Taras Shevchenko

Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko (Тара́с Григо́рович Шевче́нко,, Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko; March 9 1814 – March 10 1861) was a Ukrainian poet, writer, artist, public and political figure, as well as folklorist and ethnographer. His literary heritage is regarded to be the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature and, to a large extent, the modern Ukrainian language. Shevchenko is also known for many masterpieces as a painter and an illustrator.

He was a member of the Sts Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood and an academician of the Imperial Academy of Arts. In 1847 Shevchenko was convicted for writing works satirising the Tsar and Tsarina.

Childhood and youth
Taras Shevchenko was born on March 9 1814 in the village of Moryntsi, Zvenigorodka county, Kiev Governorate in the Russian Empire (now in Zvenyhorodka Raion, Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine). After his sister Kateryna and brother Mykyta, he was a third child of serf peasants Hryhoriy Ivanovych Shevchenko (1782? – 1825) and Kateryna Yakymivna Shevchenko (Boiko) (1782? – August 6, 1823) who belong to a landlord Vasiliy Engelgardt. According to family legends, Taras' forefathers were cossacks who served in the Zaporizhian Host and took part in liberation wars and uprisings of Ukraine in 17th and 18th centuries. Those uprisings were brutally suppressed and normal social life has disrupted for many years in lands of Cherkasy, Poltava, Kiev, Bratslav, and Chernihiv. Most of the local population was enslaved and impoverished.

In 1816 the Shevchenko family moved back to the village of Kyrylivka (sometimes as Kerelivka), Zvenigorodka county (today Shevchenkove in Zvenyhorodka Raion) from where Hryhoriy Ivanovych hailed. Taras spent his childhood years in that village. On May 24 1816, Taras' sister Yaryna was born, and on February 7 1819  - Maria. Once young Taras went looking after "the iron pillars that hold up the sky" and got lost in a field. Chumaks who met the boy took him along and brought him to Kerelivka. On March 20 1821 Taras' brother Yosyp was born.

In the fall of 1822 Taras started to take some grammar classes at a local precentor (dyak) Sovhyr. At that time Shevchenko became familiar with works of Hryhoriy Skovoroda. During 1822-1828 Shevchenko painted "Horses. Soldiers" (that work was not found).

On February 10 1823 his older sister and nany Kateryna married Anton Krasytsky, a peasant from Zelena Dibrova. On September 1 1823 Taras' mother died due to hard work and misery. A month later on October 19 1823 his father married a widow Oksana Tereshchenko, a native of Moryntsi village, who already had own three children. She cruelly treated foster children, in particular little Taras.

On July 4 1824 there was born Taras' sister Maria from the second marriage of Hryhoriy Ivanovych. In 1824 Taras, along with his father, became a traveling merchant (chumak) and traveled to Zvenyhorodka, Uman, Yelizavetgrad (today Kirovohrad). At the age of eleven Taras became an orphan when, on April 2 1825, his father died a serf in corvée. Soon his stepmother along with her children returned to Moryntsi.

Taras went to work for precentor (dyak) Bohorsky who just arrived from Kyiv in 1824. As an apprentice, Taras carried water, heated up a school, served the precentor, read psalms over the dead and continued to study. At that time Shevchenko familiarized with some works of Ukrainian literature. Soon tired of enduring Bohorsky's mistreatment, Shevchenko ran away to seek out a painting master in the surrounding villages. For several days he worked for deacon Yefrem in Lysianka, later in other places around in southern Kyiv Governorate (villages Stebliv and Tarasivka). In 1827 Shevchenko herded community sheep near his village. He then meets Oksana Kovalenko, a childhood friend, whom Shevchenko mentions in his works on multiple occasions. He dedicated to her the introduction to his poem "Mariana, the Nun".

As a hireling for the Kyrylivka priest Hryhoriy Koshytsia, Taras was visiting Boguslav where he drove priest's son to school, while apples and plums - to market. At the same time he was driving to markets of towns Burta and Shpola. In 1828 Shevchenko was hired as serving boy to a lord's court in Vilshana where he went for permission to study at the Khlypnivka artist. When Taras turned 14, Vasiliy Engelgardt died and village Kyrylivka became a property of his son, Pavel Engelgardt. Shevchenko was turned into court service person of the new landlord at the Vilshana estates. On December 18 1829 Pavel Engelgardt caught Shevchenko at night painting a portrait of cossack Matvei Platov, a hero of the Patriotic War of 1812. He boxed the ears of the boy and ordered him whipped in the stables with rods. The next day the order was executed by a coachman Sydorko who whipped Shevchenko. During 1829-1833 Taras copied paintings of Suzdal masters.

Almost two and half years, from fall of 1828 to start of 1831, Shevchenko stayed with his master in Vilno (Vilnius). Details of the travel are not well known. Perhaps, there he attended lectures by the professor of painting Jan Rustem at the University of Vilnius. In the same city Shevchenko could also have witnessed the November Uprising of 1830. From those times survived a Shevchenko's painting "Bust of Woman" which indicates almost professional handling of a pencil.

After moving from Vilno to Saint Petersburg in 1831, Engelgardt took along Shevchenko. To have eventually a benefit for works of art (among the nobility was a fashion to have their own "chamber artists"), he gave him to study for four years to the painter Vasiliy Shiriayev. From that point and until 1838 Shevchenko lived in the Krestovsky building (today Zagorodnyk prospekt, 8) where Shiriayev rented an apartment. At night in a free from work time, Shevchenko visited the Summer Garden where he was depicting statues. There he also started to write his poems.

In 1833 Shevchenko painted portrait of landowner Pavel Engelgardt (National museum of Taras Shechenko).

In his novel "Artist" Shechenko tells that during the pre-academical period he painted such works like: "Apollo Belvedere", "Fraklete", "Heraclitus", "Architectural barelief", "Mask of Fortune". He participated in painting of the Bolshoi Theatre as artist apprentice. He created a composition "Alexander of Macedon shows trust towards his doctor Philip". The drawing was created on the theme announced in 1830 for concourse of the Imperial Academy of Arts to receive a gold medal.

Redemption
There he met the Ukrainian artist Ivan Soshenko, who introduced him to other compatriots such as Yevhen Hrebinka and Vasyl Hryhorovych, and to the Russian painter Alexey Venetsianov. Through these men Shevchenko also met the famous painter and professor Karl Briullov, who donated his portrait of the Russian poet Vasily Zhukovsky as a lottery prize, whose proceeds were used to buy Shevchenko's freedom on May 5, 1838.

First successes
In the same year Shevchenko was accepted as a student into the Academy of Arts in the workshop of Karl Briullov. The next year he became a resident student at the Association for the Encouragement of Artists. At the annual examinations at the Imperial Academy of Arts, Shevchenko was given a Silver Medal for a landscape. In 1840 he again received the Silver Medal, this time for his first oil painting, The Beggar Boy Giving Bread to a Dog.

He began writing poetry while he was a serf and in 1840 his first collection of poetry, Kobzar, was published. Ivan Franko, the renowned Ukrainian poet in the generation after Shevchenko, had this to say of the compilation: "[Kobzar] immediately revealed, as it were, a new world of poetry. It burst forth like a spring of clear, cold water, and sparkled with a clarity, breadth and elegance of artistic expression not previously known in Ukrainian writing".

In 1841, the epic poem Haidamaky was released. In September 1841, Shevchenko was awarded his third Silver Medal for The Gypsy Fortune Teller. Shevchenko also wrote plays. In 1842, he released a part of the tragedy Mykyta Haidai and in 1843 he completed the drama Nazar Stodolia.

While residing in Saint Petersburg, Shevchenko made three trips to the regions of Ukraine, in 1843, 1845, and 1846. The difficult conditions under which his countrymen lived had a profound impact on the poet-painter. Shevchenko visited his still enserfed siblings and other relatives, met with prominent Ukrainian writers and intellectuals such as: Yevhen Hrebinka, Panteleimon Kulish, and Mykhaylo Maksymovych, and was befriended by the princely Repnin family especially Varvara Repnina.

In 1844, distressed by the condition of Ukrainian regions in the Russian Empire, Shevchenko decided to capture some of his homeland's historical ruins and cultural monuments in an album of etchings, which he called Picturesque Ukraine.

Exile
On March 22, 1845, the Council of the Academy of Arts granted Shevchenko the title of an artist. He again travelled to Ukraine where he met historian Nikolay Kostomarov and other members of the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius, a Pan-Slavist political society dedicated to the political liberalization of the Empire and transforming it into a federation-like polity of Slavic nations. Upon the society's suppression by the authorities, Shevchenko was arrested along with other members on April 5, 1847. Although he probably was not an official member of the Brotherhood, during the search his poem "The Dream" ("Son") was found. This poem attacked Slavophilism, personally attacked Emperor Nicholas I and his wife Alexandra Feodorovna, and therefore was considered extremely inflammatory, and of all the members of the dismantled society Shevchenko was punished most severely. The Tsar was about to pardon Shevchenko, since literature was not as bad as violent opposition, which he also faced (Decembrist uprising etc.). Then, however, Tsar Nicholas read Shevchenko's poem, "The Dream". Vissarion Belinsky wrote in his memoirs that, Nicholas I, knowing Ukrainian very well, laughed and chuckled whilst reading the section about himself, but his mood quickly turned to bitter hatred when he read about his wife. Shevchenko had mocked her frumpy appearance and facial tics, which she had developed whilst fearing the Decembrist Uprising and its plans to kill her family. After reading this section the Tsar indignantly stated "I suppose he had reasons not to be on terms with me, but what has she done to deserve this?"

Shevchenko was imprisoned in Saint Petersburg. He was exiled as a private with the Russian military Orenburg garrison at Orsk, near the Ural Mountains. Tsar Nicholas I, confirming his sentence, added to it, "Under the strictest surveillance, without the right to write or paint."

With the exception of some short periods during his exile, the enforcement of the Tsar's ban on his creative work was lax. The poet produced several drawings and sketches as well as writings while serving and traveling on assignment (in the capacity of a military sketch painter, the idea put forward by fellow serviceman Bronisław Zaleski) in the Ural regions and areas on modern Kazakhstan.

But it was not until 1857 that Shevchenko finally returned from exile after receiving a pardon, though he was not permitted to return to St. Petersburg but was ordered to Nizhniy Novgorod. In May 1859, Shevchenko got permission to return to his native Ukraine. He intended to buy a plot of land not far from the village of Pekariv. In July, he was arrested on a charge of blasphemy, but was released and ordered to return to St. Petersburg.

Death
Taras Shevchenko spent the last years of his life working on new poetry, paintings, and engravings, as well as editing his older works. But after his difficult years in exile his final illness proved too much. Shevchenko died in Saint Petersburg on March 10, 1861, the day after his 47th birthday.

He was first buried at the Smolensk Cemetery in Saint Petersburg. However, fulfilling Shevchenko's wish, expressed in his poem "Testament" ("Zapovit"), to be buried in Ukraine, his friends arranged to transfer his remains by train to Moscow and then by horse-drawn wagon to his native land. Shevchenko's remains were buried on May 8 on Chernecha Hill (Monk's Hill; now Taras Hill) by the Dnieper River near Kaniv. A tall mound was erected over his grave, now a memorial part of the Kaniv Museum-Preserve.

Dogged by terrible misfortune in love and life, the poet died seven days before the Emancipation of Serfs was announced. His works and life are revered by Ukrainians and his impact on Ukrainian literature is immense.

Impact
Taras Shevchenko's writings formed the foundation for the modern Ukrainian literature to a degree that he is also considered the founder of the modern written Ukrainian language (although Ivan Kotlyarevsky pioneered the literary work in what was close to the modern Ukrainian in the end of the 18th century.) Shevchenko's poetry contributed greatly to the growth of Ukrainian national consciousness, and his influence on various facets of Ukrainian intellectual, literary, and national life is still felt to this day. Influenced by Romanticism, Shevchenko managed to find his own manner of poetic expression that encompassed themes and ideas germane to Ukraine and his personal vision of its past and future.

In view of his literary importance, the impact of his artistic work is often missed, although his contemporaries valued his artistic work no less, or perhaps even more, than his literary work. A great number of his pictures, drawings and etchings preserved to this day testify to his unique artistic talent. He also experimented with photography and it is little known that Shevchenko may be considered to have pioneered the art of etching in the Russian Empire (in 1860 he was awarded the title of Academician in the Imperial Academy of Arts specifically for his achievements in etching.)

His influence on Ukrainian culture has been so immense, that even during Soviet times, the official position was to downplay strong Ukrainian nationalism expressed in his poetry, suppressing any mention of it, and to put an emphasis on the social and anti-Tsarist aspects of his legacy, the Class struggle within the Russian Empire. Shevchenko, who himself was born a serf and suffered tremendously for his political views in opposition to the established order of the Empire, was presented in the Soviet times as an internationalist who stood up in general for the plight of the poor classes exploited by the reactionary political regime rather than the vocal proponent of the Ukrainian national idea.

This view is significantly revised in modern independent Ukraine, where he is now viewed as almost an iconic figure with unmatched significance for the Ukrainian nation, a view that has been mostly shared all along by the Ukrainian diaspora that has always revered Shevchenko.

He inspired some of the protestors during the Euromaidan.

Contribution to Russian literature
Some of Shevchenko's prose (a novel, diary, plays "Nazar Stodolya" and "Nikita Gayday", many letters), as well as some of his poems were written in Russian, thus, some researchers consider Shevchenko as a notable Russian writer.

Monuments and memorials
There are many monuments to Shevchenko throughout Ukraine, most notably at his memorial in Kaniv and in the center of Kyiv, just across from the Kyiv University that bears his name. The Kyiv Metro station, Tarasa Shevchenka, is also dedicated to Shevchenko. Among other notable monuments to the poet located throughout Ukraine are the ones in Kharkiv (in front of the Shevchenko Park. Kharkiv|Shevchenko Park), Lviv, Luhansk and many others.

Outside of Ukraine, monuments to Shevchenko have been put up in several locations of the former USSR associated with his legacy, both in the Soviet and the post-Soviet times. The modern monument in Saint Petersburg was erected on December 22, 2000, but the first monument (pictured) was built in the city in 1918 on the order of Lenin shortly after the Great Russian Revolution. There is also a monument located next to the Shevchenko museum at the square that bears the poet's name in Orsk, Russia (the location of the military garrison where the poet served) where there are also a street, a library and the Orsk Pedagogical Institute|Pedagogical Institute named to the poet. There are Shevchenko monuments and museums in the cities of Kazakhstan where he was later transferred by the military: Aqtau (the city was named Shevchenko between 1964 and 1992) and nearby Fort Shevchenko (renamed from Fort Alexandrovsky in 1939), and a street after him in Vilnius, where he also lived. T.G. Shevchenko University in Tiraspol, the capital of Transnistria, is the main university of that region.

After Ukraine gained its independence in the wake of the 1991 Soviet Collapse, some Ukrainian cities replaced their statues of Lenin with statues of Taras Shevchenko and in some locations that lacked streets named to him, local authorities renamed the streets or squares to Shevchenko. There is also a bilingual Taras Sevchenko high school in Sighetu Marmatiei, Romania.

Outside of Ukraine and the former USSR, monuments to Shevchenko have been put up in many countries, usually under the initiative of local Ukrainian diasporas. There are several memorial societies and monuments to him throughout Canada and the United States, most notably the monument in Washington, D.C., near Dupont Circle. The granite monument near Dupont Circle was carved by Vincent Illuzzi of Barre, Vermont. There is also a monument in Soyuzivka in New York State, Tipperary Hill in Syracuse, New York, a park is named after him in Elmira Heights, N.Y. and a street is named after him in New York City's East Village. A section of Connecticut Route 9 that goes through New Britain is also named after Shevchenko.

The town of Vita in Manitoba, Canada was originally named Shevchenko in his honor. There is a Shevchenko Square in Paris located in the heart of the central Saint-Germain-des-Prés district. The Leo Mol sculpture garden in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, contains many images of Taras Shevchenko.

A two-tonne bronze statue of Shevchenko, located in a memorial park outside of Oakville, Ontario was discovered stolen in December 2006. It was taken for scrap metal; the head was recovered in a damaged state, but the statue was not repairable. The head is on exhibit at the Taras Shevchenko Museum & Memorial Park Foundation in Toronto. There is a Shevchenko Boulevard in the Lasalle borough of Montreal, Quebec.

In 2001, the Ukrainian society "Prosvita" raised the initiative of building a Church near the Chernecha Mount in Kaniv, where Taras Shevchenko is buried. The initiative got a rather supportive response in the society. Since then many charity events have been held all over the country to gather donations for the above purpose. A marathon under the slogan "Let’s Build a Church for the Kobzar" by the First National Radio Channel of Ukraine collected 39,000 hryvnias (about US $7,500) in October 2003.

A Taras Shevchenko Museum & Memorial Park Foundation is located in Toronto, Canada. A video tour of the museum was created in March 2010. Among other exhibits, the video tour includes footage of Shevchenko's death mask.

There is a statue of Taras Shevchenko at Ukraine Square in Curitiba, Brazil.

The British band New Order released a live video on Factory Records titled Taras Shevchenko, recorded in 1981 at the Ukrainian National Home in the East Village of New York City; the initial scenes feature a digitised version of the Shevchenko self-portrait. The video artwork was done by graphic designer Peter Saville. This was later included on their video New Order 3 16.

On 26 June 2011 a bronze and granite statue of Taras Shevchenko, created by Leo Mol, was unveiled in Ottawa, Canada. (see Taras Shevchenko Monument Ottawa).

In March 2014, by the 200th birth anniversary of the poet the first interactive map of sites dedicated to Taras Shevchenko was created.

On the interactive map "The World of Shevchenko" created by the Inter (TV channel) and information portal Podrobnosti, 1060 monuments of Kobzar, towns, villages, museums, schools, theaters named in his honor have been defined. These objects are located in 32 countries on different continents. The interactive map allows users to view monuments with a help of sight-seeing service.

Among the most notable places are the monument of kobza in Australia capital, graffiti of poet's portrait in Kharkov and the memorial in Washington. The most distant objects dedicated to the poet are the monument in Beijing (distance from Kyiv is $6,456 km$), Shevchenko street in Khabarovsk ($6,900 km$), memorial in Washington ($7,847 km$), Buenos Aires ($12,826 km$) and Canberra ($14,913 km$).

Example of poetry: "Testament" (Zapovit)
Shevchenko's "Testament", (Zapovit, 1845), has been translated into more than 60 languages and set to music in the 1870s by H. Hladky. The poem enjoys a status second only to Ukraine’s national anthem.


 * {| with=90%

 Testament (Zapovit)
 * width=50%|
 * width=50%|

When I am dead, bury me In my beloved Ukraine, My tomb upon a grave mound high Amid the spreading plain, So that the fields, the boundless steppes, The Dnieper's plunging shore My eyes could see, my ears could hear The mighty river roar.

When from Ukraine the Dnieper bears Into the deep blue sea The blood of foes ... then will I leave These hills and fertile fields -- I'll leave them all and fly away To the abode of God, And then I'll pray .... But until that day I nothing know of God.

Oh bury me, then rise ye up And break your heavy chains And water with the tyrants' blood The freedom you have gained. And in the great new family, The family of the free, With softly spoken, kindly word Remember also me.
 * — Taras Shevchenko, 25 December 1845, Pereiaslav
 * Translated by John Weir, Toronto, 1961

 Заповіт 

Як умру, то поховайте Мене на могилі, Серед степу широкого, На Вкраїні милій, Щоб лани широкополі, І Дніпро, і кручі Було видно, було чути, Як реве ревучий.

Як понесе з України У синєє море Кров ворожу... отойді я І лани, і гори — Все покину і полину До самого Бога Молитися... а до того Я не знаю Бога.

Поховайте та вставайте, Кайдани порвіте І вражою злою кров'ю Волю окропіте. І мене в сiм'ї великій, В сiм'ї вольній, новій, Не забудьте пом'янути Незлим тихим словом.


 * — Тарас ШЕВЧЕНКО
 * 25 грудня 1845,
 * в Переяславі


 * }

Family
Shevchenko never married. He had six siblings and at least three step-siblings, of whom only Stepan Tereshchenko (1820?–unknown) is known. Some sources connect him to the Tereshchenko family of Ukrainian industrialists.
 * 1) Kateryna Hryhorivna Krasytska (Shevchenko) (1806–1850) married Anton Hryhorovych Krasytsky (1794–1848)
 * 2) Yakym Krasytsky
 * 3) Maksym Krasytsky (unknown–1910)
 * 4) Stepan Krasytsky
 * 5) Fedora Krasytska (1824?–unknown), known painter
 * 6) Mykyta Hryhorovych Shevchenko (1811–1870?)
 * 7) Iryna Kovtun (Shevchenko)
 * 8) Prokop Shevchenko
 * 9) Petro Shevchenko (1847–1944?)
 * 10) Maria Hryhorivna Shevchenko (1814?–unknown) (His twin sister)
 * 11) Yaryna Hryhorivna Boiko (Shevchenko) (1816–1865) married Fedir Kondratievych Boiko (1811–1850)
 * 12) Maryna Boiko
 * 13) Ustyna Boiko (1836–unknown)
 * 14) Illarion Boiko (1840–unknown)
 * 15) Lohvyn Boiko (1842–unknown)
 * 16) Ivan Boiko (1845–unknown)
 * 17) Lavrentiy Boiko (1847–unknown)
 * 18) Maria Hryhorivna Shevchenko (1819–1846)
 * 19) Yosyp Hryhorovych Shevchenko (1821–1878) married Matrona Hryhorivna Shevchenko (1820?–unknown), far relative
 * 20) Andriy Shevchenko
 * 21) Ivan Shevchenko
 * 22) Trokhym Shevchenko (September 20, 1843–unknown)

Tributes

 * Відповідь на молитву / Answer to prayer, short film by Maxim Neafit Bujnicki, 2009