Poetry in the blood

Poetry was a recurring theme in the Kostrovitski Family, the Family of The Cross, of which the Belarusian social and political activist, poet and artist who used the pseudonym Karuś Kahaniets ('The Lamp') and Guillaume Apollinaire, poet, art critic and forefather of Surrealism were notable members. This anthology of poems by Kahaniets and other Kostrovitski relatives, with biographical material, evokes powerful images of the turbulent times in which they fought, endured, loved and lost.

The Kostrovitski Triptych is a kaleidoscopic tapestry of intertwined stories of Godwinsons, Gediminids, Rurikids, Ostiks, Kostrovitskis, Bonapartes, Habsburgs, Venceliks z Vrchovist and Lada Moczarskis - from Saxon England and Viking Denmark, Rus (Kiev, Minsk, Muscovy and Novgorod), Lithuania, Poland, France, Austria, Bohemia and elsewhere - from the Middle Ages to the Modern Era.