Shevchenko, Taras Hryhorovych

Shevchenko, Taras, 1814–1861, Ukrainian poet, writer, and artist, b. Ukraine, studied at the St. Petersburg Academy of Art. The premier Ukrainian poet and playwright of the 19th century, Shevchenko was a key figure of the Ukrainian National Revival. Born in the village of Moryntsi, in the then-Russian Empire, his parents were serfs. Orphaned early, Shevchenko passed a wretched childhood in the service of a brutal sexton. Ukranian artists and intellectuals, realizing Shevchenko's talent at a young age, arranged to buy him out of serfdom in 1838, while he was a student at the St. Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts. Shevchenko had begun to write poetry even before being freed from serfdom. His first collection of published poems, Kobzar (1840), was well-received. By the time he graduated in 1845, Shevchenko was recognized as an accomplished artist and writer. He also became a prominent realist painter and his Ukrainian ballads, dealing with peasant life, were published in Russian.

As his political views evolved, he began writing bitterly against serfdom and Russian autocracy. He was criticized for writing in Ukrainian (rather than Russian, which was considered the only proper literary language in the Russian Empire) and for writing poetry about Ukraine's history under Russian subjugation. Marked as a person of interest and potential political danger, he was arrested in 1947 due to his association with members of the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius—a secret society suspected to be a subversive organization by Tsar Nicholas I. Shevchenko was eventually sentenced to permanent exile in Central Asia. He was prohibited from returning to either Russia or Ukraine. He wrote exquisite lyric poetry and numerous novels during his decade in exile. In 1857, Shevchenko was released from exile but remained under police surveillance. During a trip to Ukraine in 1859, Shevchenko was arrested for "subversive" speech and advised to return to St. Petersburg, where he became ill and died on March 10, 1861.

Buried in a St. Petersburg cemetery, his remains were later moved to a hill outside of Kyiv. A mound was erected over his grave and the site is now the location of the Shevchenko Memorial Museum. Criticized and denounced during his lifetime by the Tsarist authorities, Shevchenko earned prominence and respect among Ukrainians, especially for his poetry, and his stature as the national poet of Ukrainian grew after his death. Shevchenko had tremendous influence on Ukrainian literature. His life and work served as an inspiration for some of the protesters during the 2013 Euromaidan demonstrations in Kyiv.

See G. G. Grabowi, The Poet as Mythmaker: A Study of Symbolic Meaning in Taras Ševčenko (1982); P. Zaitsev, Shevchenko: A Life, tr. and ed. G. S. N. Luckyj (1988); C. Wanner, Burden of Dreams: History and Identity in Post-Soviet Ukraine (1998); T. Shevchenko, The Complete Kobzar: The Poetry if Taras Shevchenko, tr. Peter Fedynsky (2013); O. Maksymchuk and M. Rosochinsky, ed. Words for War: New Poems from Ukraine (2017); V. Dibrove, Fresh Eye: Shevchenko for the Modern Reader, Свіжим оком: Шевченко для сучасного читача (2021).

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