МІНІСТЕРСТВО  ОСВІТИ І НАУКИ,

МОЛОДІ  ТА СПОРТУ УКРАЇНИ 

НАЦІОНАЛЬНИЙ  ПЕДАГОГІЧНІЙ УНІВЕРСИТЕТ

Імені М. П. ДРАГОМАНОВА 
 
 
 

Кафедра іноземних мов 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Р Е Ф  Е Р А Т 

для складання  вступного іспиту до магістратури

зі спеціальності 8.02030301  «Українська мова і література» 

Тема:   Тарас Шевченко 
 
 
 
 

Виконала

Гончарук  Мирослава Миколаївна 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

К и ї  в - 2011

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE,

YOUTH AND SPORT  OF UKRAINE

DRAGOMANOV NATIONAL PEDAGOGIKAL UNIVERSITY 
 
 
 
 
 

Foreign languages departament 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

R E P O R T 
 
 
 

Topic: Taras Shevchenko 
 
 
 
 

Performed by

Goncharuk Myroslava Mykolaivna 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Kyiv – 2011

CONTEXT

INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………

1. MAIN PART………………………………………………………………………

1.1. LIFE ..................................................................................................................

1.2. FIRST SUCCASSES…………………………………………………………...

1.3. EXILE…………………………………………………………………………

1.4. DEATH OF SHEVCHENKO………………………………………………..

1.5. HERITAGE AND LEGACY………………………………………………..

CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………..

APPENDIX……………………………………………………………………..

BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………….

                                                       INTRODUCTION

“Вивчення життєвого  і творчого шляху письменника  — важлива ланка в системі викладання літератури в школі. Насамперед це пояснюється тим що життя та діяльність визначного майстра слова є найкращим коментарем до його творів” [8, 186].

Тема: дослідження є актуальною, бо хоч в теорії викладання літератури їй присвячено досить уваги, проте на практиці, як показують констативні спостереження, вивчення життєвого і творчого шляху митця викликає труднощі, вчитель не завжди вміє вдало подати матеріал, що призводить до зниження інтересу учнів до предмету. Окрім того, сучасна школа стоїть перед проблемою морального виховання особистості, а вивчення життєвого і творчого шляху письменника містить у собі значний виховний потенціал, окрім того, взаємовідношення вивчення біографії та власне літературного твору й досі залишаються не до кінця дослідженими.

Мета  і завдання: дослідження: аналіз поглядів провідних вчених-методистів на проблему вивчення біографії письменника, в тому числі усталених і новаторських; з’ясувати принципи, методи та прийоми вивчення життєпису, а також умови, за яких це вивчення є максимально ефективним. Джерела дослідження: підручники та посібники з методики викладання літератури Б.Степанишина, Є.Пасічника, Г.Токмань, В.Дробота, О.Демчука; численні методичні розробки вчених та вчителів, опублікованих у фаховій літературі: журналах “Українська мова і література в школі”, “Українська література в загальноосвітній школі”, “Українська мова й література ”, “Дивослово”, також автореферати захищених дисертацій з досліджуваної теми. Як додаткові джерела використовувалися дослідження з методики викладання російської та зарубіжної літератур.

Вивчення біографії  митця в школі на уроках літератури було предметом дослідження вчених І.Є.Каплан, В.М. Дробота (вивчення біографії  митця в єдності з його творчістю, головна мета вивчення біографії – висвітлення творчої еволюції митця та еволюції його світогляду), Б.Степанишина (вивчення особистості письменника, тобто перехід від хроніки життя до світогляду; біографія як знайомство з особою письменника), Є.Пасічника (вивчення біографії у нерозривному зв’язку з творчістю письменника, життєпис як джерело формування моралі), Н.Волошиної, Г.Токмань (екзистенційне викладання життєпису); методистів-практиків О.Демчука (різноманітні типи уроків вивчення біографії), Л.Овдійчук, С.Кравчук, Н.Супринової, В.Андрусенко, Н.Фіщенко, С.Привалової, В.Захарової, С.Жили, яким належать розробки з вивчення життєвого та творчого шляху українських письменників і методичні узагальнення.  
 

Необхідність  вивчення біографічного  матеріалу та його особливості.

Існує ціла низка причин, з яких шкільне вивчення української літератури неможливе без розгляду життєвого та творчого шляху митця. Перш за все тому, що біографія – це ключ до творчості, на що часто вказували й самі письменники: "Про свої новели скажу тільки одно, — писав І.Франко, — що майже всі вони показують дійсних людей, котрих я колись знав, дійсні факти, на котрі я дивився, або про котрі чув від свідків, малюючи крайобрази тих закутків нашого краю, котрі я, як то кажуть, переміряв власними ногами. В такім розумінні, — всі вони частки моєї автобіографії" [8, 186].

Б.Степанишин вказує та той важливий момент, що “висококваліфікований  вдумливий читач може пізнати  особистість письменника — його світогляд, мораль, уподобання, характер, вдачу (темперамент), ставлення до природи і суспільства та інші грані – з самих його творів” [11, 179]. Натомість учень ще не володіє таким читацьким рівнем, тому для нього потрібне спеціальне вивчення біографії.

Життєпис письменника  – це і можливість збагнути його епоху, час життя, адже більшість митців (і в цьому сила нашої літератури) були ще й активними громадськими діячами. Як писав Тарас Шевченко: “Історія мого життя є частиною історії моєї батьківщини”. З біографії митця можна розкрити і вузлові моменти тогочасної історії: жах кріпаччини – з життя Великого Кобзаря, поліцейську монархію Австро-Угорщини – з біографії І.Франка, сталінські жахіття – з життєписів митців Розстріляного Відродження, круговерть еміграції – за життям письменників “празької школи” та “Нью-Йоркської групи”.

Вивчення біографії  має і культурологічну цінність. За словами О.Демчука, належне ознайомлення з життєвим шляхом письменників —  це й своєрідна енциклопедія нашої  культури. Наприклад, під час вивчення біографії Лесі Українки (коли йтиметься про її оточення) учні дізнаються про генія української музики Миколу Лисенка, видатного письменника і вченого-сходознавця Агатангела Кримського, талановитого художника Івана Труша, славетного фольклориста та історика Михайла Драгоманова, відомого голову Радикальної партії Галичини Михайла Павлика, знаменитого керівника «Київської громади» Михайла Старицького та ін. Вивчення біографії М.Рильського неможливе без розповіді про його батька - Тадея Рильського, а життя О.Олеся – без його сина О.Ольжича.

Проте чи не найбільший потенціал має біографія як засіб морального та світоглядного виховання учня. На це вказують практично всі методисти.

На матеріалах життєвого шляху письменника  можна формувати у молодого покоління кращі моральні якості — любов до праці, рідного краю, свого народу, чесність, принциповість, високу ідейність. Ще в 1891 році визначний методист В.Острогорський, автор книжки «Двадцять біографій взірці російських письменників», адресованої молоді, зазначав, що ознайомлення життям відомих митців допоможе підростаючому поколінню самовдосконалюватися, стимулюватиме його творчі сили, облагороджуватиме його [8, 186].

Біографії видатних митців слова — надзвичайно цінний матеріал для роздумів на світоглядні  і морально-етичні теми. Вони є, сказати  б, школою самовиховання громадянина з чіткою програмою людинознавчого і народознавчого спрямування. Саме це мав на увазі Іван Франко, коли писав, що генії, обранці долі, великі і оригінальні в щасті та стражданні, що життєпис корифеїв літератури дасть змогу увійти в таємниці духа їхньої епохи, бо саме в них він міститься [3, 4-5].

Проте слід обережно використовувати життєписи з  виховною метою, щоб в учня не сформувався  узагальнено-негативний стереотип  “всі боролись, повставали, всі великі, борці з тиранією, режимом тощо”.

Г.Токмань виділяє  такі завдання вивчення біографії письменника  в школі: учні мають:

1) познайомитися  з рисами особистості та долею  митця; 

2) зрозуміти  особливості його творчого доробку  — жанрові, тематичні, ідейні;

3) уявити його  стосунки з різними людьми й із суспільством у цілому;

4) дізнатися,  чи було гідно поціновано талант  за життя і після смерті;

5) відчути болі  й радощі письменника як людини, захопитися сильними рисами його  особистості, зацікавитися творчістю  цієї непересічної постаті. 

Як сказано вище, формування образу митця як живої людини, близької учневі є однією з головних цілей вивчення біографії.

Таким чином, можна  виділити такі мотиви (а, отже, і напрямки) вивчення життєпису письменника  на уроках літератури:

- ознайомлення  через життя письменника з епохою, її культурним та мистецьким життям;

- наведення міжчасових  літературних та міжпредметних  зв’язків;

- знаходження  додаткової інформації для розуміння  творчості; 

- життя письменника  – приклад для морального та  світоглядного 

Shevchenko, Taras [Ševčenko] b 9 March 1814 in Moryntsi, Zvenyhorod county, Kyiv gubernia, d 10 March 1861 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. (Photo: Taras Shevchenko.) Ukraine’s national bard and famous artist. Born a serf, Shevchenko was orphaned when he was twelve and grew up in poverty and misery. He was taught to read by a village precentor and was often beaten for ‘wasting time’ on drawing. At the age of 14 he became a houseboy of his owner, P. Engelhardt, and served him in Vilnius (1828–31) and then Saint Petersburg. Engelhardt noticed Shevchenko's artistic talent, and in Saint Petersburg he apprenticed him to the painter V. Shiriaev for four years. Shevchenko spent his free time sketching the statues in the capital’s imperial summer gardens. There he met the Ukrainian artist Ivan Soshenko, who introduced him to other compatriots, such as Yevhen Hrebinka and Vasyl Hryhorovych, and to the Russian painter A. Venetsianov. Through these men Shevchenko also met the famous painter and professor Karl Briullov, who donated his portrait of the Russian poet Vasilii Zhukovsky as the prize in a lottery whose proceeds were used to buy Shevchenko's freedom on 5 May 1838.

     Soon after, Shevchenko enrolled in the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg and studied there under Briullov’s supervision. In 1840 his first poetry collection, Kobzar, consisting of eight Romantic poems, was published in Saint Petersburg. It was followed by his epic poem Haidamaky (The Haidamakas, 1841) and the ballad Hamaliia (1844). While living in Saint Petersburg, Shevchenko made three trips to Ukraine, in 1843, 1845, and 1846, which had a profound impact on him. There he visited his still enserfed siblings and other relatives, met with prominent Ukrainian writers and intellectuals (eg, Hrebinka, Panteleimon Kulish, and Mykhailo Maksymovych), and was befriended by the princely Repnin family (especially Varvara Repnina). Distressed by the tsarist oppression and destruction of Ukraine, Shevchenko decided to capture some of his homeland’s historical ruins and cultural monuments in an album of etchings, which he called Zhivopisnaia Ukraina (Picturesque Ukraine, 1844).

     After graduating from the academy of arts in 1845, Shevchenko became a member of the Kyiv Archeographic Commission and traveled widely through Russian-ruled Ukraine in 1845 to sketch historical and architectural monuments and collect folkloric and other ethnographic materials. In 1844 and 1845, mostly while he was in Ukraine, he wrote some of his most satirical and politically subversive narrative poems, including ‘Son’ (A Dream), ‘Sova’ (the Owl), ‘Kholodnyi Iar,’ ‘Ieretyk’/ ‘Ivan Hus’ (The Heretic/Jan Hus),‘Slipyi’ (The Blind Man), ‘Velykyi l'okh’ (The Great Vault), and ‘Kavkaz’ (The Caucasus). He transcribed them and his other poems of 1843–45 into an album he titled ‘Try lita’ (Three Years).

     While in Kyiv in 1846, Shevchenko joined the secret Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. Like the other members of the brotherhood, he was arrested, on 5 April 1847. The authorities’ confiscation and discovery of his anti-tsarist satirical poems in the ‘Try lita’ album brought Shevchenko a particularly severe punishment—military service as a private in the Orenburg Special Corps in a remote region by the Caspian Sea. Tsar Nicholas I himself ordered that Shevchenko be forbidden to write, draw, and paint while in military exile. While serving at the Orenburg and Orsk fortresses, however, Shevchenko managed to continue doing so. He hid his secretly written poems in several handmade ‘bootleg booklets’ (1847, 1848, 1849, 1850). Many of the drawings and paintings he made while in exile depict the life of the indigenous Kazakhs. Owing to Shevchenko’s skill as a painter, he was included in a military expedition to survey and describe the Aral Sea (1848–9).

     In 1850 Shevchenko was transferred to the Novopetrovskoe fortress (now Fort Shevchenko in Kazakhstan), where the terms of his captivity were more harshly enforced. Nevertheless, he managed to create over a hundred watercolor and pencil drawings and write several novellas in Russian. Finally released from military exile in 1857, two years after Nicholas I’s death, Shevchenko was not allowed to live in Ukraine. After spending half a year in Nizhnii Novgorod, he moved to Saint Petersburg. He was allowed to visit relatives and friends Ukraine in 1859, but there he was detained and interrogated and sent back to Saint Petersburg. Shevchenko remained under police surveillance until his death. He was buried in Saint Petersburg, but two months later, in accordance with his wishes, his remains were transported to Ukraine and reburied on Chernecha Hora (Monk’s Mountain) near Kaniv. Since that time, his grave has been a ‘holy’ place of visitation by millions of Ukrainians. Today it is part of the Kaniv Museum-Preserve (est 1925).

     Shevchenko has had a unique place in Ukrainian cultural history and in world literature. Through his writings he laid the foundations for the creation of a fully functional modern Ukrainian literature. His 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.

     Shevchenko's literary oeuvre consists of one mid-sized collection of poetry (Kobzar); the drama Nazar Stodolia and two play fragments; nine novellas, a diary, and an autobiography written in Russian; four articles; and over 250 letters. Already during his first period of literary activity (1837–43), he wrote highly sophisticated poetic works. He adapted the style and versification of Ukrainian folk songs to produce remarkably original poems with a complex and shifting metric structure, assonance and internal rhyme, masterfully applied caesuras and enjambments, and sophisticated alliterations grafted onto a 4 + 4 + 6 syllable unit derived from the kolomyika song structure. He also abandoned use of the regular strophe. Innovations can also be found in Shevchenko's use of epithets, similes, metaphors, symbols, and personifications. A man of his time, his worldview was influenced by Romanticism. But Shevchenko managed to find his own manner of poetic expression, which encompassed themes and ideas germane to Ukraine and his personal vision of its past and future.

     Shevchenko’s early works include the ballads ‘Prychynna’ (The Bewitched Woman, 1837), ‘Topolia’ (The Poplar, 1839), and ‘Utoplena’ (The Drowned Maiden, 1841). Their affinity with Ukrainian folk ballads is evident in their plots and supernatural motifs. Of special note is Shevchenko’s early ballad ‘Kateryna’ (1838), dedicated to Vasilii Zhukovsky in memory of the purchase of Shevchenko's freedom (see also his painting Kateryna, which is based on the same poem). In it he tells the tale of a Ukrainian girl seduced by a Russian soldier and abandoned with child—a symbol of the tsarist imposition of serfdom in Ukraine. Some of his other poems also treat the theme of the seduced woman and abandoned mother—‘Vid'ma’ (The Witch, 1847], ‘Maryna’ (1848), and the ballads ‘Lileia’ (The Lily, 1846) and ‘Rusalka’ (The Mermaid, 1846). The oblique reference to Ukraine's history and fate in ‘Kateryna’ is also echoed in other early poems, such as ‘Tarasova nich’ (Taras's Night, 1838), ‘Ivan Pidkova’ (1839), Haidamaky (1841), and Hamaliia (1844). Cossack raids against the Turks are recalled in ‘Ivan Pidkova’ and Hamaliia; ‘Tarasova nich’ and, especially, Haidamaky draw on the struggle against Polish oppression. Shevchenko wrote the Romantic drama Nazar Stodolia (1843–44) toward the end of his early period of creativity. Its action takes place near Chyhyryn, the 17th-century capital of the Cossack Hetmanate.

     Although Shevchenko's early poetic achievements were evident to his contemporaries, it was not until his second period (1843–5) that through his poetry he gained the stature of a national bard. Having spent eight months in Ukraine at that time, Shevchenko realized the full extent of his country's misfortune under tsarist rule and his own role as that of a spokesperson for his nation's aspirations through his poetry. He wrote the poems ‘Rozryta mohyla’ (The Ransacked Grave, 1843), ‘Chyhyryne, Chyhyryne’ (O Chyhyryn, Chyhyryn, 1844), and ‘Son’ (A Dream, 1844) in reaction to what he saw in Ukraine. In ‘Son’ he portrayed with bitter sarcasm the arbitrary lawlessness of tsarist rule. Shevchenko’s talent for satire is also apparent in his 1845 poems ‘Velykyi l'okh,’ ‘Kavkaz,’ ‘Kholodnyi Iar,’ and ‘I mertvym, i zhyvym …’ (To the Dead and the Living.). ‘Velykyi l'okh, ’a ‘mystery’ in three parts, is an allegory that summarizes Ukraine's passage from freedom to captivity. In ‘Kavkaz’ Shevchenko universalizes Ukraine's fate by turning to the myth of Prometheus, the free spirit terribly punished for rebelling against the gods, yet eternally reborn. He localizes the action in the Caucasus, whose inhabitants suffered a fate similar to that of the Ukrainians under tsarism. In his poetic epistle ‘I mertvym, i zhyvym …’ Shevchenko turns his bitterness and satire against the Ukrainians themselves, reminding them that only in ‘one's own house’ is there ‘one's own truth’ and entreating them to realize their national potential, stop serving foreign masters, and become honorable people worthy of their history and heritage, in their own free land.

     Similarly, in his poem ‘Try lita’ (1845), which has also been used as the name of the second period of Shevchenko’s poetic creativity and the body of work he wrote at that time, he presents his own ‘awakening’ to the shame around him. Shevchenko laments his lost innocence and scorns the coming new year ‘swaddled’ in one more ukase. His scorn for the inactivity of his compatriots is also echoed in the poem ‘Mynaiut' dni, mynaiut' nochi’ (Days Pass, Nights Pass, 1845), in which somnolent inactivity is seen as far worse than death in chains. In December 1845 Shevchenko composed a cycle of poems titled ‘Davydovi psalmy’ (David’s Psalms). He chose the psalms that had a meaning for him (1, 12, 43, 52, 53, 81, 93, 132, 136, 149) and imbued those biblical texts with contemporary political relevance. He ends his ‘Try lita’ album with his famous ‘Zapovit’ (Testament, 1845), a poem that has been translated into more than 60 languages. After being set to music by H. Hladky in the 1870s, the poem achieved a status second only to Ukraine’s national anthem and firmly established Shevchenko as Ukraine’s national bard.

     Shevchenko’s historical poem ‘Ivan Hus,’ aka ‘Ieretyk’ ( 1845), introduced another of Shevchenko's major themes. Dedicated to Pavel Šafařík, it depicts the trial and burning of Jan Hus in Konstanz in 1415 to promote the Pan-Slavism of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood.

     Shevchenko wrote his poetic cycle ‘V kazemati’ (In the Casemate) in the spring of 1847 during his arrest and interrogation in Saint Petersburg. It marks the beginning of the most difficult, late period of his life (1847–57). The 13 poems of the cycle contain reminiscences (the famous lyrical poem ‘Sadok vyshnevyi kolo khaty’ [The Cherry Orchard by the House]); reflections on the fate of the poet and his fellow members of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood; and poignant reassertions of his beliefs and his commitment to Ukraine. Shevchenko's stand was unequivocal, and he exhorted his fellow Cyrillo-Methodians and all of his compatriots to ‘Love your Ukraine / Love her … in the harshest time / In the very last harsh minute / Pray to God for her.’ Throughout his exile, Shevchenko's views did not change. But his poems grew more contemplative and reflective. In his ‘bootleg booklets’ he continued writing autobiographical, lyrical, narrative, historical, political, religious, and philosophical poems. Of special interest is his long poem ‘Moskaleva krynytsia’ (The Soldier's Well, 1847, 2d variant 1857), which reveals Shevchenko's preoccupation with the themes of inhumanity and the capacity to accept and forgive. A comparison of its two variants provides an insight into Shevchenko’s maturation as a poet and thinker.

     Shevchenko’s autobiographical poems include such lyrical works as ‘Meni trynadtsiatyi mynalo’ (I Was Turning Thirteen, 1847), ‘A. O. Kozachkovs'komu’ (For A. O. Kozachkovsky, 1847), ‘I vyris ia na chuzhyni’ (And I Grew Up in Foreign Parts, 1848), ‘Khiba samomu napysat'’ (Unless I Write Myself, 1849), ‘I zolotoï i dorohoï’ (Both Golden and Dear, 1849), and ‘Lichu v nevoli dni i nochi’ (I Count Both Days and Nights in Captivity, 1850, 2d variant 1858). But personal reflection also occurs in some of his ‘landscape’ poems, especially where Shevchenko describes the paysage of his captivity—eg, ‘Sontse zakhodyt', hory chorniiut'’ (The Sun Is Setting, the Hills Turn Dark, 1847) and ‘I nebo nevmyte, i zaspani khvyli’(The Sky Is Unwashed, and the Waves Are Drowsy, 1848). Varied and rich are the poems devoted to narratives and description motivated by his memories of peasant life. Shevchenko uses folk-song elements to depict sadness, parting, loneliness, folkways, motherhood, women’s harsh fate, and the longing for happiness. His poetic style is marked by the use of simple language, concrete descriptions, metaphors, and personification. Shevchenko consistently refined his use of folkloric material. He expanded the use of ancient symbolism and made full use of the expressivity of folk songs. His adaption and transformation of folkloric elements was so successful that many of his poems became folk songs (such as Reve ta stohne Dnipr shyrokyi [The Mighty Dnieper Roars and Bellows]) in their own right.

     Shevchenko sporadically reiterated his political convictions and continued pointing to the tsarist enslavement of individuals (serfdom) and nations. In his poem ‘Poliakam’ (To the Poles, 1847), he once again called for a Polish-Ukrainian pan-Slavic brotherhood. Shevchenko used a Kazakh legend in his short poem ‘U Boha za dveryma lezhala sokyra’ (Behind God’s Door Lay an Ax, 1848) to describe in allegorical terms the Kazakhs’ misfortunes under Russian rule. Satire remained part of his poetic arsenal. In the poem ‘Tsari’ (Tsars, 1848, revised 1858) he presented killing, debauchery, incest, and adultery as typical of royal courts, including those of King David of Israel and Grand Prince Volodymyr the Great. The successful combination of an offhand burlesque style with bitter invective gave Shevchenko a powerful but somewhat veiled weapon in his attack on monarchism in general and tsarism in particular. Much more direct are his accusations against the tsars in ‘Irzhavets'’ (1847, revised 1858).

     Parallel to the motifs of the seduced girl and the unwed mother, which occur frequently in Shevchenko's poems, is the motif of incest. It appears in ‘Tsari’ and ‘Vid' ma’ and forms the basis for ‘Kniazhna’ (The Princess, 1847). Although in many of his poems Shevchenko harshly attacked the hypocrisy of the church and clergy, he remained steadfast in his belief that divine justice would triumph one day not only in Ukraine, but throughout the world. His millenarian vision appears in many of his poems, but it is perhaps best encapsulated in the following lines from ‘I Arkhimed i Halilei’ (Both Archimedes and Galileo, 1860): ‘An d on the reborn earth / There will be no enemy, no tyrant / There will be a son, and there will be a mother, / And there will be people on the earth.’

     The last period of Shevchenko's creativity began after his return from exile in 1857 and ended with his death in 1861. It is marked in his works by more frequent allusions to the Bible and classical literature and by the increasingly dominant role of contemplative lyricism. The period contains such longer poems as ‘Neofity’ (The Neophytes, 1857), ‘Iurodyvyi’ (The Holy Fool, 1857), the second redaction of ‘Vid'ma’ (1858), ‘Nevol'nyk’ (The Captive, begun in 1845 and finished in 1859), and ‘Mariia’ (1859). There are also renditions of biblical texts—‘Podrazhaniie Iiezekiïliu, Hlava 19’ (Imitation of Ezekiel, Chapter 19, 1859), ‘Osiï, Hlava 14’ (Esau, Chapter 14, 1859), ‘Isaia, Hlava 35’ (Isaiah, Chapter 35, 1859), and ‘Podrazhaniie 11 Psalmu’ (Imitation of the Eleventh Psalm, 1859)— in which Shevchenko turns to the Scriptures for analogies to the contemporary situation. In the latter poem he proclaims what could be considered the motto of his creativity: ‘I will glorify / Those small, mute slaves! / On guard next to them / I will place the word.’ This last period also contains some of Shevchenko’s most profound contemplative poems. The period ends with a reflective poem addressed to his muse, ‘Chy ne pokynut' nam, neboho’ (Should We Not Call It Quits, [My] Friend), written in two parts on 26 and 27 February 1861, eleven days before his death. Like many of Shevchenko's last poems, it is full of allusions to classical mythology, including a reference to the river Styx, which he was preparing to cross.

     The novellas Shevchenko wrote while in exile were not published during his lifetime. They reflect the influence of the satirical-exposé prose of Nikolai Gogol, but also contain many asides (excursions into the past, inserted episodes, authorial comments, reminiscences, and commentaries). Although written in Russian, they contain many Ukrainianisms. The first two of them—‘Naimichka’ (The Servant Girl, 1852–3) and ‘Varnak’ (The Convict, 1853–4)— share the anti-serfdom themes of Shevchenko's Ukrainian poems with the same titles. ‘Kniaginia’ (The Princess, 1853) is similar in theme to his poem ‘Kniazhna.’ The remaining six novellas—‘Muzykant’ (The Musician, 1854–5), ‘Neschastnyi’ (The Unfortunate Man, 1855), ‘Kapitansha’ (The Captain’s Woman, 1855), ‘Bliznetsy’ (The Twins, 1855), ‘Khudozhnik’ (The Artist, 1856), and ‘Progulka s udovol’stviiem i ne bez morali’ (A Stroll with Pleasure and Not without a Moral, 1856–8)— are not thematically similar to any particular poems. Shevchenko also kept a daily diary in Russian; it is of great value in interpreting his poetic works and an important source for studying his intellectual interests and development.

     Shevchenko has held a unique position in Ukrainian intellectual history, and the importance of his poetry for Ukrainian culture and society cannot be underestimated. His Kobzar marks the beginning of a new era in Ukrainian literature and in the development of the modern Ukrainian language. Through his poetry, Shevchenko legitimized the use of Ukrainian as a language of modern literature. His poems’ revolutionary and political content found resonance among other captive peoples. The earliest translations of his poems—mainly into Polish, Russian, Czech, and German—appeared while he was still alive. By the 1990s parts of the Kobzar had been translated into more than 100 languages. Shevchenko's poetry has also become a source of inspiration for many other works of literature, music, and art.

     Although Shevchenko is known primarily because of his poetry, he was also an accomplished artist; 835 of his art works are extant, and another 270 of his known works have been lost. Although trained as an academic artist (see Academism) in Saint Petersburg, Shevchenko moved beyond stereotypical historical and mythological subjects to realistic depictions on ethnographic themes (see Genre painting), such as his painting A Peasant Family (1844), often expressing veiled criticism of the absence of personal, social, and national freedom under tsarist domination. His portraits have a broad social range of subjects, from simple peasants (eg, Praying for the Dead, 1857) and petty officials to prominent Ukrainian and Russian cultural figures (eg, Portrait of Vasilii Zhukovsky [1844], Portrait of Mykhailo Maksymovych [1859]), Ukrainian historical figures (eg, Portrait of Vasyl Kochubei [1859]), members of former Cossack starshyna families (eg, Portrait of Hanna Zakrevska [1843], Portrait of Platon Zakrevsky [1843], Portrait of Illia Lyzohub [1846]), and members of the imperial nobility (Princess Keikuatova [1847], Portrait of Nikolai Lunin [1838]). They are remarkable for the way Shevchenko uses light to achieve sensitive three-dimensional modeling. He painted or sketched over 150 portraits, 43 of them of himself. He also painted and drew numerous landscapes and recorded such Ukrainian architectural monuments as The Vydubychi Monastery (1844), Bohdan’s Church in Subotiv (1845), The Ascension Cathedral in Pereiaslav (1845), The Ruins of Subotiv (1845), The Pochaiv Monastery from the South (1846), and Askoldova Mohyla (1846). While in exile he depicted the folkways of the Kirghiz and Kazak people (eg, By the Fire [1849], Kazak on a Horse [1849], The Baigush [1853], The Baigush under the Window [1856]) and the landscapes of Central Asia (eg, The Raim fort on the Syr-Darya [1848], Fire in the Steppe [1848], Dalismen-Mula-Aulye [1848], Turkmenian Sepulchres at Kara Tau [1856]) and the misery of life in exile and in the imperial army (eg, In Prison [1856–57], In the Stocks [1856–57], Running the Gauntlet [1857]). Shevchenko frequently turned in his paintings and drawings to literary, historical, and mythological motifs (eg, Diogenes [1856], Narcissus and Echo [1856], Saint Sebastian [1856], Robinson Crusoe [1856], Mermaids [1859]). He was also very proficient in watercolor, aquatint, and etching. On 2 September 1860 the Imperial Academy of Arts recognized his mastery by designating him an academician-engraver.

     The significance of Shevchenko and his oeuvre has given rise to thousands of multifaceted biographical, bibliographic, literary, textological, linguistic, lexicographic, psychological, pedagogical, religious, philosophical, political, sociological, and art-historical studies. Of prime importance to all of them have been Shevchenko’s poetic and artistic works. Most of his manuscripts are preserved in the Institute of Literature of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv. A unique collection of Shevchenkiana can also be found in the National Library of Ukraine—over 15,000 items collected by Yurii Mezhenko. The largest collection of published editions of Shevchenko’s works and of documents about his life and oeuvre is found at the Taras Shevchenko National Museum in Kyiv. Some of his manuscripts and papers are also preserved in other archives, libraries, and museums in Ukraine, Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Cracow, and Geneva. There is no complete register of all archival Shevchenkiana, nor does a complete bibliography of works by and about Shevchenko exist, especially of translations of Shevchenko and of works about him in foreign languages.

     The first known published works about Shevchenko date from 1839. During his lifetime, various reviews of his poetry appeared in the Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, Czech, German, French, and Italian press. The first edition of Shevchenko's poems to appear outside the Russian Empire was Novyia stikhotvoreniia Pushkina i Shavchenki [sic] (The New Poems of Pushkin and Shevchenko, Leipzig, 1859), published on the initiative of Panteleimon Kulish. The first full edition of Shevchenko’s Kobzar appeared in Saint Petersburg in 1860, as did a Russian translation with a bibliography of Shevchenko's published works and other Russian translations. Also published there was his last book before his death—Bukvar' iuzhnorusskii (A South Russian [ie, Ukrainian] Primer, 1861), which Shevchenko prepared in 1860 for Ukrainian Sunday schools and personally subsidized.

     In the early 1860s most studies about Shevchenko appeared in the journal Osnova (Saint Petersburg). The first article about him in German, by H.-L. Zunk, appeared in Die Gartenlaube (Leipzig) in 1862 (no. 28). The first separately published study of Shevchenko's life and work was written in Polish: Leonard Sowiński’s Taras Szewczenko (1861), with a Polish translation of ‘Haidamaky’ as an addendum. Another work in Polish, A. Gorzałczyński’s Przekłady pisarzów małorossyjskich: Taras Szewczenko (Translations of Little Russian Writers: Taras Shevchenko), was published in 1862 (repub 1863) by. A biographical and critical study in Polish, G. Battaglia’s Taras Szewczenko, życie i pisma jego (Taras Shevchenko, His Life and Letters, 1865), did much to popularize Shevchenko among Polish readers. Johann Georg Obrist, the first translator of Shevchenko into German, used Battaglia's work to write T.G. Szewczenko, ein kleinrussischer Dichter (1870). Vasyl P. Maslov's Taras Grigor’evich Shevchenko: Biograficheskii ocherk (Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko: A Biographical Sketch, 1874, 1887), the first relatively complete Russian biography of Shevchenko, was also based on Battaglia's work.

     The tsarist circular issued by Minister Petr Valuev in 1863 and the Ems Ukase of 1876 put an effective stop to the publication of works in Ukrainian in the Russian Empire. Publications of Shevchenko's works and works about him were thenceforth issued primarily in Austrian-ruled Galicia and abroad. Poeziï Tarasa Shevchenka (The Poems of Taras Shevchenko), which appeared in Lviv in 1867 in two volumes, contained mainly Shevchenko's political poems. In Russian-ruled Ukraine they were either prohibited or published in censored editions. After the appearance of the two-volume Prague edition of Shevchenko’s Kobzar (1876), the French scholar E.-A. Durand published a large promotional article in Revue des deux mondes (15 June 1876), ‘Le poète national de la Petite-Russie, T. G. Chevtchenko.’ This article stimulated the writing of two similar articles— by J. A. Stevens in The Galaxy (New York, June 1876) and by C. Dickens, Jr, in All the Year Round (London, 5 May 1877). At about the same time, Volodymyr Lesevych published his article ‘Taras Shevchenko, el gran poeta de Ucraina’ and some translations of Shevchenko’s poems in the Madrid journal La Ilustración española y americana (1877, no. 4). A more thorough article, Karl-Emil Franzos’s ‘Die Kleinrussen und ihr Sänger,’ appeared in Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung (1877, nos 164–65). It was expanded into a booklet, Vom Don zur Donau (1878), in which Franzos emphasized the universality of Shevchenko's works. Of importance in making Shevchenko accessible to the world at large was the work done by the émigré scholar and revolutionary Mykhailo Drahomanov. Of special note is his brochure La littérature oukrainienne proscrité par le gouvernement russe, which was distributed at the 1878 Literary Congress in Paris. In Geneva, Drahomanov published a two-vol edition of Kobzar (1881), Marija, maty Isusowa: Wirszy Tarasa Szewczenka z uwahamy M. Drahomanowa (Mary, Mother of Jesus: Poems by Taras Shevchenko with Comments by M. Drahomanov, 1882), and Poeziï Tarasa Shevchenka, zaboroneni v Rosiï (Poems by Taras Shevchenko Banned in Russia, 1890).

     In the 1880s the main promoter of Shevchenko was the prominent Galician radical, journalist, writer, and scholar Ivan Franko. From his early ‘Prychynky do otsinennia poeziï Tarasa Shevchenka’ (Contributions to the Evaluation of Taras Shevchenko's Poetry, S’vit, 1881, nos 8–12, and 1882, no. 1) onward, Franko wrote on various aspects of Shevchenko's creativity. His perceptive study of the poem ‘Perebendia’ (1889) considers Shevchenko's uniqueness in the context of European Romanticism and the Ukrainian folk tradition. Insights into Shevchenko's use of the ballad genre are found in Franko's ‘“Topolia” T. Shevchenka’ (T. Shevchenko's ‘Topolia,’ 1890).

     Interest in Shevchenko grew in the late 19th century. Oleksander Konysky expanded his articles on Shevchenko in Zoria (Lviv) into a monograph, Taras Shevchenko-Hrushivs’kyi: Khronika ioho zhyttia (Taras Shevchenko-Hrushivsky: A Chronicle of His Life, 2 vols, 1898–1901); an abridged version of vol 1 was published in Russian in Odesa in 1898. Basing his work on the sources available, Konysky corrected many errors in previous biographies of Shevchenko and presented the first scholarly biography of Ukraine’s national bard. Stanyslav Liudkevych's article on the origin and meaning of musicality in Shevchenko’s poetry (Moloda Ukraïna, 1901, nos 5–6, 8–9, and 1902, no. 4) was the first of many works dealing with Shevchenko's poetics. Mykhailo Komarov laid the bibliographic foundation of of Shevchenkiana with his guide to publications on Shevchenko in literature and art (1903).

     Vasyl Domanytsky’s 367-page textological study of Kobzar was published in Kievskaia starina (1906, nos 9–12) and as a separate monograph in 1907. The first ‘full’ edition of Kobzar was edited by him and published in Saint Petersburg in 1907 (repub in 1908). Dmytro Yavornytsky’s booklet of valuable archival materials on Shevchenko’s life was published in 1909. Also of interest was his study on the Zaporozhian Cossacks in Shevchenko’s poetry, published in Letopis’ Ekaterinoslavskoi uchenoi arkhivnoi komissii (no. 8 [1912).

     A number of important works appeared in 1914, the centenary year of Shevchenko’s birth: Vasyl Shchurat’s collection of articles Z zhyttia i tvorchosty Tarasa Shevchenka (From the Life and Works of Taras Shevchenko; Oleksii Novytsky’s Taras Shevchenko iak maliar (Taras Shevchenko as an Artist, 1914), the first major study on that subject; and Yakym Yarema’s ‘Uiava Shevchenka’ (Shevchenko’s Imagination), a study of the metaphor in Shevchenko's poetry, published in a Ternopil gymnasium’s annual report in 1914.

     A major contribution to Shevchenko studies was written by the Swedish Slavist Alfred Jensen; his monograph Taras Schewtschenko: Ein ukrainisches Dichter-leben (1916) pointed to the universal themes and concerns in Shevchenko's poetry. Stepan Balei produced the first psychological analysis of Shevchenko's works, Z psykholohiï tvorchosty Shevchenka (On the Psychology of Shevchenko's Creativity, 1916).

     Shevchenko studies continued developing during the 1917–20 struggle for Ukraine’s independence and in the 1920s under the early Soviet regime. Scholars at the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (VUAN) wrote on Shevchenko using various approaches: research and documentation (Serhii Yefremov, Mykhailo Novytsky, Volodymyr V. Miiakovsky, Yevhen Markovsky); the sociology of literature (Dmytro Bahalii, Yosyf Hermaize, Oleksander Doroshkevych, Mykola Plevako, Volodymyr Koriak); esthetic criticism (Pavlo Fylypovych, Viktor Petrov, Petro Rulin, B. Varneke); and formalism (Borys Yakubsky, Ahapii Shamrai, Yarema Aizenshtok, Borys Navrotsky). The first Soviet book in Shevchenko studies was the essay collection Taras Shevchenko (1921), edited by Yevhen Hryhoruk and Fylypovych, published on the 60th anniversary of the poet's death. Many important studies of Shevchenko were published in the jubilee collections Shevchenkivs’kyi zbirnyk (The Shevchenko Miscellany, 1924) and Shevchenko ta ioho doba (Shevchenko and His Era, 2 vols, 1925–6]). Notable studies also appeared separately: Aizenshtok's booklet Shevchenkoznavstvo—suchasna problema (Shevchenko Studies: A Current Problem, 1922); Bahalii's T. H. Shevchenko i Kyrylo-Metodiïvtsi (T. H. Shevchenko and the Cyrillo-Methodians, 1925); Oleksander Bahrii's Taras Shevchenko v literaturnoi obstanovke (Taras Shevchenko’s Literary Environment, 1925); and Plevako's Shevchenko i krytyka (Shevchenko and Criticism, 1926) . In Polish-ruled interwar Galicia, two important studies appeared: Ilarion Svientsitsky's Shevchenko v svitli krytyky i diisnosty (Shevchenko in the Light of Criticism and Reality, 1922) and Mykhailo Vozniak's Shevchenko i kniazhna Repnina (Shevchenko and Princess Repnina, 1925).