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Taras Shevchenko
Taras Shevchenko 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. In 1847 Shevchenko was politically convicted for writing in the Ukrainian language, promoting the independence of Ukraine and ridiculing the members of the Russian Imperial House.
He was descended from kozaks who had fought for Ukraine's freedom from Poland, Russia and the Tatars. Every Ukrainian can quote his poetry. He was born in 1841 as a serf in Moryntsi, in Zvenyhordka raion, and spent his childhood in nearby Kyrylivka (now known as Shevchenkove). His mother died when he was quite young, and his father passed away a few years later, leaving him an orphan in the charge of a cruel stepmother.
Taras was artistically talented, and this helped him gain his freedom–his artist friends bought out his master by auctioning off some of their works. He wrote an painted, but his writing displeased the tsar, especially his writing in Ukrainian (which was illegal). He was punished for this by being exiled as a private to the Russian military garrison in Orenburg 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."
Shevchenko spent the rest of his life in exile, never being allowed home to Ukraine. He died in 1841, seven days before the Emancipation of Serfs was announced. He was buried, as he had requested in his poem «Заповіт» (“My Testament”), on a bluff overlooking the Dnipro. His works and life are revered by Ukrainians throughout the world and his impact on Ukrainian literature and society is immense.
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 сем’ї великій,
В сем’ї вольній, новій,
Не забудьте пом’янути
Незлим тихим словом.
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 Dnipro's plunging shore
My eyes could see, my ears could hear
The mighty river roar.
When from Ukraine the Dnipro 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.
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.
Every Ukrainian can quote his poetry at length. When I was small, I learned part of his poem «Княжа» (Princess, 1847), where he compares an idyllic Ukrainian village ("selo") to a pysanka:
Село! І серце одпочине:
Село на нашій Україні —
Неначе писанка, село.
Зеленим гаєм поросло.
Цвітуть сади, біліють хати,
А на горі стоять палати,
Неначе диво. А кругом
Широколистії тополі,
А там і ліс, і ліс, і поле,
І сині гори за Дніпром.
Сам Бог витає над селом.
A village! And my heart can rest:
A village in our Ukraine––
A village like a pysanka.
Overgrown with a grove of trees.
The orchards in blossom, the houses white
On the hill there stand palaces
like wonders/marvels. And all around
Wide-leafed poplars
and there forest, forest, and a field.
Blue hills across the Dnipro
God himself wanders about the village.
The pysanky on the following pages are the pysanky of Shevchenko’s Ukraine.
