Taras Shevchenko Popular Books

Taras Shevchenko Biography & Facts

Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko (Ukrainian: Тарас Григорович 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. His literary heritage, in particular the poetry collection Kobzar, is regarded to be the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature and to some degree, the modern Ukrainian language. Life Childhood and youth Taras Shevchenko was born on 9 March [O.S. 25 February] 1814 in the village of Moryntsi, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire, about 20 years after the third so-called 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. His parents were Kateryna Shevchenko (née Boiko) and Hryhoriy Ivanovych Shevchenko, former subjects of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth who became serf peasants, working the land owned by Vasily Engelhardt, a nephew of the Russian statesman Grigory Potemkin. In 1816, the family moved to Kyrylivka (modern Shevchenkove), another village owned by Engelhardt, where Taras's father and grandfather had been born. The boy grew up in the village. 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. 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. On 1 September [O.S. 20 August] 1823 Kateryna Shevchenko died. 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. 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. Hryhoriy died from a chill on 2 April [O.S. 21 March] 1825, 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. 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 Shevenko'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. 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. At around this time, Shevchenko experienced his first love, Oksana Kovalenko, as confirmed by a dedication he later wrote in the poem 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. Life as a servant of Pavlo Engelhardt In 1828, Engelhardt died, and one of his sons, Pavlo Engelhardt, became the Shevchenko family's new landlord. Taras Shevchenko, then aged 14, was trained to become a kitchen servant and the kozachok (court servant) of his new master at the Vilshana estates. There he saw for the first time the luxuries of the Russian nobility. In 1829, Shevchenko was part of Engelhardt's retinue that travelled to Warsaw, where his regiment was based. By the end of 1829 they had reached Vilno (modern Vilnius). On 18 December [O.S. 6 December] 1829, 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. 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 a professional artist, Franciszek Ksawery Lampi. 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, after which he was permitted to study for four years with the painter Vasiliy Shiriayev, a man who proved to be much more cruel and controlling than his master in Warsaw. The summer nights were light enough for Shevchenko to visit the city's Summer Garden, where he drew the statues. 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. The composition Alexander of Macedon shows trust towards his doctor Philip was created for a contest of the Imperial Academy of Arts in 1830. Liberation from serfdom 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. He was allowed to receive drawing and watercolour painting lessons from Soshenko at the weekend, and when he had spare time during the week. Shevchenko made such progress a portraitist that he was asked by Engelhardt to portray a number of his mistresses. Soshenko took Shevchenko to Saint Petersburg's art galleries, including the Hermitage. He introduced him to other compatriots, such as the writer and poet Yevhen Hrebinka, the art historian Vasyl Hryhorovych, 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. Briullov took an inter.... Discover the Taras Shevchenko popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Taras Shevchenko books.