Taras Shevchenko

Parent's hut in Kyrylivka (now village of Shevchenkove, Zvenigorodsky region, Ukraine). Taras Shevchenko, pencil, 09/1843

Illustration from Meni trynadtsyatyy mynalo by Ivan Yizhakevych

Taras Shevchenko was born on 9 March [O.S. 25 February] 1814^{[Note b]} in the village of Moryntsi, Zvenyhorodka county, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire (today Zvenyhorodka Raion, Ukraine). He was the third child after his sister Kateryna[7] and brother Mykyta,[7] in family of serf peasants Hryhoriy Ivanovych Shevchenko (1782?–1825) and Kateryna Yakymivna Shevchenko (Boiko) (1782? – 6 August 1823), both of whom were owned by landlord Vasily Engelhardt. According to the family legends, Taras's forefathers were Cossacks who served in the Zaporizhian Host and had taken part in the Ukrainian uprisings of the 17th and 18th centuries. Those uprisings were brutally suppressed in Cherkasy, Poltava, Kiev, Bratslav, and Chernihiv disrupting normal social life for many years afterwards. Most of the local population were then enslaved and reduced to poverty.

In 1816 Shevchenko family moved back to the village of Kyrylivka (today Shevchenkove) in Zvenyhorodka county, where Taras' father, Hryhoriy Ivanovych, had been born.[8] Taras spent his childhood years in the village. On May 24 [O.S. May 12] 1816, Taras' sister Yaryna was born,[9] and on 7 February [O.S. 26 January] 1819—Maria.[10] Once, young Taras went looking for "the iron pillars that hold up the sky" and got lost. Chumaks who met the boy took him with him to Kyrylivka.^{[Note c]}[11][12] On 20 March [O.S. 8 March] 1821 Taras' brother Yosyp was born.[13]

In the fall of 1822 Taras started to take some grammar classes at a local precentor (dyak) Sovhyr.[14][15] At that time Shevchenko became familiar with Hryhoriy Skovoroda's works. During 1822-1828 Shevchenko painted horses and soldiers.[16]

On 10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1823 his older sister and nanny Kateryna married Anton Krasytskyi, a serf "from Zelena Dibrova". On 1 September [O.S. 20 August] 1823 Taras' hard working mother died.[17][18][19] A month later on 19 October [O.S. 7 October] 1823 his father married a widow Oksana Tereshchenko, a native of Moryntsi village, who already had three children of her own.^{[Note d]}[17][20] She treated her step children and, particularly, little Taras, with great cruelty.^{[Note e]}

On July 4 [O.S. June 22] 1824 Taras's half-sister Maria from the second marriage of Hryhoriy Ivanovych was born.[21] In 1824 Taras, along with his father, became a traveling merchant (chumak) and traveled to Zvenyhorodka, Uman, Yelizavetgrad (today Kropyvnytskyi).[22] At the age of eleven Taras became an orphan when, on 2 April [O.S. 21 March] 1825, his father died as a serf in corvée.[19][23][24][25] Soon his stepmother along with her children returned to Moryntsi.

Taras went to work for precentor (dyak) Bohorsky who had just arrived from Kiev in 1824.[26][27] As an apprentice, Taras carried water, heated up a school, served the precentor, read psalms over the dead and continued to study.[14][28] At that time Shevchenko became familiar with some works of Ukrainian literature. Soon, tired of Bohorsky's long term mistreatment, Shevchenko escaped in search of a painting master in the surrounding villages.[28] For several days he worked for deacon Yefrem in Lysianka,[28][29] later in other places around in southern part of Kiev Governorate (villages Stebliv and Tarasivka).[29][30][31] In 1827 Shevchenko was herding community sheep near his village. He then met Oksana Kovalenko, a childhood friend, whom Shevchenko mentions in his works on multiple occasions. He dedicated the introduction of his poem "Mariana, the Nun" to her.[32][33]

As a hireling for the Kyrylivka priest Hryhoriy Koshytsia, Taras was visiting Bohuslav where he drove the priest's son to school, while also taking apples and plums to market. At the same time he was driving to markets in the towns of Burta and Shpola.[34] In 1828 Shevchenko was hired as a serving boy to a lord's court in Vilshana for permission to study with a local artist.[29] When Taras turned 14, Vasily Engelhardt died and the village of Kyrylivka and all its people became a property of his son, Pavlo Engelhardt.[35] Shevchenko was turned into a court servant of his new master at the Vilshana estates. On 18 December [O.S. 6 December] 1829 Pavlo Engelgardt caught Shevchenko at night painting a portrait of Cossack Matvii Platov, a hero of the Patriotic War of 1812. He boxed the ears of the boy and ordered him being whipped in the stables with rods.[36][37] During 1829–1833 Taras copied paintings of Suzdal masters.[38]

For almost two and a half years, from fall of 1828 to start of 1831, Shevchenko stayed with his master in Vilno (Vilnius).[29][39] Details of the travel are not well known. Perhaps, there he attended lectures by painting professor Jan Rustem at the University of Vilnius. In the same city Shevchenko could also have witnessed the November Uprising of 1830. From those times Shevchenko's painting "Bust of a Woman"[40] survived. It indicates almost professional handling of the pencil.

After moving from Vilno to Saint Petersburg in 1831, Engelgardt took Shevchenko along with him.[41][42][43] To benefit from the art works (since it was prestigious to have one's own "chamber artist"), Engelgardt sent Shevchenko to painter Vasiliy Shiriayev for four-year study. From that point and until 1838 Shevchenko lived in the Khrestovskyi building (today Zahorodnii prospekt, 8) where Shiriayev rented an apartment.[37][44] In his free time at night, Shevchenko visited the Summer Garden where he portrayed statues. In Saint Petersburg he also started writing his poems.[37][45][46]

In 1833 Shevchenko painted a portrait of his master Pavlo Engelgardt (National museum of Taras Shechenko).[47]

In his novel "Artist" Shevchenko described that during the pre-academical period he painted such works as "Apollo Belvedere", "Fraklete", "Heraclitus", "Architectural barelief", "Mask of Fortune".[46][48] He participated in painting of the Big Theatre as artist apprentice.[49] He created a composition "Alexander of Macedon shows trust towards his doctor Philip". The drawing was created for a contest of the Imperial Academy of Arts, announced in 1830.[50][51]

In Saint Petersburg Shevchenko met Ukrainian artist Ivan Soshenko, who introduced him to other compatriots such as Yevhen Hrebinka and Vasyl Hryhorovych, and to Russian painter Alexey Venetsianov. Through these men Shevchenko also met famous painter and professor Karl Briullov, who donated his portrait of Russian poet Vasily Zhukovsky as a lottery prize. Its proceeds were used to buy Shevchenko's freedom on 5 May 1838.[23]

Kobzar and Haidamaky, 1844[52]

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

Shevchenko began writing poetry while still being a serf, and in 1840 his first collection of poetry, Kobzar, was published. According to Ivan Franko, a renowned Ukrainian poet in the generation after Shevchenko, "[Kobzar] was "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 Ukraine, in 1843, 1845, and 1846. The difficult conditions Ukrainians had made 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.

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.

On 22 March 1845, the Council of the Academy of Arts granted Shevchenko the title of a non-classed artist. He again travelled to Ukraine where he met with historian Nikolay Kostomarov and other members of the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius, a clandestine society also known as Ukrainian-Slavic society[6] and dedicated to the political liberalization of the Empire and its transformation into a federation-like polity of Slavic nations.[6] Upon the society's suppression by the authorities, Shevchenko's wrote a poem "Dream", that was confiscated from the society's members and became one of the major issues of the scandal.[53]

Shevchenko was arrested along with other members of the society on 5 April 1847.[54] Tsar Nicholas 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?"[55][56] In the official report of Orlov Shevchenko was accused in using "Little-Russian language"[6] (archaic Russian name for Ukrainian language) of outrageous content instead of being grateful to be redeemed out of serfdom.[6] In the report Orlov claimed that Shevchenko was expressing a cry over alleged enslavement and disaster of Ukraine, glorified the Hetman Administration (Cossack Hetmanate) and Cossack liberties and "with incredible audacity poured slander and bile on persons of Imperial House".[6]

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[6] at Orsk, near the Ural Mountains. Tsar Nicholas I, personally confirming his sentence,[57] added to it, "Under the strictest surveillance, without the right to write[6] or paint." He was subsequently sent on a forced march from Saint Petersburg to Orenburg and Orsk.

Next year in 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 about the expedition. Nevertheless, Shevchenko 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. [58]

Dalismen-mule-village, 1851

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, though he was not permitted to return to St. Petersburg and was forced to stay in Nizhniy Novgorod.

In May 1859, Shevchenko got permission to return to Ukraine. He intended to buy a plot of land close to the village Pekari. In July, he was again arrested on a charge of blasphemy, but then released and ordered to return to St. Petersburg.[59]

Grave of Taras Shevchenko, Taras Hill near Kaniv, historical postcard. The cross was dismantled by the Soviets in the 1920s [60]

Taras Shevchenko spent the last years of his life working on new poetry, paintings, and engravings, as well as editing his older works. After difficult years in exile, however, his 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. 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 and Kaniv.[23] 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 throughout the world and his impact on Ukrainian literature is immense.

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.)[63]

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.[64]

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.[65][66]