Literary
personalities
of Ukraine
TARAS SHEVCHENKO
(1814-1861)
1) A brilliant Ukrainian poet and artist Taras Gryhorovych Shevchenko (March 9, 1814 – March 10,1861) was born in the village of Moryntsi on the state of Baron Engelhardt. He lost his mother at the age of nine. His father was a shepherd but he also worked as a chumak, hauling salt from southern Ukraine. It appears that his father took Taras with him on these trips and the boy was able to see some of the world, even major centres such as Eliza vet gradand Uman. Unfortunately, his father died, when the boy was eleven. So, the boy orphaned and grew up in poverty and misery. However, he was taught to read and write by the village deacon.
2) At the age of fourteen he became a servant (“a houseboy”) in the house of his owner. Taras traveled with Engelhardt to Vilno and then to St. Petersburgh. In Vilno he learnt to speak Polish and met the famous Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. While travelling with Engelhardt, Shevchenko made use of every opportunity to draw. Engelhardt noticed the boy’s artistic talent and allowed Taras to study with a professional artist V.V. Shyriayev for four years. Studying under Shyriayev, Taras mastered the technique of wall painting in oils and water colour and became acquainted for the first time with the classics of Russian literature . During that period he met his compatriots I. Soshenko, Ye. Hrebinka, V. Hryhorovych and O. Venitslavov. Through them he met the Russian painter K. Briullov.
3) K. Briullov painted the portrait of the Russian poet V. Zhukovsky and sold it for 2 500 roubles. The money was used to buy Shevchenko’s freedom from P. Engelhardt on 22 April 1838. The very next day he began to attend drawing classes at the Academy of Arts, soon becoming one of Briullov’s favourite students. The Academy Council awarded him with a second-class silver medal three times.
T. Shevchenko’s literary activity began in 1838. In 1840 he published his first collection of poems “Kobzar”. It was followed by the epic poem “Haidamaky” and the ballad “Hamaliia” . In the 1840s T . Shevchenko visited Ukraine three times. Those visits made a profound impact on him. In 1842 T. Shevchenko painted the picture “Katherine” where he expressed his own strong protest against the tragic fate of the serf woman. In 1843 T. Shevchenko wrote his drama “ Nazar Stodolia ” . He was truly a people’s poet. He realized that in his lifetime he was not to witness the liberation of the people, but in his famous “Testament”(1845) he proclaimed the longed-for freedom.
4) In 1846 T.Shevchenko came to Kyiv and joined the secret Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. In 1847 he was arrested and was banned to write and paint. In 1857 the poet was released but he was not allowed to live in Ukraine. T.Shevchenko was arrested again in 1859 but soon was released on bail.
T.Shevchenko died in 1861. He was buried in St.Petersburg, but two months afterwards his remains were transferred to the Chernecha Hill near Kaniv, Ukraine.T.Shevchenko has an important place in the Ukrainian history. He was the founder of the new Ukrainian literature. He established Ukrainian as the national literary language.
T.Shevchenko was also a noted artist and is famous for his illustrations to books by O.Pushkin, N.Gogol, M.Lermontov and W.Shakespeare.
IVAN FRANKO
Ivan Franko was born on 27 August in 1856 in Drohobych County, Galicia, and died on 8 May in 1916 in Lviv. His father was a village blacksmith. Ivan was a gifted child. At school he learned Russian, German and Polish. He read Pushkin, Turgenev, Schiller, Goethe and Mickievich in original.
Franko graduated from Drohobych gymnasia and began to study classical philology and the Ukrainian language and literature at Lviv University. His first literary works were published in the students’ magazine “Dryh” in 1874.
During the first period of his creative work Franko wrote political poems, the novels “Boa Constrictor”, “Boryslav smiets’ia”, series of literary and journalistic articles. Franko tried to set up an independent journal but it failed.
In his stories, poems and plays Ivan Franko wrote about real people whom he knew. He worked under the most difficult conditions. He was imprisoned three times.
Besides his political and literary work Ivan Franko continued his university studies at Chernivtsi and Vienna universities. In 1894 he became closely associated with the Shevchenko Scientific Society in Lviv and in 1899 he became a full member of the society and later an honorary member.
He continued to work to the end of his life. In his last period he wrote a number of articles on history and studies of Ukrainian folk - songs, did a lot of translations of ancient poetry.
Franko’s prose works include over 100 short stories and dozens of novels. He was a poet, prose writer, playwright, critic, literary historian, translator and publisher. He was a “golden bridge” between Ukrainian and world culture.
LESIA UKRAINKA
Lesia Ukrainka (Larysa Kosach) was born on February 25, 1871 in Novgorod-Volynskyi and was the second child in the family. Her father, Petro Antonovych Kosach, was a progressive person for his time. He graduated from the universities in St.Petersburg and Kyiv and became a lawyer. He often read to his children the works by Shevchenko, Pushkin, Gogol and Saltykov-Shchedrin. Her mother was a famous Ukrainian writer Olena Pchilka. Many writers, painters, musicians gathered very often in their house. From her childhood Lesia heard different discussions about Ukrainian history and literature. At the age of 4 Lesia learned to read and at 9 she wrote her first poem “Hope”.
Lesia learned to play the piano. She made great success but at the age of 13 she fell ill. The doctors diagnosed her disease as tuberculosis of bones. She had to stop her studies and was undergone the operation. At that time the book became her friend and her teacher. She read a lot, studying literature, art, history, geography and foreign languages.
VASYL STUS
He was born on January 8, 1938 in the village of Rakhnivka in the Kyiv region. Vasyl spent his childhood in the Donbass.
After graduating from a Teachers’ Training College he worked as a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature. In 1963 he moved to Kyiv to become a post-graduate student at the Institute of Literature.
The first selection of his poems was published in the literary magazine “Dnipro” in 1963. It included “The Circuit”, “Winter Trees” and “The Merry Cemetery”. In 1965, during the period of political thaw, Vasyl Stus publicly protested against the repression of the Ukrainian intelligentsia.
In 1972 he was arrested and charged with anti-Soviet propaganda. He was sentenced to 5 years in the camps and 3 years of exile. His prison poetry included the collections “A Candle in a Mirror”, “Palimpsests”. They are considered the height of his creative heritage.
He returned back to Kyiv in 1979 only to be arrested again 8 months later. This time he was sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment and 5 years of exile.
Vasyl Stus died on September 4, 1985 at a camp for political prisoners in the Urals. In 1089 he was reburied on the Baikove cemetery in Kyiv.
Vasyl Stus wrote about life and death, fate and destiny, individual choice and responsibility. In 1990 he was awarded the State Prize of Ukraine in Literature for his poetic collection “The Way of Rain”.