Brovka was born into a large and poor peasant family in Putilkovichi, a settlement in present-day Ushachy Raion, Vitebsk Region, on 25 June 1905.

His first published works were printed in 1926, and the young poet briefly served as executive secretary of a local newspaper in 1927.

During the Second World War, Brovka's mother was among the Belarusian people sent to Auschwitz by the occupying Nazi forces.

Brovka himself wrote for the partisan press and published in the army newspapers, lauding the fighting effort of the Soviet people.

[1] He was recognized by the Soviet government with the Stalin Prize in 1947, the same year that Brovka was elected chairman of the Writers' Union of the Byelorussian SSR (a position that he would hold until 1967).