear and transparent; it is perfect. Standing up for the principles of good and humanness, high spirituality and moral, his poetry created a vast communicative field. It served and will serve with dignity many generations of Belarusian people”.
Thank to the richness and variability of the material that has been compiled and comprehended by the author, this book will present interest not only for specialists in the field of literary criticism, historians and such. It will also be interesting for a vast mass of regular readers.
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