Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko (Ukrainian: Тарас
Григорович Шевченко) (March 9 [O.S. February 25] 1814 – March 10 [O.S. February 26] 1861)
was a Ukrainian poet, also an artist and a humanist. His literary
heritage is regarded to be the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature and, to a large extent, of modern Ukrainian
language. Shevchenko also wrote in Russian and left many
masterpieces of his artistic work.
Life
Born into a serf family in the
village of Moryntsi, of Kiev
Governorate of the Russian Empire (now in
Cherkasy Oblast, Ukraine. Shevchenko
was orphaned at the age of eleven.[1]
He was taught how to read by a village precentor, and loved
to draw at every opportunity. Shevchenko served his owner Pavel Engelhardt in Vilnius (1828–1831)
and then Saint
Petersburg.
Engelhardt noticed Shevchenko's artistic
talent, and in Saint Petersburg he apprenticed him to the painter Vasiliy
Shiriaev for four years. 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.[1]
First Successes
Self-portrait of
Taras Shevchenko, 1840.
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 of 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 Nykyta Hayday and in 1843 he completed
the drama Nazar Stodolya.
While residing in Saint Petersburg, Shevchenko
made three trips to 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 tsarist oppression
and destruction of Ukraine,
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
Self-portrait as a
soldier, 1847.
On March 22, 1845, the Council of the Academy of Arts
decided to grant Shevchenko the title of an artist. He again travelled to
Ukraine where he met the historian, Nikolay
Kostomarov and other members of the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius, a
secret political society, created to advocate a wide set of political reforms
in the Russian Empire.[1]
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 criticized imperial rule and therefore was considered
extremely dangerous and of all the members of the dismantled society Shevchenko
was punished most severely.
Shevchenko was sent to prison in Saint Petersburg. He
was exiled as a private
with the Russian military Orenburg
garrison at Orsk, near Orenburg, near the Ural Mountains. Tsar Nicholas I, confirming his sentence, added to it, "Under
the strictest surveillance, with a ban on writing and painting." 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 exiled to Nizhniy Novgorod. In
May of 1859, Shevchenko got permission to go to Ukraine. He intended to buy a
plot of land not far from the village of Pekariv
and settle in Ukraine. In July, he was arrested on a charge of blasphemy, but was
released and ordered to return to St. Petersburg.
Death of Shevchenko
The last
self-portrait. 1860.
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. He was first buried at the Smolensk
Cemetery in Saint Petersburg. However, fulfilling Shevchenko's wish,
as 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
Hora (Monk's Hill; now Tarasova
Hora or Taras' Hill) by the Dnieper River near Kaniv.[1]
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.
Heritage and legacy
Impact
A monument to Taras Shevchenko
in Kiev, Ukraine, is located
across the Kiev
University that bears the poet's name.
Taras Shevchenko has a unique place in
Ukrainian cultural history and in world literature. His 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 eighteenth 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 the literary one. A great
number of his pictures, drawings and etchings preserved to this day testify for
his unique artistic talent. He also experimented with the 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 the Academician in the Imperial Academy of Arts specifically for his achievements in
etching.)[2]
His influence on the Ukrainian culture has
been so immense, that even at 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.
Monuments and Memorials
The ceremonial opening of the
monument by the Latvian sculptor Janis Tilbergs to
Taras Shevchenko in Petrograd
(Saint Petersburg) on December 1, 1918. The inscription says: "To the
great Ukrainian poet-pesant T. G. Shevchenko (1814 - 1861) from the great
Russian nation." The plaster monument existed for only eight years due to
the deterioration of the material in the open air. It was planned to be
replaced by a bronze version which never happened.
There are many monuments to Shevchenko
throughout Ukraine, most notably at his memorial in Kaniv and in the center of Kiev, just across the Kiev University that
bears his name. The Kiev
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), Lviv,
Luhansk and many others.
Outside of Ukraine monuments to Shevchenko
have been put up in several location 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 Pedagogical Institute named to the poet.[3]
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).
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[citation needed] and in some locations that
lacked streets named to him, local authorities renamed the streets or squares
to Shevchenko, even though these sites usually have little or no connection to
his biography. These memorials testify, perhaps, to a greater spirit of
patriotism than historical accuracy.
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 a monument in Washington,
D.C., near Dupont
Circle. There is also a monument in Tipperary Hill in Syracuse, United States.
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.
Example of poetry
Testament (Zapovit)
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
till that day
I nothing know of God.
|
— Taras
Shevchenko, 25 December 1845, Pereyaslav.
References:
1.
Shevchenko, Taras (English).
Encyclopedia of Ukraine. Retrieved on March 22, 2007.
2.
(Russian)Paola Utevskaya, Dmitriy Gorbachev, «He could have understood Picasso
himself», Zerkalo
Nedeli, July 26 - August 1, 1997.
3.
(Russian)Historical page of Orsk.
4.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taras_Hryhorovych_Shevchenko