KANIV DISTRICT

1. KANIV DISTRICT A talented Ukrainian writer Ivan Nechyi-Levytskyi has compared Kaniv hills (running along Dnipro’s right bank) to the Alpine mountains. One of the hills Chernecha (now Taras’ hill) was been chosen by T.H. Shevchenko as his burial place. In 1989 Taras Shevchenko National Memorial Complex (including T.Shevchenko State Museum and a monument on his grove) was founded. The Shevchenko oak and a Maksymovych manor in the village Prokhorivka (visited by a famous poet) and a monument to him in the village Pekari are also honoured by the inhabitants of the district.

2. The Kaniv Museums The exhibits of the firs hall the life and struggle of the working people, who were deprived of civil rights, for their emancipation in serfdom Russia in the first half of the XIX century/ In particular, a painting by the artist I. Yizhakevich “Birching a Serf” and the painting by S. Kravchenko “A Peasant Uprising” are displayed. The best people of Russia also raised their voices in the defense of the people’s rights. There’s a portrait of the first Russian revolutionary – enlightener A. Radichev and a sculpture by Y. Homon “A. Pushkin is Listening to the Bard” among the exhibit. On a yellowed sheet of a birth register there is an entry which indicated that Taras Shevchenko was born on March 9, 1814 into the family of a serf in the Morintsi Village, Zvenigorodka Country of Kiev Province (now Zvenigorodka District of Cherkassy Region). The future poet spend his childhood in the neighboring village Kirilovka, where the Shevchenko family moved to. There hangs a drawing on a wall in the museum of the hut where Taras spent 14 of his joyless childhood. Shevchenko himself drew this hut in 1843. Laboring for the landlord exhausted the strength of Taras’ parents. His mother untimely died and so did his father shortly afterwards. The illustration by I. Yizhakevich to the work by T.Shevchenko “ I was thirteen” shows the typical destiny of an orphan under conditions of serfdom. Taras’ innate talent for drawing and science required perfection and development. To learn at school T. Shevchenko applied for work in winter to drunkard-deakon to do his menial work. To have an opportunity of studying he carried water to schoolchildren, read the Psalm-book over the deceased instead of deacon.

3. A map-sketch is displayed on which the villages where Taras sought for a drawing teacher are shown. But soon the boy was taken to the estate of a landlord P. Engelhardt, first as a kitchen help, then to the landlords chamber as a servant-boy (kozachok). The young landlord often moved from place to place. In 1829 Engelhardt together with his court arrived at Vilno (at present Vilnius, the capital of the Lithuanian S. S. R.). There is a photograph on display with a general view of the city in the XIX century. Here T. Shevchenko got acquainted with some Poles, mastered their language, read Adam Mitskevich and perfected himself as an artist. Once the landlord caught his servant-boy at his drawing and cruelly punished him. The painting by the People’s artist of the Ukr. S. S. R. K. Trokhimenko tells us about this. A real decoration of the display in the museum is the work by sixteen years old T. Shevchenko – a drawing in pencil “A Woman’s Head” (1830). In 1831 Engelhardt moved to St. Petersburg. Here in the capital of the Russian empire Taras Shevchenko’s outlook began to take shape. Desiring to have a court artist of his own, in a year the landlord bound his servant-boy to Shiryaev, a decorative house-painter, as an apprentice. Night after night exhausting work the youth read avidly. The portraits of A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov, V. Zhukovsky and their works, which Shevchenko read, are on display in the museum. To this period refers Taras’s first literary experience. He availed himself of the white nights of the “Northern Venice” to copy the statues in the “Letny Sad” (Summer Park). An autolithograph by P. Borisenko represents the meeting of Shevchenko in 1836 with his compatriot, the artist I. Soshenko, who later on introduced Taras to the Ukrainian writer Y. Hrebinka, conference secretary of the Academy of Art V. Hrihorovitch, the artists K. Bryullov and A. Venetsianov. Progressive public figures of culture began negotiations with Engelhardt about paying a sum for Taras’s manumission from serf bondage. The landlord named the unprecedented price of 2500 roubles. There is a reproduction of V. Zhukovsky’s portrait by Karl Bryullov displayed. The portrait was raffled and the proceeds supplied the sum for Taras’s manumission. A large canvas by P. Sulimenko portrays the moment when T. Shevchenko was handed his manumission. Here the visitor can also see a copy of his manumission.

4. The display in the second hall begins with the text of Taras’s letter to his brother Nikita (1839): “I am alive, studying, bow to no one and fear no one… It is great happiness to be a free man”. Next to it there is a facsimile of the personal record of T. Shevchenko – a student of the Academy of Arts, where he studied in the classes of K. Bryullow. Shevchenko attended lectures at the University, and also classes on anatomy at the Medico-Surgery Academy. He studied hard and assiduously on his self-education. A canvas by M. Krivenko represents T. Shevchenko and K. Bryullov in the Hermitage. Taras Shevchenko goes over from copying paintings to creating original realistic subjects. There are some drawings “A Pauper Boy Feeding a Dog with Bread” (1840) and “A Gipsy Fortune-teller” (1841) displayed in the museum. Realism contradicted the spirit of teaching at the Academy, where classical and bible subjects were considered to be a model. Therefore, in spite of his beautiful and original artistic manner of painting, Shevchenko received only modest silver awards – a medal of the second degree and finally, after graduating the Academy, he was not conferred the title of Academician. There is a certificate on a wall in the hall indicating that T. Shevchenko graduated the course in March 1845 and was conferred the title of “Free Artist”. The visitors are delighted by the first “Self-Portrait” of 1840. Nearby is another work by T.Shevchenko – “Katerina” (1842). T. Shevchenko developed this theme some time before in his well known verse under the same title. Many interesting exhibits are dedicated to the beginning of T. Shevchenko’s literary activity: the first issue of “Kobzar” (literally – a singer of lays strumming a Kobza, a bard) (1840), the second book by the young poet – a poem “The Haidamaks” (1841) and also an illustration of I. Yizhakevich to this work. A number of documents deal with T. Shevchenko’s role in developing theatrical art. He wrote a drama “Nazar Stodolya” (1843), the plays in Russian “Nikita Haydai” and “Bride” which are partially preserved. There are copies of book graphics in the hall by Shevchenko, illustrations to books by A. Pushkin, N. Gogol, H. Kvitka-Osnovyanenko, to his own work “Poplar Tree” and others. Further materials show T. Shevchenko’s visits to the Ukraine after a 14 years interval. Here he compiled an artistic sketch-book “Picturesque Ukraine” (some etchings “Council of Village Elders”, “Gifts in Chigrin of 1649”, “Tale”, “A Soldier and Death”, and others) which is on display. Next to this there are reproductions of some works by the artist in oil-paint: “On the Apiary”, “The Peasant Family” and a “Self-Portrait” of 1843. There is a separate edition of the Russian poem “Funeral Repast” dedicated to the Decembrists and “The Chigirin Bard” (1844).

5. In 1845 T. Shevchenko returned to the Ukraine and began to work in the Kyiv archeographic commission. The visitor has the opportunity of getting acquainted with the art of this period: “In Reshitilivka”, “The I. Kotlyarevsky Home in Poltava”, “The Cathedral of the Pochayev Lavra” and a few water-colours reproducing places connected with the name at Bogdan Khmelnitsky. The poetic works by T. Shevchenko of 1843-1847 comprise a separate section of the display. Reproductions of the autographs of the poems “The Heretic”, “The Caucasus”, “To the Dead and the Living”, collected stories “Three Summers”, illustrations to the poem “Dream” by the artists F. Konovalyuk and I. Yizhakevich, and an autograph to “The Testament” are displayed here. The period “Three Summers” (1843-1845) – this is the time of the rapid growth of Taras Shevchenko’s revolutionary consciousness, and with it the growth of his class-consciousness and affirmation of the critical realism of his creativity. The visitors of the museum are moved by the tragic images represented in the display of the sculptural illustrations to Shevchenko’s works. These are “Blind Woman” and “Girl-Serf” by O. Kudryavtseva and “The Unfortunate” by H. Petrashevich who are outstanding sculptors. The display of the third hall begins with the self-portrait of Taras Shevchenko of 1845 which is next to the portraits of M. Kostomarov and M. Hulak, the organizers of the secret Brotherhood of Cyril and Methodius (in honour of the two learned Macedonian monks who brought the Cyrillic alphabet and written language to the Slavic peoples in ancient times). The members of this brotherhood wanted to unite all the Slavic peoples on the basis of equality, the abolition of serfdom and close cultural and political unity. T. Shevchenko headed the left Wing of the Brotherhood. He stood for the revolutionary abolishment of the exploiter system. On April 5, 1847 T. Shevchenko was arrested for taking part in the activity of the Brotherhood. The conformable records of the III department, and also the order of the Kiev Governor-General that T. Shevchenko’s poems should be forbidden among the inhabitans and students, are indicative of the crushing defeat of the secret Brotherhood by tsarism. The visitors can see the autolithograph by S. Besedin on which the Bard is portrayed in the casemate of the III department.

6. The sentence was severe: T. Shevchenko was sent as a soldier to the detached Orenburg corps with the prohibition by the tsar to write and draw under the strictest supervision. The text of the sentence, a drawing by M. Samokish “T. Shevchenko on his way to Exile” and the record about enlisting the Bard as a private soldier are displayed in the hall. But during the very first days in exile, the poet violated the prohibition of the tsar. He paints his self-portrait in a soldier’s greatcoat, which is now displayed in the museum, and writes verses. There are many drawings by T. Shevchenko on the walls of the hall with inclement views of the Kazakh steppes and seascapes which were drawn during the Aral expedition in which T. Shevchenko was included as an artist. A facsimile edition of the “Zakhalyavnaya Knizhechka” – a little black-covered note-book which the poet hid in his bootleg (Khalyava) and in which by stealth he “vented his anger upon the crowned heads” – is displayed here. In 1849 after the expedition had returned to Orenburg, T. Shevchenko made the acquaintance of the Polish revolutionaries Tomash Verner, Bronislav Zalessky and Yan Stanevich. There is a reproduction of a painting by the artist O. Chernishyov which portrays the Bard’s friendship with the exiled Poles. The materials in the show-case are indicative of Shevchenko’s quarters being searched. For his ties with the Polish convicts T. Shevchenko was again arrested and sent to the Mangyshlak peninsula in the Novopetrovsk fortress. There is a model of the fortress and also drawings of the fort by T. Shevchenko displayed in the museum. The artist portrayed the life of the Kazakh people in the drawings “Kazakh Woman”, “Kazakh Girl Katya”, “Trio”, “Kazakh Beggar Children under the Window” which are on display. Thanks to the constant cares of his friends, Taras Shevchenko obtained his long-awaited freedom after ten yers of exile. When preparing for his departure he began to write a diary in Russian, which he called “The Journal” and a facsimile edition and individual texts which are on display. The painting by P. Kodyev “Shevchenko Listening to a Fiddler” portrays the poet’s return from exile on the steamer “Knyaz Pozharsky” on the Volga.

7. Taras Shevchenko was detained in Nizhni Novgorod by the tsarist authorities. Here he gets acquainted with illegal literature, he highly esteemed “Kolokol” by A. Hertzen. In this period the poet processes and edits his verses written during his exile in his “Yurodivy” (God’s Fool), “Neophytes”, “Fate” and others. The great Russian actor, former serf, M. Schepkin, hurries to Nizhni Novgorod to meet his friend the poet. The lithograph by F. Kumpan portrays the meeting of the two genial shorn brothers. At last T. Shevchenko was allowed to live in St. Petersburg. The display portrays the cordial meeting of the poet-exile with progressive cultural workers. There is a portrait of the actor M. Shepkin by the Bard displayed on a wall. In Moscow Taras got acquainted with an artist, A. Mokritsky, a professor of the Moscow school of Painting, Professor M. Maximovich of the Moscow University, a Russian writer S. Aksakov and a Decemberist S.Volkonsky who had just returned after thirty years of hard labour. The fourth and fith halls deal with the latest period of the Great Bard’s life. Taras Shevchenko arrived in St. Petersburg in 1858. The progressive public figures of the capital welcomed him. He was invited to all progressive literary salons. In this period the Bard read much, he tries to acquaint himself with the Russian literature of that time, in particular, with the journal “Sovremenik”. T. Shevchenko got acquainted and became friends with the ideological mentors of this periodical publication N. Chernishevsky and N. Dobrolyubov who highly esteemed the revolutionary spirit of the poet-exile. The canvas by B. Ladyzhensky reproduces one of these meetings of the Bard with the Russian revolutionary-democrats. T. Shevchenko was all the time dreaming of a new journey to the Ukraine. He appealed to the Academy of Arts with a request to intercede with the authorities for a permission for him to make this journey. In May 1859 the Bard was permitted to go to his native land, but a police surveillance was set up after him. The poet visited those places where he had spent his childhood, had ardent talks with the peasants, met his friends A. Kozachkovsky in Pereyaslav and M. Maximovich in the village of Prokhorivka near Kaniv. The painting by K. Trokhimenko portrays Taras Shevchenko on the high Chernecha Gora, where he wanted to settle down. Till his last days the poet dreamed about quiet family happiness near Kaniv, about that Paradise on the Dnieper – Chernicha Gora but his dream was not destined to come true. The gandarmes watched every step of the poet-mutineer and at last found a pretext to arrest him near Prokhorivka and banish him from the Ukraine.

8. The poet showed concern for raising the literacy of the Ukrainian people. There is “The Southern Russian Primer”, which he wrote and published at his own expense, on display in the museum. Taras Shevchenko sent many of such books to Sunday schools in Kiev, Kharkov and Chernigov, he also had plans of publishing other text-books. In 1860 T. Shevchenko published “Kobzar” in Ukrainian, and soon the Russian edition of “Kobzar” appeared, they are also on display in the museum. The progressive literary circles of Russia highly esteemed the creative work of the Ukrainian poet. Numerous approving opinions on “Kobzar”, which are preserved in the museum, indicate the general understanding of the revolutionary contents of T. Shevchenko’s works and his closest ties with the Ukrainian people. In autumn 1860 T. Shevchenko was conferred the title of Academician. The academician’s diploma and the engraved work by the artist, for which he was conferred the high title, are displayed in the museum as well. It seemed as if a whole life lay before him. But his hard life during his exile, soldiering and prison deprived him from it. On March 10, 1861 Taras Shevchenko passed away. In the concluding part of this section entitled “The Life and Creativity of Taras Shevchenko”, there are materials about the funeral of the poet-revolutionary in St. Petersburg at the Smolensk Cemetary where speeches in three Slavic languages: Russian, Ukrainian and Polish were pronounced. The second section of the museum is dedicated to the Posthumous glory of the Great Bard. T. Shevchenko’s friends, fulfilling his Testament, applied for permission to convey the Poet’s remains to the Ukraine. In the end of April 1861 they were granted this permission. On May 7, the coffin was exhumed and covered with a red cloth. Accompanied by the historian O. Lazarevsky and artist H. Chestakhovsky the coffin first went by railway to Moscow and from there by horse-waggon to the Ukraine. The visitors can get acquainted with the route of the mourning procession in Kaniv on a map, and see the red cloth and a vignette with the coffin of T. Shevchenko. A large canvas by V. Boldyryev reproduces the funeral on Chernecha Gora. A few photographs and paintings reproduce the view of Taras’s grave before the revolution. First a wooden cross was set up, and the peasants from the surrounding villages brought stones from the Dnieper and covered the grave of the Bard of their bitter destiny. In time the cross rotted, but the tsarist government did not allow to set up a new one – you see, the Grave of the Bard frightened the Tyrants. A legend was alleged among the peasants that Shevchenko was alive and that “sacred knives” were buried on Chernecha Gora until the propitious moment, with which the people woul procure justice. Near the entrance to the museum a part of the cast-iron cross which was set up on Taras Shevchenko’s grave only in 1884 is displayed. Home