Taras Shevchenko#Example of poetry: Testament (Zapovit)

{{Short description|Ukrainian writer, poet and artist (1814–1861)}}

{{Infobox writer

| name = Taras Shevchenko
{{nobold|{{native name|uk|Тарас Шевченко|paren=omit}}}}

| image = File:Т. Г. Шевченко. Квітень 1859.jpg

| caption = Shevchenko photographed by Andrey Denyer in 1859

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1814|3|9|df=y}}

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1861|3|10|1814|3|9|df=y}}

| occupation = {{flatlist|

| period = 1832–1861

| notable_works = Kobzar • Haidamaky (poem) • Dream

| birth_place = Morintsy, Russian Empire

| death_place = Saint Petersburg, Russia

| alma_mater = Imperial Academy of Arts

| language = Ukrainian, Russian

| pseudonym = Kobzar

| signature = Shevchenko signature.svg

}}

Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko{{efn|At the time of birth of Taras Shevchenko, the parish register of the village of Moryntsi was in Russian (the official language of the Russian Empire), and he was recorded as Taras ("{{tooltip|To the resident of the village of Morintsy Grigori Shevchenko and his wife Katherine was born a son, Taras|У жителя села Моринец Григория Шевченка и жены его Екатерины родился сын Тарас}}"{{Cite web|url=http://izbornyk.org.ua/shevchenko/docum02.htm|title=Документи 1–101. Тарас Шевченко: Документи та матеріали до біографії. 1814–1861.|website=izbornyk.org.ua|access-date=2014-02-14|archive-date=2013-10-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131017125323/http://izbornyk.org.ua/shevchenko/docum02.htm|url-status=live}}

). At that time serfs' patronymic names were not identified in documents (for example, see the text of a "free-to-go"{{clarify|date=December 2022}} document from 22 April 1838: "{{tooltip|eternally let go my serf person Taras Grigoriev, the son of Shevchenko, whom I inherited after my past parent real privy councilor Vasiliy Vasilievich Engelgardt|отпустил вечно на волю крепостного моего человека Тараса Григорьева сына Шевченка, доставшегося мне по наследству после покойного родителя моего действительного тайного советника Василия Васильевича Энгельгардта}}"). During Shevchenko's lifetime in Ukrainian texts two variants were used: "{{tooltip|Taras Grigorievich|Тарас Григорьевич}}" (see the letter of Hryhory Kvitka-Osnovyanenko from [http://izbornyk.org.ua/shevchenko/lystydo01.htm 23 October 1840]: "{{tooltip|my lovely lord, Taras Grigorievich|мій коханий пане, Тарас Григорьевич}}")[http://izbornyk.org.ua/shevchenko/lystydo.htm Letters to Taras Shevchenko] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131017180539/http://izbornyk.org.ua/shevchenko/lystydo.htm |date=2013-10-17 }}. Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1993. and "{{tooltip|Taras Hryhorovych|Тарас Григорович}}" (the letter of same author from [http://izbornyk.org.ua/shevchenko/lystydo01.htm#r1842 29 April 1842]: "{{tooltip|My dear and noble master Taras Hryhorovych|Милий і добрий мій паночку Тарас Григорович}}"). In Russian it is accepted to write «Тарас Григорьевич Шевченко»,{{GSEn|123520|Шевченко Тарас Григорьевич}} in Ukrainian—«Тарас Григорович Шевченко»,{{Cite web|url=http://www.nbuv.gov.ua/books/18/stg-bio.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130121190708/http://nbuv.gov.ua/books/18/stg-bio.html|url-status=dead|title=Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine, Kyiv|archivedate=21 January 2013}} in other languages—transliterating from the Ukrainian name, for example "Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko{{-"}}.}} ({{langx|uk|Тарас Григорович Шевченко}}; {{langx|ru|Тарас Григорьевич Шевченко}}; 9 March 1814 – 10 March 1861) was a Ukrainian poet, writer, artist, public and political figure, folklorist, and ethnographer. He was a fellow of the Imperial Academy of Arts and a member of the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius. He wrote poetry in Ukrainian and prose (nine novellas, a diary, and his autobiography) in Russian, making him one of many iconic figures which belong to several Slavic language cultures.

The town of Aktau in Kazakhstan was named after Shevchenko in the period of Soviet authority. His literary heritage, in particular the poetry collection Kobzar, is regarded to be the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature and to some degree also of the modern Ukrainian language.

Life

=Childhood and youth=

File:Шевченко Т. Г. Хата батьків у Кирилівці (1843).jpg

Taras Shevchenko was born on {{OldStyleDate|9 March|1814|25 February}}{{efn|1=Note #10 in the parish register of Moryntsi for 1814 (preserved in the Shevchenko National Museum in Kyiv): "{{tooltip|In the year one thousand eight hundred fourteen, on the twenty fifth of February, a son, Taras, was born to the resident of the village Morinets Grigori Shevchenko and his wife Catherine...|Тысяча восемьсот четырнадцатого года февраля двадцать пятого числа у жителя села Моринец Григория Шевченко и его жены Екатерины родился сын Тарас…}}"{{sfn|Shevchenko|1982|loc=volume 3}}}} in the village of Moryntsi, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire,{{cite web |last1=Antokhii |first1=Myroslav |first2=Daria |last2=Darewych |first3=Marko Robert |last3=Stech |first4=Danylo Husar |last4=Struk |title=Shevchenko, Taras |url=https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CS%5CH%5CShevchenkoTaras.htm |website=Internet Encyclopaedia of Ukraine |publisher=Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies |access-date=13 September 2023 |archive-date=18 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230918073637/https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CS%5CH%5CShevchenkoTaras.htm |url-status=live }} about 20 years after the third partition of Poland wherein the territory of Ukraine where Shevchenko was born was annexed by Imperial Russia. He was the third child after his sister Kateryna and brother Mykyta; his younger siblings were a brother, Yosyp, and a sister, Maria, who was born blind.{{sfn|Zaĭt︠s︡ev|1988|p=4}} His parents were Kateryna Shevchenko (née Boiko){{sfn|Zaĭt︠s︡ev|1988|p=4}} and Hryhoriy Ivanovych Shevchenko, former subjects of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth who became serf peasants, working the land owned by {{Ill|Vasily Engelhardt (senator)|lt=Vasily Engelhardt|uk|Енгельгардт Василь Васильович}}, a nephew of the Russian statesman Grigory Potemkin.{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=7}}

In 1816, the family moved to Kyrylivka (modern {{Ill|lt=Shevchenkove |Shevchenkove (Zvenigorod district)|uk|Шевченкове (Звенигородський район)}}), another village owned by Engelhardt, where Taras's father and grandfather had been born. The boy grew up in the village.{{sfn|Zaĭt︠s︡ev|1988|p=4}} Once, he went looking for "the pillars that prop up the sky" and got lost. Chumaks (travelling merchants) who met the boy took him back to the village.{{sfn|Zaĭt︠s︡ev|1988|p=7}} From 1822, Shevchenko was sent to a school, where he was taught to read and write. His teacher was the precentor of the village church, whose nickname was "Sovhyr". He was a harsh disciplinarian, who had a tradition of birching the children in his class every Saturday.{{sfn|Zaĭt︠s︡ev|1988|p=9}}

On {{OldStyleDate|1 September|1823|20 August}} Kateryna Shevchenko died.{{sfn|Zaĭt︠s︡ev|1988|p=9}} The widowed Hryhoriy, left to look after six children aged from thirteen to four, had little choice but to remarry. He was married to Oksana Tereshchenko, a widow from Moryntsi, who had three children of her own.{{sfn|Zaĭt︠s︡ev|1988|p=10}}

When Hryhoriy Shevchenko became a chumak, Taras travelled twice with his father and his older brother away from his neighbourhood and, for the first time in his life, on to the open steppe.{{sfn|Zaĭt︠s︡ev|1988|p=11}} Hryhoriy died from a chill on {{OldStyleDate|2 April|1825|21 March}},{{sfn|Zaĭt︠s︡ev|1988|p=12}} and for a period the children's stepmother ruled the family, treating Taras and those siblings still at the family home with great cruelty, until she was expelled by their grandfather, Ivan Shevchenko. For a period Taras lived with his grandfather and his father's brother Pavlo, and was made to work as a swineherd and a groom's assistant.{{sfn|Zaĭt︠s︡ev|1988|p=13}} At the age of 12, he left home to work as a student assistant and a servant for a drunkard named Bohorsky, who had replaced Sovhyr as the village precentor and teacher and was even more violent than his predecessor. One of Shevchenko's duties was to read psalms over the dead. He was treated still more violently by Bohorsky once the boy's stepmother became his mistress.{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=14}}

In February 1827, the 13-year-old Shevchenko escaped from the village and worked for a few days for a deacon in Lysianka, before moving on to Tarasivka. Frustrated in his attempts to become an artist, he returned to his home village.{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=15}} At around this time, Shevchenko experienced his first love, {{Ill|Oksana Kovalenko|uk|Коваленко Оксана Степанівна}}, as confirmed by a dedication he later wrote in the poem {{Ill|Mariana, the nun|uk|Мар'яна-черниця}}:{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=18}}

{{Poem quote

|text=It is true, Oksana, alien and black-browed,

That you will not remember the orphan

Who, in a grey jacket, was so happy

To see a wonder - your beauty,

Whom you taught, without talk or words,

How to speak with the eyes, soul and heart,

With whom you smiled, cried, and worried,

To whom you loved to sing a song about Petrus.

You will recall... Oksana, Oksana!

But I still cry today and I still worry,

I pour out my tears for the little Mariana

While I look at you and pray for you.

Remember, Oksana, alien and black-browed,

And deck sister Mariana with flowers.

Sometimes smile happily at Petrus

And, even jokingly, remember what happened.

|char=

|sign=Taras Shevchenko

|source={{lang|uk|Povne}} I

|title={{lang|uk|Mariana, the nun}}

}}

There is evidence that during this period of his life, Shevchenko was trained by his older brother Mykola to become a wheelwright, and that he also lived with and worked for the family of Hryhoriy Koshytsia, the Kyrylivka priest, who treated Taras well. His duties included driving the priest's son to school, and transporting fruit to markets in Burty and Shpola.{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=16}}

=Life as a servant of Pavel Engelhardt=

File:1833 - Taras Shevchenko - Pavlo Engelgardt - portrait -.jpg]]

In 1828, Engelhardt died, and one of his sons, {{Ill|Pavlo Engelhardt|lt=Pavel Engelhardt|uk|Енгельгардт Павло Васильович}}, became the Shevchenko family's new landlord. Taras Shevchenko, then aged 14, was trained to become a kitchen servant and the {{lang|ru|kozachok}} (court servant) of his new master at the Vilshana estates.{{sfn|Buraček|1939|pp=16, 19}} There he saw for the first time the luxuries of the Russian nobility.{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=20}}

In 1829, Shevchenko was part of Engelhardt's retinue that travelled to Warsaw, where his regiment was based.{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=21}} By the end of 1829 they had reached Vilno (modern Vilnius). On {{OldStyleDate|18 December|1829|6 December}}, Engelhardt caught Shevchenko at night painting a portrait of the Cossack general Matvei Platov. He boxed the boy's ears and ordered him to be whipped.{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=22}} When the party reached Warsaw, Engelhardt arranged for his servant to be apprenticed to a painter-decorator, who, recognising the boy's artistic talents, recommended he receive lessons from the Polish painter and professional artist, Franciszek Ksawery Lampi.{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=24}}

When the November Uprising broke out in 1830, Engelhardt and his regiment were forced to leave Warsaw. His servants, including Shevchenko, were later expelled from the city, forced to leave Polish territory under armed guard, and then made their way to St. Petersburg. Upon arriving there, Shevchenko returned to the life of being a page-boy. His artistic training was delayed for a year,{{sfn|Buraček|1939|pp=25{{ndash}}27}} after which he was permitted to study for four years with the painter {{ill|Vasiliy Shiriayev|uk|Ширяєв Василь Григорович}}, a man who proved to be much more cruel and controlling than his master in Warsaw.{{sfn|Buraček|1939|pp=28{{ndash}}29}} The summer nights were light enough for Shevchenko to visit the city's Summer Garden, where he drew the statues.{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=24}}

In his novel Artist, Shevchenko described that during the pre-academical period he painted such works as Apollo Belvedere, Fraklete, Heraclitus, Architectural barelief, and Mask of Fortune. He participated in the painting of the Bolshoi Theatre as an apprentice.{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=13}} The composition Alexander of Macedon shows trust towards his doctor Philip was created for a contest of the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1830.{{sfn|Petrov|1865|p=251}}

=Liberation from serfdom=

File:Bryullov portrait of Zhukovsky.jpg, Portrait of the poet V.A. Zhukovsky (1837/8), National Museum Taras Shevchenko]]

During one of his copying sessions in the city's Summer Gardens, Shevchenko made the acquaintance of a young Ukrainian artist, Ivan Soshenko, a painter and a student of the Imperial Academy of Arts, who came from Bohuslav, close to Shevchenko's home village. Soshenko showed in an interest in Shevchenko's drawings, and recognised the young man's talent.{{cite web|title=Soshenko, Ivan|url=https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=/pages/s/o/soshenkoivan.htm|website=Internet Encyclopaedia of Ukraine|publisher=Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies|access-date=15 September 2023|archive-date=18 September 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230918073636/https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=/pages/s/o/soshenkoivan.htm|url-status=live}}{{sfn|Manning|1960|pp=1{{ndash}}2}}{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=31}} He was allowed to receive drawing and watercolour painting lessons from Soshenko on weekends, and when he had spare time during the week. Shevchenko made such progress as a portraitist that Engelhardt asked him to portray several of his mistresses.{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=31}}

Soshenko took Shevchenko to Saint Petersburg's art galleries, including the Hermitage.{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=32}} He introduced him to other compatriots, such as the writer and poet Yevhen Hrebinka, the art historian {{Ill|Vasyl Hryhorovych|uk|Григорович Василь Іванович}}, and the Russian painter Alexey Venetsianov. Through these men, around June 1832, Shevchenko was introduced to the most fashionable painter of the day, the artist Karl Briullov.{{sfn|Manning|1960|pp=1{{ndash}}2}}{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=34}} Briullov took an interest in Shevchenko, praising his work and indicating a willingness to take him on as a student. However, as a serf, Shevchenko was ineligible to study under Briullov at the Academy, who requested his freedom from Engelhardt. The request was met with a refusal, which enraged Briullov.{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=34}}

Engelhardt was persuaded to release his servant on condition that a fee of 2500 rubles was paid. To raise this sum, Briullov painted a portrait of the Russian poet Vasily Zhukovsky as a lottery prize for the imperial family; the winning lottery ticket was drawn by the tsarina.{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=37}}{{efn|1=The letters by Zhukovsky asking for payment were illustrated by his own drawings, with captions: This is Mr Shevchenko. He is talking to himself: 'I would like to paint a picture, but my master has ordered me to sweep the floor.' / He is holding his paintbrush in one hand and a broom in the other. He is very upset. / Here Briullov is painting Zhukovsky's portrait. In the distance Shevchenko is sweeping the floor. For the last time. / These are Shevchenko and Zhukovsky. Both are turning somersaults out of joy.'{{sfn|Buraček|1939|p=37}}}} Engelhardt signed the paperwork that released Shevchenko from serfdom on {{OldStyleDate|5 May|1838|22 April}}.{{sfn|Manning|1960|pp=1{{ndash}}2}}

=Initial success (1838–1846)=

==Paintings and drawings==

{{multiple image | direction = horizontal |align=| perrow=2 |total_width= 300| header = | footer =

| image1 = Taras Shevchenko painting 0015.jpg | alt1 = aaa | caption1 ={{Ill|Cossack Banquet|uk|Козацький бенкет (Шевченко)}} (pencil on paper, 1838), National Museum Taras Shevchenko

| image2 = Taras Shevchenko painting 0029.jpg | alt2 =bbb | caption2 = {{Ill|Model in the Pose of St. Sebastian|uk|Натурщик у позі св. Себастіяна}} | image3 = Шевченко Т. Г. (1841) Циганка-ворожка.jpg | alt3 =bbb | caption3 = {{Ill|Gypsy Fortune Teller|uk|Циганка-ворожка (Шевченко)}} (1841)

| image4 = Taras Shevchenko painting 0072.jpg | alt4 =bbb | caption4 =An illustration of King Lear, produced in Galvanography (1843)

}}

After he became a student of the Imperial Academy of Arts, with Briullov as his mentor, Shevchenko spent most of his time at the academy and in Briullov's studio.{{sfn|Kirilyuk|Shablyuvs'ky|Shubravs'ky|1984|pp=52{{ndash}}80}}{{sfn|Zhulynskyi|2015|pp=270{{ndash}}271}} Together they attended literary and musical evenings, and visited writers and artists. Shevchenko's social life enriched and expanded his horizons and stimulated his creativity.{{sfn|Kirilyuk|Shablyuvs'ky|Shubravs'ky|1984|pp=52{{ndash}}80}} His friends during this period included {{Ill|Yakov Kuharenko|uk|Кухаренко Яків Герасимович}}, a writer and officer of the Black Sea Cossack Host who was to become his friend for life,{{cite web|title=Kukharenko, Yakiv|url=https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CK%5CU%5CKukharenkoYakiv.htm|website=Internet Encyclopaedia of Ukraine|publisher=Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies|access-date=17 September 2023|archive-date=18 September 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230918072602/https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CK%5CU%5CKukharenkoYakiv.htm|url-status=live}} and the artist {{Ill|Karl Joachim|ru|Иохим, Карл Иванович}},{{sfn|Kirilyuk|Shablyuvs'ky|Shubravs'ky|1984|pp=52{{ndash}}80}}

From June to November 1838, Shevchenko's examination marks improved enough to allow him to join a compositional drawings class. An early drawing from this class, {{Ill|Cossack Banquet|uk|Козацький бенкет (Шевченко)}}, was completed in December that year. The following month his work was recognised by the Imperial Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, who agreed to pay him a monthly maintenance fee of 30 rubles a month.{{cite web |title=Taras Grigorovič Ševčenko (1814-1861) |url=https://data.bnf.fr/en/12194329/taras_grigorovic_sevcenko/ |website=BnF Data |publisher=Bibliothèque nationale de France |access-date=17 September 2023 |archive-date=18 September 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230918080246/https://data.bnf.fr/en/12194329/taras_grigorovic_sevcenko/ |url-status=live }}{{sfn|Zhur|2003|p=44{{ndash}}87}}

In April 1839, Shevchenko was awarded a silver medal by the Council of the Academy.{{sfn|Zhur|2003|p=44{{ndash}}87}} He began to master the technique of oil painting, with {{Ill|The Model in the Pose of St. Sebastian|uk|Натурщик у позі св. Себастіяна}} being among his earliest attempts. From November, he became seriously ill with typhus.{{sfn|Kirilyuk|Shablyuvs'ky|Shubravs'ky|1984|pp=52{{ndash}}80}} That year, he received another silver medal, this time for his oil painting The Beggar Boy Giving Bread to a Dog.{{Cite web|url=http://litopys.org.ua/shevchenko/docum02.htm|title=Документи 1–101. Тарас Шевченко: Документи та матеріали до біографії. 1814–1861.|website=litopys.org.ua|access-date=20 June 2020|archive-date=4 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200804000656/http://litopys.org.ua/shevchenko/docum02.htm|url-status=live}} In September 1841, the Academy of Arts awarded Shevchenko his third silver medal, for the painting {{Ill|The Gypsy Fortune Teller|uk|Циганка-ворожка (Шевченко)}}. The following May, continual absenteeism from classes forced the Society for the Encouragement of Artists to exclude him from among its free boarders.{{sfn|Kirilyuk|Shablyuvs'ky|Shubravs'ky|1984|pp=52{{ndash}}80}}{{sfn|Zhulynskyi|2015|pp=270{{ndash}}271}} To earn an income he produced book illustrations, such as for Nikolai Nadezhdin's story The Power of Will, {{Ill|Oleksandr Bashutskyi|uk|Башуцький Олександр Павлович}}'s publication Ours, written off from nature by the Russians, an edition of Wolfgang Franz von Kobell's Galvanography (1843),{{sfn|Kirilyuk|Shablyuvs'ky|Shubravs'ky|1984|pp=52{{ndash}}80}} and a book by Nikolai Polevoy, Russian Generals (1845).{{sfn| Polevoy|1845|p=x}}

==Poetry==

File:1840 - Kobzar - page 3 - page 1 (Title) -.jpg (1840)]]

At the end of 1839, Shevchenko met the sculptor and art teacher Ivan Martos, who showed great interest in his poems. He offered to publish them, but Shevchenko did not immediately agree. Hrebinka took an active and direct part in the publication of Kobzar (1840); it was he who submitted the manuscript to the {{Ill|St. Petersburg censorship committee|ru|Петербургский цензурный комитет}}.{{sfn|Zhur|2003|p=44{{ndash}}87}} Kobzar sold out. It did not openly call for revolutionary actions, but it expressed a protest against social injustice and a desire for a free life.{{sfn|Kirilyuk|Shablyuvs'ky|Shubravs'ky|1984|pp=52{{ndash}}80}}

In March 1840, Hrebinka submitted the manuscript of the almanac Lastivka to the censors, which also included Shevchenko's "Prychynna" and the poems "{{Ill|The wind is raging, the wind is raging!|uk|Вітре буйний, вітре буйний!}}" and "{{Ill|Water flows into the blue sea|uk|Тече вода в синє море}}".{{sfn|Kirilyuk|1974}}

In 1841, Shevchenko paid for his epic poem Haidamaky.{{sfn|Kirilyuk|Shablyuvs'ky|Shubravs'ky|1984|pp=52{{ndash}}80}}{{sfn|Kirilyuk|1974}} The poem was met with sharp criticism by the literary critic Vissarion Belinsky; in the magazine Otechestvennye Zapiski he criticized Shevchenko's "inclination to romantic pompous ingenuity".{{sfn|Kirilyuk|Shablyuvs'ky|Shubravs'ky|1984|pp=52{{ndash}}80}} Other poems produced by Shevchenko during this period include "{{Ill|Maryana the Nun|uk|Мар'яна-черниця}}", "{{Ill|Drowned (ballad)|lt=Drowned|uk|Утоплена (балада)}}", and "{{Ill|Blind Man (poem)|lt=Blind Man|uk|Сліпа (поема Шевченка)}}".{{sfn|Kirilyuk|Shablyuvs'ky|Shubravs'ky|1984|pp=52{{ndash}}80}}

While residing in Saint Petersburg, Shevchenko made three trips to Ukraine: in 1843, 1845, and 1846. The difficult conditions Ukrainians endured had a profound impact on the poet-painter. Shevchenko visited his siblings, still enserfed, and other relatives. He met with prominent Ukrainian writers and intellectuals Yevhen Hrebinka, Panteleimon Kulish, and Mykhaylo Maksymovych, and was befriended by the princely Repnin family, especially Varvara.{{cn|date=July 2023}}

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. Only the first six etchings were printed because of the lack of means to continue. An album of watercolors from historical places and pencil drawings was compiled in 1845.{{Cite web|url=http://kobzar.ua/site/intro|title=Портал Шевченка|website=kobzar.ua|access-date=2021-09-08|archive-date=2021-10-08|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211008033155/http://kobzar.ua/site/intro|url-status=live}}

==Plays==

Shevchenko's play Blind Beauty, written {{circa|1841}}, has not survived.{{sfn|Kirilyuk|Shablyuvs'ky|Shubravs'ky|1984|pp=52{{ndash}}80}} In 1842, he released a part of the tragedy {{lang|uk|Mykyta Haidai}} and, in 1843 he completed the drama {{Ill|Nazar Stodolia|uk|Назар Стодоля (п'єса)}}.

In the autumn of 1842, Shevchenko planned a sea trip to Sweden and Denmark, but due to illness, he returned home after reaching Revel (modern Tallinn).{{sfn|Zhur|2003|p=44{{ndash}}87}}

=First trip to Ukraine=

File:У Києві.jpgs Shevchenko included in Picturesque Ukraine (1844)]]

In May 1843, Shevchenko travelled to Ukraine, where he met as many intellectuals, poets, and artists as possible, including the future Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius member Vasyl Bilozersky.{{sfn|Zaĭt︠s︡ev|1988|p=101}}{{sfn|Bilyk|Galganova|2014|p=77}} During his stay in Kyiv, Shevchenko sketched the city's historical sights and landscapes. After a month he went to Yahotyn, where he befriended the wealthy Repnin family.{{sfn|Bilyk|Galganova|2014|p=77}} In October 1843, he wrote his poem "{{Ill|The Dug Grave|uk|Розрита могила}}", after visiting recent excavations of burial mounds that many Ukrainians considered to be symbolic of the heroic past of the Cossacks.{{sfn|Zaĭt︠s︡ev|1988|p=86}}

Shevchenko planned to publish an album, Picturesque Ukraine, to consist of his annotated etchings of places and events connected with Ukraine and its past, and use the proceeds to buy his family their freedom. The Society for the Encouragement of Artists gave him 300 rubles to help produce Picturesque Ukraine,{{sfn|Zaĭt︠s︡ev|1988|pp=105{{ndash}}106}} but due to his poor planning and lack of business skills, few of the intended etchings with their accompanying text were published, and not enough money was generated from sales to fulfill his dream of buying his siblings' freedom.{{sfn|Zaĭt︠s︡ev|1988|pp=107{{ndash}}108}}

=Exile=

On 22 March 1845, the Council of the Academy of Arts granted Shevchenko the title of a non-classed artist. He again traveled to Ukraine where he met with historian Mykola Kostomarov and other members of the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius, a clandestine society also known as Ukrainian-Slavic society and dedicated to the political liberalization of the Empire and its transformation into a federation-like polity of Slavic nations.{{cite web|url=http://litopys.org.ua/rizne/kmt03.htm|script-title=uk:Витяг зі справи М. І. Гулака – № 69. Доповідь О. Ф. Орлова Миколі I про діяльність Кирило-Мефодіївського Товариства і пропозиції щодо покарання його членів|trans-title=Excerpt from the file of M. I. Gulak – No. 69. Report by A. F. Orlov to Nicholas I on the activities of Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood and suggestions for the punishment of its members |language=ru |publisher=Litopys |date=26 May 1847|access-date=11 July 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150219173649/http://litopys.org.ua/rizne/kmt03.htm |archive-date=19 February 2015}}

In 1844, Shevchenko wrote the poem "{{Ill|Dream (poem)|lt=Dream|uk|Сон (поема)}}" that described the social and national oppression of the Ukrainians by the Russian upper classes.{{sfn|Shevchenko |2003}} In February, he arrived back in Saint Petersburg from Ukraine.{{sfn|Zaĭt︠s︡ev|1988|p=104}} Copies of the poem were confiscated from the society's members and became one of the major issues of the scandal.{{cite web|url=http://litopys.org.ua/shevchenko/shev128.htm|script-title=uk:Сон|trans-title=The Dream|language=uk|publisher=Litopys|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150219181841/http://litopys.org.ua/shevchenko/shev128.htm|archive-date=19 February 2015}}

Shevchenko was arrested together with the members of the society on 5 April 1847.{{cite encyclopedia |url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/russian-and-eastern-european-literature-biographies/taras-grigoryevich |title=Taras Shevchenko |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of World Biography |publisher=The Gale Group |date=2004 |access-date=9 March 2017 |archive-date=12 March 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170312044124/http://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/russian-and-eastern-european-literature-biographies/taras-grigoryevich |url-status=live }} Tsar Nicholas I read Shevchenko's poem, "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 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?"{{cite book|last=Belinsky|first=Vissarion|author-link=Vissarion Belinsky|url=http://litopys.org.ua/shevchenko/belinsky.htm|script-title=ru:Письмо В. Г. Белинского к П. В. Анненкову|trans-title=Letter from V. G. Belinsky to P. V. Annenkov|language=ru|publisher=Litopys|date=December 1847|access-date=13 November 2016|archive-date=4 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161104182725/http://litopys.org.ua/shevchenko/belinsky.htm|url-status=live}}{{cite web|last=Karevin|first=Aleksandr|script-title=ru:Мифы Украины: украинский "соловей"|trans-title=The myths of Ukraine: the Ukrainian "nightingale"|language=ru|url=http://xn--b1adccaencl0bewna2a.xn--p1ai/index.php/history/52-articles/10580|publisher=RusskoeDvizhenie.rf|date=6 August 2012|access-date=13 November 2016|archive-date=14 November 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161114035807/http://xn--b1adccaencl0bewna2a.xn--p1ai/index.php/history/52-articles/10580|url-status=live}}

File:1848 - 201 - Self-portrait at the Syr Darya bank. Rayim, June 1848, Taras Shevchenko.jpg bank, June 1848]]

In the official report of Orlov Shevchenko was accused of composing poetry in "Little-Russian language" (an archaic Russian name for the Ukrainian language) of outrageous content, instead of being grateful to be redeemed out of serfdom. In the report, Orlov listed the crimes as advocating and inspiring Ukrainian nationalists, alleging enslavement and misfortune of Ukraine, glorifying the Hetman Administration (Cossack Hetmanate) and Cossack liberties and that he "with incredible audacity poured slander and bile on persons of Imperial House".

While under investigation, Shevchenko was imprisoned in Saint Petersburg in casemates of the 3rd Department of Imperial Chancellery on Panteleimonovskaya Street (today Pestelia str., 9). After being convicted, he was exiled as a private to the Russian military garrison in Orenburg at Orsk, near the Ural Mountains. Tsar Nicholas I personally confirmed his sentence,{{cite journal

| title=The Present Crisis in Russia

| journal=The North American Review

| author=Peter Kropotkin

| author-link=Peter Kropotkin

| year=1901

| url=http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=407

| access-date=10 November 2019

| archive-date=7 November 2019

| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191107023444/http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=407

| url-status=live

}} added to it, "Under the strictest surveillance, without the right to write or paint." He was subsequently sent on a forced march from Saint Petersburg to Orenburg and Orsk.{{cn|date=July 2023}}

File:Shevchenko-Dalismen.jpg

The following year, 1848, he was assigned to undertake the first Russian naval expedition of the Aral Sea on the ship "Konstantin", under the command of Lieutenant Butakov. Although officially a common private, Shevchenko was effectively treated as an equal by the other members of the expedition. He was tasked to sketch various landscapes around the coast of the Aral Sea. After an 18-month voyage (1848–49), Shevchenko returned with his album of drawings and paintings to Orenburg. Most of those drawings were created for a detailed account of the expedition. Nevertheless, he created many unique works of art about the Aral Sea nature and Kazakhstan people at a time when Russian conquest of Central Asia had begun in the middle of the nineteenth century.{{cite web

| url = https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1848-1849_-_Aral_Sea_-_Shevchenko_Butakoff_Maksheyev_%3D_e-book.pdf

| title = Арал Тенгизи 1848–1849. Малюнки Тараса Шевченка. Денник Олексія Бутакова. Мандрівки Олексія Макшеєва. pdf.

| publisher = Козак Невада, Наутілус. Львів, 2019

| language = uk

| access-date = 4 November 2019

| archive-date = 29 August 2021

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210829230424/https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1848-1849_-_Aral_Sea_-_Shevchenko_Butakoff_Maksheyev_%3D_e-book.pdf

| url-status = live

}}

He was then sent to one of the worst penal settlements, the remote fortress of Novopetrovsk at Mangyshlak Peninsula, where he spent seven terrible years. In 1851, at the suggestion of fellow serviceman Bronisław Zaleski, lieutenant colonel Mayevsky assigned him to the Mangyshlak (Karatau) geological expedition. In 1857, Shevchenko finally returned from exile after receiving amnesty from a new emperor, though he was not permitted to return to St. Petersburg and was forced to stay in Nizhniy Novgorod.{{cn|date=July 2023}}

Shevchenko was eventually allowed to return to St. Petersburg. In the winter of 1858, he saw African-American Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge perform with his troupe. Using translators, the two became good friends over discussions of art and music and their shared experiences of oppression. Shevchenko drew Aldridge's portrait. Aldridge was later gifted a portrait of Shevchenko by Mikhail Mikeshin.{{Cite journal |last=Corbett |first=Demetrius M. |date=1964 |title=Taras Shevchenko and Ira Aldridge: (The Story of Friendship between the Great Ukrainian Poet and the Great Negro Tragedian) |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/2294581 |journal=The Journal of Negro Education |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=143–150 |doi=10.2307/2294581 |jstor=2294581 |issn=0022-2984|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite web |last=Kerziouk |first=Olga |date=24 October 2014 |title=Person from a portrait: Ira Frederick Aldridge, the first black Othello |url=https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2014/10/person-from-a-portrait-ira-frederick-aldridge-the-first-black-othello-.html |access-date=19 March 2023 |website=blogs.bl.uk |language=en |archive-date=19 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230319035633/https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2014/10/person-from-a-portrait-ira-frederick-aldridge-the-first-black-othello-.html |url-status=live }}

In May 1859, Shevchenko got permission to return to Ukraine. He intended to buy a plot of land close to the village of Pekari. In July, he was again arrested on a charge of blasphemy, but then released and ordered to return to St. Petersburg.

File:Grave of Taras Shevchenko. Postcard.jpg near Kaniv, historical postcard. The cross was dismantled by the Soviets in the 1920s.Андрій Тіток (6 December 2014), [http://svoboda.fm/culture/literature/235550.html Остання путь Кобзаря: як Чернігівщина прощалася з Тарасом Шевченком.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150926041111/http://svoboda.fm/culture/literature/235550.html |date=26 September 2015}}]]

=Death=

Taras Shevchenko spent the last years of his life working on new poetry, paintings, and engravings, as well as editing his older works. He also created and financed the publication of a grammar book for Ukrainian children ({{ill|Bukvar Yuzhnorussky|uk|Букварь южнорусскій}}). After difficult years in exile, however, illnesses took their toll upon him. Shevchenko died in Saint Petersburg on 10 March 1861, the day after his 47th birthday.

He was first buried at the Smolensk Cemetery in Saint Petersburg. His funeral in Saint Petersburg was attended by such greats of Russian literature as Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Saltykov-Shchedrin and Leskov.{{Cite web|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/russian-and-eastern-european-literature-biographies/taras-grigoryevich|title=Taras Grigoryevich Shevchenko|access-date=23 April 2023|archive-date=4 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404214107/https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/russian-and-eastern-european-literature-biographies/taras-grigoryevich|url-status=live}} However, fulfilling Shevchenko's wish, expressed in his poem "Testament" ("Zapovit"), to be buried in Ukraine, his friends arranged the transfer of his remains by train to Moscow and then by horse-drawn wagon to his homeland. Shevchenko was re-buried on 8 May on the Chernecha hora (Monk's Hill; today Taras Hill) near the Dnipro River in 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 1861 emancipation of serfs was announced. His works and life are revered by Ukrainians throughout the world and his impact on Ukrainian literature is immense.

Poetic works

237 poems were written by Shevchenko but only 28 of these were published in the Russian Empire. Six others were published in the Austrian Empire over his lifetime.

=Example of poetry: ''Testament'' (''Zapovit'')=

Shevchenko's 1845 Testament (Zapovit) has been translated into more than 150 languages and set to music in the 1870s by H. Hladky.

{{lang|uk|

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... отоді 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.

}}

{{lang|en|

When I die, then make my grave

High on an ancient mound,

In my own beloved Ukraine,

In steppeland without bound:

Whence one may see wide-skirted wheatland,

Dnipro's steep-cliffed shore,

There whence one may hear the blustering

River wildly roar.

Till from Ukraine to the blue sea

It bears in a fierce endeavour

The blood of foemen — then I'll leave

Wheatland and hills forever:

Leave all behind, soar up until

Before the throne of God

I'll make my prayer. For till that hour

I shall know naught of God.

Make my grave there — and arise,

Sundering your chains,

Bless your freedom with the blood

Of foemen's evil veins!

Then in that great family,

A family new and free,

Do not forget, with good intent

Speak quietly of me.

}}

{{resize|Translated by Vera Rich,Taras Shevchenko. Song Out of Darkness. Selected Poems translated from the Ukrainian by Vera Rich. London: The Mitre Press, 1969
London, 1961}}

{{lang|en|

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 know nothing 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.

}}

{{resize|Translated by John Weir,{{cite web|title=Testament. Taras Shevchenko's poems in English|url=http://www.dinternal.com.ua/topics/zapovit-taras-shevchenko-in-english/|publisher=dinternal.com.ua|access-date=4 June 2015|archive-date=19 March 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150319122844/http://www.dinternal.com.ua/topics/zapovit-taras-shevchenko-in-english/|url-status=live}}
Toronto, 1961}}

Political, philosophical and aesthetic views

File:1845 - 1860 - Taras Shevchenko - Avtoportret.jpg

Shevchenko is considered to be "the founder of the revolutionary democratic trend in the history of Ukrainian social thought"{{Cite book|title=A Short Philosophical Dictionary|last=Rosenthal, Mark & Yudin|first=Pavel|publisher=State Publishing House of the USSR|year=1954|publication-place=Moscow|chapter=Three Ukrainian Enlighteners|chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/soviet/ukrainian.htm|translator-last=P.|translator-first=Anton|archive-date=27 January 2023|access-date=23 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230127151226/https://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/soviet/ukrainian.htm|url-status=live}} and a utopian socialist. His political, aesthetic and philosophical worldview was formed under the influence of the ideas of Russian revolutionary democrats such as Herzen, Belinsky, Dobrolyubov and Chernyshevsky; his views reflected the interests of the Ukrainian peasantry of the mid-19th century, the era of the crisis of the feudal-serf system in Imperial Russia.{{Cite web|url=https://filslov.ru/504-shevchenko-taras-grigorevich.html|title=Шевченко Тарас Григорьевич|access-date=23 April 2023|archive-date=23 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423071848/https://filslov.ru/504-shevchenko-taras-grigorevich.html|url-status=live}} Shevchenko was also strongly influenced by ideas of the Polish revolutionary movement contained in the works of authors such as Adam Mickiewicz. Critical of the historical Polish attitude to Ukrainians in his early poems, later in his life Shevchenko started calling his compatriots for solidarity with Poles in their fight against the Tsarist regime.{{Cite web|url=https://culture.pl/en/article/inventing-anti-imperial-poetic-discourse-adam-mickiewicz-and-taras-shevchenko-with-alexander-pushkin-in-the-tsars-shadow|title=Inventing Anti-Imperial Poetic Discourse: Adam Mickiewicz and Taras Shevchenko, with Alexander Pushkin in the Tsar's Shadow|access-date=24 September 2024|archive-date=24 September 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240924152224/https://culture.pl/en/article/inventing-anti-imperial-poetic-discourse-adam-mickiewicz-and-taras-shevchenko-with-alexander-pushkin-in-the-tsars-shadow|url-status=live}}

While he tirelessly exposed the oppression of the Russian landowners and the Tsar, Shevchenko also shared pan-Slavist views and maintained contacts with Russian intelligentsia. His attitude can be demonstrated by his views of 17th-century Ukrainian Cossack leader Bohdan Khmelnitsky, whom he praised as the "glorious of the glorious", but simultaneously criticized for paving the way for the liquidation of Ukrainian autonomy by Moscow.{{Cite web|url=http://litopys.org.ua/shevchenko/shev2128.htm|title=Якби то ти, Богдане пʼяний|access-date=24 September 2024|archive-date=1 May 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090501034226/http://litopys.org.ua/shevchenko/shev2128.htm|url-status=live}} Shevchenko advocated for the unification of the Slavic peoples on a democratic basis.{{Cite web|url=http://gatchina3000.ru/big/115/115329_brockhaus-efron.htm|title = Н. Сумцов (1907): Шевченко}}

A serf peasant, ransomed from captivity, Shevchenko was in the words of Russian critic Nikolai Dobrolyubov, "a poet of the people ... He came out of the people, lived with the people, and not only by thought, but by the circumstances of life, was closely and bloodily connected with the people."{{Cite web|url=http://az.lib.ru/d/dobroljubow_n_a/text_0390.shtml|title=Добролюбов Николай Александрович (1860): Кобзарь Тараса Шевченка|access-date=23 April 2023|archive-date=23 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423071846/http://az.lib.ru/d/dobroljubow_n_a/text_0390.shtml|url-status=live}}

Shevchenko was one of the most active participants in a secret political organization in Ukraine, the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius and headed the revolutionary nucleus in it. He was associated with a group of Petrashevists (the Petrashevsky Circle was a Russian literary discussion group of progressive-minded intellectuals in St. Petersburg in the 1840s, which also included a young Fyodor Dostoyevsky and radical utopian socialists) who, in their plans for a peasant uprising, hoped to use his revolutionary activities in Ukraine. After his exile, Shevchenko became close to the members of the Sovremennik literary, social and political magazine and its editors, Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Nikolai Dobrolyubov.{{cn|date=July 2023}}

Shevchenko did not consider the existing social system to be unshakable, he was convinced that the serf system would be destroyed everywhere due to the development of the steam engine, a technique that would "devour the landlord-inquisitors", and that the most important role in a radical change in social life would be played by the masses. Although he argued that the strength of the spirit cannot manifest itself without matter, he did not call his philosophical position "materialism", understanding by this word the vulgar materialism of contemporary thinkers such as Büchner, Moleschott and Vogt, which he rejected. In his poem, "The Heretic", Shevchenko praised the struggle of Jan Hus (an early 15th-century Bohemian religious reformer) for the interests of ordinary people and the unity of the Slavs.{{Cite web|url=https://rustih.ru/taras-shevchenko-eretik/|title=Тарас Шевченко — Еретик|access-date=23 April 2023|archive-date=23 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423071847/https://rustih.ru/taras-shevchenko-eretik/|url-status=live}}

According to Shevchenko's aesthetic views, which the poet expressed in his Diary,{{Cite web|url=https://ru.wikiquote.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA_(%D0%A8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%BE)|title=Дневник (Шевченко)|access-date=23 April 2023|archive-date=23 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423071844/https://ru.wikiquote.org/wiki/%D0%94%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BA_(%D0%A8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%87%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%BE)|url-status=live}} the source of beauty is nature; any attempts to deviate from the eternal beauty of nature make the artist "a moral monster". Shevchenko strove for art that is both national (folkloric) and realistic, and for that he earned the praise of Chernyshevsky{{Cite web|url=http://az.lib.ru/c/chernyshewskij_n_g/text_1861_natz_bestolkovost.shtml|title=Чернышевский Николай Гаврилович (1861): Национальная бестактность|access-date=23 April 2023|archive-date=23 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423071845/http://az.lib.ru/c/chernyshewskij_n_g/text_1861_natz_bestolkovost.shtml|url-status=live}} and the Russian itinerant painter Ivan Kramskoi, who drew the poet's famous portrait after his death.{{cn|date=July 2023}}

In the 1840s and then in the 1850s, in the era of the political struggle within the Empire's intelligentsia between the revolutionary-minded radical wing and the more moderate liberal wing, Shevchenko stood on the side of the Russian revolutionary democrats. His battle poetry, which spread underground, was a sharp weapon in the fight against serfdom. Shevchenko had a great influence on the further development of revolutionary social thought in Ukraine and on Ukrainian culture in general (Ivan Franko, Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, Lesya Ukrainka, etc.).{{Cite web|url=http://gatchina3000.ru/big/123/520_bolshaya-sovetskaya.htm|title=М. Н. Пархоменко (1978): Шевченко Тарас Григорьевич|access-date=23 April 2023|archive-date=23 April 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230423071846/http://gatchina3000.ru/big/123/520_bolshaya-sovetskaya.htm|url-status=live}}

Artwork

Of Shevchenko's known paintings and drawings, generally related to Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan, 835 works have survived as original works or as prints or copies made during his lifetime; 270 other works are lost. Shevchenko produced portraits, compositions on mythological, historical, and household themes, architectural drawings, and landscapes, using oils on canvas, watercolour, sepia, ink, and pencil, as well as etchings. Sketches and studies are known, which are of use in understanding Shevchenko's artistic style and methods. Few of his works are signed and even fewer are dated.{{citation required|date=September 2023}}

Heritage and legacy

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.){{cite journal|first1=Paola|last1=Utevskaya|author2=Dmitriy Gorbachev|url=http://www.zerkalo-nedeli.com/nn/show/147/12494/|script-title=ru:'Он мог бы понять самого Пикассо'|trans-title=He could have understood Picasso himself|language=ru|journal=Zerkalo Nedeli|publisher=zerkalo-nedeli.com|volume=30|issue=147|date=August 1997|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050118123113/http://www.zerkalo-nedeli.com/nn/show/147/12494/|archive-date=18 January 2005|df=dmy}}

He inspired some of the protesters during the Euromaidan.{{cite news|last=Ayres|first=Sabra|title=In divided Ukraine, inspiration from a poet of the underdog|url=http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2014/0309/In-divided-Ukraine-inspiration-from-a-poet-of-the-underdog-video|access-date=15 March 2014|newspaper=The Christian Science Monitor|date=9 March 2014|archive-date=15 March 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140315014359/http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2014/0309/In-divided-Ukraine-inspiration-from-a-poet-of-the-underdog-video|url-status=live}} The context of his poem "Testament" (Zapovit) was given credit for "resonating" with Ukraine's ongoing struggle during the invasion from Russia in 2022.{{citation|url=https://www.ft.com/content/1e227089-e764-4b6d-8610-3075654fca4b |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221210/https://www.ft.com/content/1e227089-e764-4b6d-8610-3075654fca4b |archive-date=2022-12-10 |url-access=subscription|title=Will and Testament by Taras Shevchenko — a Ukrainian poem that resonates today|work=Financial Times|date=10 March 2022|accessdate=2 April 2022|language=en}}

=Monuments and memorials=

File:Shpola Shevchenko Monument SAM 0715.jpg, central Ukraine]]

The first statue of Shevchenko, unveiled in Romny in October 1918, was constructed in the waning days of the Hetmanate, but many such statues were built in the Soviet Union. Statues erected in Moscow in November 1918 and Petrograd in December 1918 were later demolished because they were made from inferior materials, and needed to be rebuilt.{{cite news |last1=Shurkhalo |first1=Dmytro |title=100 років тому за Гетьманату спорудили перший монументальний пам'ятник Тарасу Шевченку |url=https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/29540725.html |access-date=19 September 2023 |work=Cуспільство |publisher=Radio Svoboda |date=14 October 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181223030259/https://www.radiosvoboda.org/a/29540725.html |archive-date=23 December 2018 |page=|trans-title=100 years ago the first monument to Taras Shevchenko was built for the Hetmanate |language=uk}} The monument erected in his name in Saint Petersburg was remade in 2000.{{cite web |title=Monuments to Shevchenko around the world |url=http://www.infoukes.com/shevchenkomuseum/monuments.htm |publisher=Taras Shevchenko Museum |access-date=30 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200222080123/http://infoukes.com/shevchenkomuseum/monuments.htm |archive-date=22 February 2020}} There are monuments to Shevchenko throughout Ukraine, such as at his memorials in Kaniv, in the centre of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, and Luhansk. After Ukraine gained its independence from the Soviet Union, some statues of Vladimir Lenin in Ukraine were replaced by statues of Shevchenko.{{sfn|Wanner|1998|pp=186{{ndash}}187}}

Monuments to Shevchenko have been put up in other countries. These include the granite Taras Shevchenko Memorial in Washington, D.C., a monument in Rome, Italy (next to the Basilica of St. Sophia), a monument in Soyuzivka, New York, statues in the Brazilian cities of Curitiba and Prudentópolis, in the Dječiji Park, Podgorica, Montenegro, and in the Croatian capital Zagreb.{{cite web |last1=Vidmarović |first1=Đuro |title=Otkriena spomen-bista Tarasa Ševčenka |url=http://www.hkv.hr/izdvojeno/komentari/dvidmarovic/20409-u-zagrebz-21-svibnja-2015-otkrivena-spomen-bista-tarasa-sevcenka.html |publisher=Croatian Cultural Council |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150923124848/http://www.hkv.hr/izdvojeno/komentari/dvidmarovic/20409-u-zagrebz-21-svibnja-2015-otkrivena-spomen-bista-tarasa-sevcenka.html |archive-date=23 September 2015 |page=|trans-title=A monument to Taras Shevchenko unveiled in Zagreb on 21 May |language=hr |date=23 September 2015}} A bust of Shevchenko was unveiled at Shevchenko School in Vita, Manitoba, Canada in 1987 and another on 24 September 2010 in the Østre Anlæg Park in Copenhagen.{{cite web |title=Monuments in Copenhagen |url=https://kk.sites.itera.dk/apps/kk_monuments/index.php?id=464 |publisher=Copenhagen Municipality |access-date=25 October 2022 |date=25 October 2022}}{{Cite web |date=1987 |title=File:Shevchenko School-Vita, Manitoba.jpg - Wikipedia |url=https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shevchenko_School-Vita,_Manitoba.jpg |access-date=2023-12-06 |website=commons.wikimedia.org |language=en}}

=Other commemorations=

In 1957, the Ukrainian-American composer {{Ill|Antin Rudnytsky|uk|Антін Рудницький}} wrote the cantata Poslaniie, based on Shevchenko's poem of the same name.{{cite web |last1=Wytwycky |first1=Wasyl |title=Rudnytsky, Antin |url=https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CR%5CU%5CRudnytskyAntin.htm |website=Internet Encyclopaedia of Ukraine |publisher=Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies |access-date=13 September 2023 |archive-date=16 November 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231116024048/https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CR%5CU%5CRudnytskyAntin.htm |url-status=live }}{{sfn|Varshavska|2021}}

From 1966 to 1968 artist Hanna Veres made a series of ornamental textiles that she dedicated to Shevchenko. They were used to illustrate the 1971 edition of Kobzar.{{sfn|Kravets|1968}}

The Tarasa Shevchenka a station on Kyiv Metro is named after Shevchenko.

References

Sources

{{cite book |last1=Bilyk |first1=Olena Ivanovna |last2=Galganova |first2=Oksana Oleksandrivna |title=Тараса Шевченка І Україн: Рекомендаційний бібліографічний покажчик У двох частинах |date=2014 |publisher=National Parliamentary Library of Ukraine |location=Kyiv |page=|trans-title=Taras Shevchenko and Ukraine: Recommended bibliographic index In two parts |url=https://nlu.org.ua/resourses/nashi_vydannya/Ros1osn.pdf |language=uk}}
{{cite book |last1=Buraček |first1=Mykola |author-link=Mykola Buraček |title=Великий народний художник [Тарас Шевченко] |date=1939 |publisher=Soviet State Publishing House 'Art' |page=|trans-title= Great People's Artist [Taras Shevchenko] |url=https://archive.org/details/BurachekVelykyiNarodnyiKHudozhnykTarasShevchenko1939/page/n3/mode/2up |language=uk}}
{{cite journal |last1=Kirilyuk |first1=E. P. |title=Шевченко — видавець власних творів |journal=Polygraphy and Type (Поліграфія і вид) |date=1974 |volume=10 |issue=10 |pages=10{{ndash}}18 |url=http://pvs.uad.lviv.ua/static/media/10/4.pdf |trans-title=Shevchenko Is the publisher of his own works |language=uk}}
{{cite book |last1=Kirilyuk |first1=E. P. |last2=Shablyuvs'ky |first2=E. S. |last3=Shubravs'ky |first3=V. E. |title=Т.Г. Шевченко: біографія |chapter=Study at the Academy of Arts: the appearance of Kobzar and Haydamaks (1838-1842) |date=1984 |publisher=Наукова думка [Scientific Thought] |location=Kyiv |isbn=|oclc=749040916 |page=|trans-title= T.G. Shevchenko: A Biography |edition=|orig-date=1964 |chapter-url=http://litopys.org.ua/shevchenko/bio04.htm |language=uk}}
{{cite journal |last1=Kravets |first1=Ivan |title=Рушники Ганни Василащук Та Ганни Верес |journal=Folk Art and Ethnography |date=1968 |issue=4 |pages=13{{ndash}}17 |url=https://lib.if.ua/exhib/1236327648.html |trans-title=Towels of Hanna Vasylaschuk and Hannah Veres |publisher=OUNB named after I. Franka}}
{{cite book |last1=Manning |first1=Clarence Augustus |title=Europe's Freedom Fighter: Taras Shevchenko, 1814-1861 - A Documentary Biography of Ukraine's Poet Laureate and National Hero |date=1960 |publisher=United States. Congress House |location=Washington, D.C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BlpgAAAAMAAJ }}
{{cite book |last1=Petrov |first1=P. N. |title=Сборник материалов для истории Имп. С.-Петербургской академии художеств за сто лет ее существования Ч. 2 1811-1843 |date=1865 |page=|trans-title= Collection of Materials for the History of Imp. St. Petersburg Academy of Arts for a hundred years of its existence |edition=|volume=2 |url=https://rusneb.ru/catalog/000200_000018_v19_rc_1429413/ |language=ru}}
{{cite book |last1=Polevoy |first1=Nikolai Alekseevich |author1-link=Nikolai Polevoy |title=Русские полководцы |date=1845 |location=Saint Petersburg |page=|trans-title=Russian Commanders |url=https://archive.org/details/libgen_00300148/page/n7/mode/2up}}
{{cite book |last1=Shevchenko |first1=Taras |editor1-last=Kyrylyuk |editor1-first=E. P. |title=Документи та матеріали до біографії 1814-1861 |date=1982 |publisher=Kyiv State University |location=Kyiv |page=|trans-title=Documents and Materials for Biography 1814-1861 |edition=2nd |url=http://litopys.org.ua/shevchenko/docum.htm }}
{{cite book |last1=Shevchenko |first1=Taras |editor1-last=Zhulynskyi |editor1-first=M. G |title=Зібрання творів у шести томах |date=2003 |publisher=Naukova dumka |location=Kyiv |isbn=|oclc=263307527 |page=|trans-title=Collection of works in six volumes |edition=|volume=1 |url=http://litopys.org.ua/shevchenko/shev.htm |language=uk |chapter=Сон [Dream] |chapter-url=http://litopys.org.ua/shevchenko/shev128.htm}}
{{cite journal |last1=Varshavska |first1=Alina |title=«І МЕРТВИМ, І ЖИВИМ…»: ПРОРОЧІ ІДЕЇ ТАРАСА ШЕВЧЕНКА В КАНТАТІ «ПОСЛАНІЄ» АНТІНА РУДНИЦЬКОГО |journal=Ukrainian Musicology |date=2021 |volume=47 |pages=150{{ndash}}160 |doi=10.31318/0130-5298.2021.47.256746 |url=http://musicology.com.ua/article/view/256746 | s2cid=249944017 |trans-title=Both Dead and Alive: Prophetic Ideas of Taras Shevchenko in Antin Rudnytsky's 'Poslanie' |issn=2520-2510|doi-access=free }}
{{cite book |last1=Wanner |first1=Catherine |title=Burden of Dreams: History and Identity in Post-Soviet Ukraine |date=1998|publisher=Penn State Press |isbn=0271042613 |url=https://archive.org/details/burdenofdreamshi00wann/page/n3/mode/2up |url-access=registration}}
{{cite book |last1=Zaĭt︠s︡ev |first1=Pavlo |title=Taras Shevchenko: A Life |date=1988 |publisher=Buffalo |location=Toronto |isbn=0802034500 |url=https://archive.org/details/tarasshevchenkol0000zait/page/n5/mode/2up }}
{{cite encyclopedia |last= |first= |author-link= |editor-last=Zhulynskyi |editor-first=M.G. |encyclopedia=Shevchenko Encyclopedia |title=Товариство Заохочування Художників |trans-title=Society for the Encouragement of Artists |url=https://archive.org/details/shevch06/page/270/mode/1up?view=theater |access-date= |language=uk |edition= |date=2015 |publisher=T.G. Shevchenko of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine |series= |volume=6 |location=Kyiv |id= |isbn=978-966-02-6976-7 |issn= |oclc= |doi= |page=|archive-url= |archive-date= |url-status= |quote= }}
{{cite book |last1=Zhur |first1=Petro V. |title=Труди І Дні Кобзаря |chapter=The Eagle Takes Off |date=2003 |publisher=Library of the Shevchenko Committee |location=Kyiv |isbn=5-89114-003-9 |page=|trans-title= The Life and Works of the Kobzar |chapter-url=http://litopys.org.ua/shevchenko/litzhur06.htm |language=ru}}

External links

{{Sister project links

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{{Internet Archive author |sname=Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko}}
{{Librivox author |id=8698}}
[https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/People/Taras_Shevchenko/DORTSH/home.html Taras Shevchenko, Bard of Ukraine] (biography by Dmytro Doroshenko, English translation, New York, 1936, 60pp)
Information about the [https://museum-portal.com/en/museums/13_national-museum-of-taras-shevchenko National Museum of Taras Shevchenko] in Kyiv, from Museum Portal
[https://www.shevchenko.ca/ Taras Shevchenko Museum], Toronto, Canada (official website)
[https://blogs.bl.uk/european/2016/07/facsimile-editions-of-works-by-taras-shevchenko-with-artistic-designs-of-volodymyr-yurchyshyn.html Information about facsimile editions of works by Shevchenko designed by Volodymyr Yurchyshyn] from the British Library

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Category:1814 births

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