The Presidential Library’s materials portray Taras Shevchenko

March 9, 2019 marks the 205th anniversary of the birth of Taras Shevchenko, the greatest poet, artist who studied the basics of the visual arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, a violent opponent of serfdom. The Presidential Library’s portal provides access to a comprehensive collection “Taras Shevchenko (1814–1861)”, materials for which were provided including the National Historical Library of Ukraine and the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Universal Research Library. The collection includes works by Taras Shevchenko; monographs, essays and articles on his life and work. In addition, the publications are presented in Russian and Ukrainian languages.  

Structurally, the collection consists of the sections “Works of Taras Shevchenko”, “About Taras Shevchenko”, “Biographical materials, literary criticism and journalism”, “Taras Shevchenko - artist and archaeologist", "Memory of Taras Shevchenko".

“The future poet was born in the village of Morentsy, Zvenigorod County, in a family of serfs”, - says Peter Altman in the book “Taras Shevchenko” (1939) from the Presidential Library’s collections. “From his grandfather, Ivan Shevchenko, Taras heard a lot of stories about popular anger, the struggle against the Polish gentry, and the popular movement that went down in history under the name “Koliiivshchyna”. ”Little Taras loved the memories and songs of his grandfather about the past, they deeply sunk into the childish soul, he later used them when writing the poem “Gaydamaki”. About “poor Ukrainian hut with a blackened thatched roof” where Taras Shevchenko spent his childhood years, the cruel landlord Engelhardt, Mikhail Zoshchenko writes in the book “Taras Shevchenko”.

In early 1831, Shevchenko arrived in St. Petersburg with a train of Engelhardt. The landowner, wanting to have his own home painter in the fashion of that time “contracted” Taras for four years to “various painterly master” painter Shiryayev. It was hard for him to live at a new owner. He lived in the attic, ate poorly and performed heavy work.

“The only consolation and pleasure, - Altman writes, was the bright St. Petersburg nights when Taras went to the Summer Garden and painted there from nature. In the summer of 1835, Ukrainian artist Ivan Maximovich Soshenko, who lived in St. Petersburg, found him behind this occupation. They became friends. With the help of Soshenko, Taras met the secretary of the Academy of Arts Grigorovich, and after a while he met the famous Russian poet V. Zhukovsky, Russian artists K. Bryullov and A. Venetsianov. The brilliant talent of the self-taught Shevchenko surprised and fascinated them. It was also obvious that serfdom dependency on the tyrant landlord was ruining his talent, and his freedom from serfdom needed to be achieved”.  

Friends found the same way to find money. Bryullov painted a beautiful portrait of Zhukovsky. He was played in a private lottery, and for the proceeds of 2,500 rubles, Shevchenko bought freedom. This happened on April 22, 1832.

As it turned out, the Little Russian artist was no less a brilliant poet, spontaneously aware of the power of a true artistic word. “I myself thought”, - wrote Taras Shevchenko in 1857, - that painting is my future profession and daily bread, but instead of studying the deep mysteries of painting under the guidance of such a teacher as the immortal Bryullov, I thought and cherished in my heart his bloodthirsty "Gaydamaki". Before me stretched the steppe, dotted with mounds. Before me was my beautiful, my poor Ukraine in all the immaculate, melancholic beauty of hers ... ” - said Drunin mentioned above in the book “Taras Shevchenko”.  

In 1840, Shevchenko’s first book, Kobzar, was published, which included the well-known poems “My thoughts, my thoughts”, “Katerina”, “Why I have black eyebrows”, and others. Undoubtedly, an outstanding event for literature is, deafening, extraordinary and effective”, - writes Zoshchenko in the book “Taras Shevchenko”. There were, however, critics, and serious ones, who denied the “peasant poet” the right to belong to the poetic Parnas. And only the seer Dobrolyubov, who did not look at the authorities, wrote about Shevchenko: “He is a completely popular poet, such as we cannot indicate with us. Even Koltsov does not compare with him ... Shevchenko's whole circle of his thoughts and sympathies is in perfect accordance with the meaning and structure of national life. He was more than a Ukrainian; a former serf, he stood on par with the enlightened Russian. He came out of the people, he lived with the people, and not only with the thoughts, but also with the obligations of life was he firmly and deeply connected”.

In 1848, Taras Shevchenko “for composing outrageous and extremely audacious poems” is sent into exile by a private in the Orenburg separate building, testifies Alexander Skvortsov in the publication The Life of the Artist Taras Shevchenko (1929). "Under the strictest care, banning to write and draw", - added the Russian emperor Nicholas I.

In 1855, Nicholas I died. Petersburg friends do everything to release Shevchenko from the military service. In the autumn of 1857 Taras Grigorievich left the place of exile. “But the feeling of melancholy did not leave him”, - Zoshchenko notes, “seven years ago he was taken to the port of Novopetrovsk, and he was young and strong. Now the same boat was driving a gray, gloomy old man to the free bank”.  

Taras Shevchenko returned to Petersburg in 1858, where his friends were waiting for him - artists, writers, publishers; he was invited into notable metropolitan houses in vain, the Historical Herald magazine reports. After one of these visits, Taras Grigorievich found it necessary to write in his diary: “N. D. Starov sent M. Lazarevsky a written word spoken by him in my honor at the dinner of Countess N. I. Tolstoy. As a thing, dear to me, I bring it to my journal.

Alas, the happiness to enjoy fully the freedom, communication with friends, the opportunity to build creative plans was short-lived. In 1860, Taras Shevchenko died from a serious illness.