TARAS SHEVCHENKO (BIOGRAPHY)

Published on March 13, 2015 by admin    ·(TOTAL VIEWS 2,250)      No Comments

BIOGRAPHY

TARAS  SHEVCHENKO

Ukrainian National Poet Taras Shevchenko, also known as Kobzar, was born on March 9, 1814, in the village of Moryntsi (Ukraine) and died on March 10, 1861 in St. Petersburg, (Russia).

Taras Shevchenko is considered as a foremost Ukrainian poet, prose writer, painter and playwright of the 19th century.

He was a major figure of the Ukrainian National Revival.

His literary heritage is regards to be the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature and, to a large extent, the modern Ukrainian language.

Taras Shevchenko was a man of universal talent. All his life and creative work were dedicated to the people of Ukraine. The poet dreamed about the times when his country would be a free sovereign state, where people would be happy and free.

Born a serf, Shevchenko was freed in 1838 while a student at the St. Peterburg Academy of Fine Arts.

His first collection of poems, entitled Kobzar (1840, “Kobzar”), expressed the historicism and the folkloristic interests of the Ukrainian Romantics, but his poetry soon moved away from nostalgia for Cossack life to a more somber portrayal of Ukrainian history, particularly in the long poem “Haidamaks| (1841).

In early 184, Shevchenko started to work a teacher of visual arts at the Kyiv University. There, he has engaged in the activity of the clandestine St. Cyril and Methodius Society. When the secret society was suppressed by the Russian authorities in 1847, Shevchenko was punished by exile and compulsory military service for writing the poems “Dream”, “Caucasus”, and “Espistle”, which satirized the oppression of Ukraine by Russia and prophesied a revolution.

Through forbidden to write or paint, Shevchenko clandestinely wrote a few lyrical poems during the first years of his exile. He had a revival of creativity after his release in 187; his later poetry treats historical and moral issues, both Ukrainian and universal.

In 1857, Taras Shevchenko was allowed to return from exile, and in 1858, he eventually returned to Moscow and then came to St. Petersburg. In 1859, he has managed to come to Ukraine, yet he was refused the right to live in his homeland permanently, so he was forced to return to St. Petersburg. Having ruined his health during his ten year long exile, Taras Shevchenko passed away in early 1861.

Taras Shevchenko is also one of the most prominent Ukrainian masters of visual arts. He has worked with easel painting, graphic arts, decorative and ornamental painting, as well as sculpture, watercolor and oil painting. He is the author of more a thousand pieces of arts (more than 160 of which are unfortunately lost). In 1859-1860, the artist has created etchings for the works of Russian and foreign authorities. For this, he was entitled to membership in the academy of Etching.

The name of Taras Shevchenko is well-known in the world 0 monuments to were erected in numerous countries; his literary works were translated into almost all languages of the world. The National Opera House, Kyiv national University, a central boulevard in Kyiv as well as many establishments, streets and squares bear the name of the great Ukrainian poet and artist, Taras Shevchenko.

His poetic works were translated into Abkhaz, Adyghe, Albanian, Altai, Arabic, Armenian, Assyrian, Azerbaijani, Balkarian, Bashkir, Belarusian, Beluji, Bengali, Breton, Bulgarian, Buryat, Chechen, Cherkess, Chinese, Chukot, Chuvash, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Frisian, Gagauz, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujrati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Ingush, Icelandic, irish, Italian, Kabardian, Japanese, Kalmyk, Kannada, Karachay, Karelian, Kazakh, Khmer, Kirgiz, Komi, Korean, Krim-Tatar, krimchak, Kurdish, Latvian, Lezgi, Lithuanian, Luganda, Macedonian, Malayalam, Maltese, Marathi, Mari, Moldavian, Mongolian, Nenets, Nepali, Norwegian, Ossetian, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romany, Romanian, Russian, Sakha, Sardinian, Scottish, Gaelic, Serbian, Sicilian, Singhalese, Solvak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish, Tajik, Tamil, Tatar, Telugu, Turkish, Turkmen, Udmurt, Uighur, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yiddish and others.