Taras G. Schvchenko: (1814-1861) Ukrainian Painter, Poet, and Teacher

Taras Schvchenko was born on March 9, 1814 in Moryntsi a small village in the Central Ukraine.  Though born into serfdom, his talents for painting and poetry developed as young as the age of eleven. He spent much of his adult life traveling throughout Russia, landing in St. Petersburg where he was bought out of serfdom. On April 22, 1838, several noted writers and poets bou ght Schvchenko out of serfdom. “In January, 1839, Shevchenko was accepted as a resident student at the Association for the Encouragement of Artists, and at the annual examinations at the Academy of Arts, Shevchenko was given the Silver Medal for a landscape. In 1840 he was again given the Silver Medal, this time for his first oil painting, The Beggar Boy Giving Bread to a Dog.”  (The Taras Shevchenko Museum of Canada)

In 1843, he traveled back to the Ukraine, where he settled.  It was there where he felt his most comfortable, enabling him to go back to his roots and gain further inspiration for his poetry. “In Ukraine, the poet has seen the heavy social and national yoke borne by the working people and the inhuman conditions of life of the peasants.” (The Taras Shevchenko Museum of Canada)

Schvchenko died seven days before the Emancipation of the Serfs was announced.  “Taras G. Schvchenko was a poet, teacher, reformer, liberator of Serfs in Russia whose popular poems have won him the name of the Father of Ukrainian Literature.” (Lederer, Clara. Their Paths are Peace.  p. 95).   

Photographs:

Bust of Schvchenko

Bust of Schvchenko from Ohio Sculpture Center

Photographs of the Garden

Further Reading:

Schevchenko Bibliography, Sources in the English Language by

Andrew Gregorovich

The Taras Schvchenko Museum of Canada

Biography of Taras Schvchenko

English Translations of Schvchenko’s Poetry

Schvchenko Monument in Washington, DC

The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History