Yanka Kupala, the father of Belarusian drama, an outstanding prose writer and poet, lived in Minsk on the site where the park named after him is now located. This entire area used to be a district of small private houses that was severely damaged by bombing during the Great Patriotic War.
Kupala's own house burned down literally on the 5th day after the war began in 1941. The flames destroyed the poet's extensive personal archive, his valuable manuscripts, and his private library. After the writer's death, a museum was founded at the initiative of his wife, and she later directed it.
The Memorial Museum of Yanka Kupala opened in 1944, and it was temporarily housed on the third floor of the House of Trade Unions in Minsk. The collection was supposed to be moved to a separate new building, but in the postwar years there were more important projects, so the implementation of the plan was delayed.
The Literary Memorial Museum of Yanka Kupala did not get its own building until 1959. It was built on the very spot where the poet's actual house had stood. By that time, a beautiful park had already been laid out here, providing a wonderful setting for the museum of the great writer.
For Yanka Kupala's 90th anniversary in 1972, the park was renamed in his honor, and a monument to the prose writer was erected on the main alley.
