Ihnat Kančeŭski

Ihnat Kančeŭski (pen name: Ihnat Abdziralovič; ; May 1896 – 23 April 1923) was a Belarusian poet, philosopher and publicist who is regarded as a leading thinker within the Belarusian independence movement of the early 20th century.

Early years Kančeŭski was born into the family of a court clerk in Vilnia. In 1913 he graduated from a Vilnia school and was admitted to the St. Petersburg Institute of Technology but the following year transferred to Moscow University.

“The Eternal Way” The work is noted for “the originality of philosophical and cultural analysis, vivid imagery of the narrative style and a deeply personal relationship to the subject under consideration”.

The first chapter is devoted to the Belarusian identity in the West-East system with Belarus presented as "the border between East and West." Kančeŭski examines the "history of shifts of Belarusians between East and West" in which he sees the tragedy of the nation.

The second chapter is devoted to the analysis of means of organising Belarusian culture in the context of the history of Europe and the emergence and decline of cultural forms.

In the third chapter, Kančeŭski considers creativity as a cosmic force and a vital basis, and outlines the need for social creativity. He analyses then current political movements in terms of social creativity and concludes that they are inconsistent with this principle.

The final chapter is a conclusion in which Kančeŭski asserts the inevitability of the search for non-coercive forms of life in order to realise the ideal of social creativity and solve the problem of Belarusian identity.

This work was not available to the general public in Soviet Belarus until Gorbachev’s Perestroika.