His family had been well-known since the early 17th century, coming from the szlachta, although grown poor so both of his parents had to work as tenant farmers at the folwark.

He wrote almost all books from his father’s library, graduated from the local folk school and successfully qualified as a teacher.

Ivan was called up for military duty in 1916 and served in the road-building unit of Warsaw District Railway in Minsk, Polotsk and Smolensk.

From her memoir Сцежкамі жыцця (Paths of life): "Kupala was making jokes, asking if there are many beautiful girls in Vilnya.

There is a comment in Paulina Miadzelka’s memoir that she only learned about the marriage of Kupala and her friend a full year after the ceremony.

The same year the first published collection of his poems, Жалейка (The Little Flute) brought on the ire of the czarist government, which ordered the book confiscated as an anti-government publication.

The subsequent year saw the publication of several works, including the poem Адвечная песьня (Eternal Song), which appeared as a book in St. Petersburg in July 1910.

Сон на кургане (Dream on a Barrow)– completed in August 1910 –symbolised the poor state of Kupala's Belarusian homeland.

[4][5] He started working in the People’s Commissariat of Education of the BSSR, then headed the library in the "Belarusian hattsy", edited magazines 'Run' (1920) and 'Volny stsyag' (1920–1922).

[1] Nevertheless, Kupala maintained his connections with the anti-Soviet oriented nationalist emigres of the Belarusian People's Republic, who exhorted that he join them in exile in Czechoslovakia during a trip abroad in 1927.

At home, the newly established authorities considered him with some distrust–at times, criticism of Kupala in the press mounted insofar as his activities were regarded as too oriented around nationalism.

The height of the rails and the fact that the poet fell exactly into the shaft between stair flights raised suggestions that the death wasn't accidental.

[6] At the Arrow Park in Monroe, New York there is a monument to Yanka Kupala that was created by Belarusian sculptor Anatoly Anikeichik and architect Sergey Botkovsky.