Shevchenko's kobzar in Ukrainian. Taras Shevchenko - Kobzar: Poems and Poems
spoiled
The wide Dnieper roars and groans,
angry wind tears the leaves,
everything below the willow tends to the ground
and the waves are formidable.
And the pale moon at times
wandered behind a dark cloud.
Like a boat overtaken by a wave,
it floated, then disappeared.
Still in the village did not wake up,
the rooster of dawn has not yet sung,
owls in the forest called to each other,
and the ash-tree bent and creaked.
At this hour at the dark thicket -
below the mountain
something white flickers
wanders over the water.
Is it a mermaid mother dear
searching in the middle of the night
whether the lad is waiting, -
meet - tickle.
Not a mermaid, no - a girl
spoiled wanders
and she doesn't know about it
what is happening to her.
That's what the witch did
not to grieve
so that sleepy wanders,
waited at night
the Cossack who went far,
that he left her.
He promised to return
Yes, it looks like he's gone!
Not Chinese eyes to him
people covered
and his face is not tears
maidenly washed:
black raven took out his eyes
whether in that open field,
the wolves tore the body, -
here is the Cossack share.
It can be seen that the maiden wanders in vain,
wandering, waiting...
Black-browed will not return
and does not caress
he will not undo her braid,
the scarf will not tie;
not in bed, but in the house
the orphan lies down!
Such is her lot ... Oh, my God, dear,
why did you send trouble to the poor fellow?
Because she loved with all her heart
Cossack eyes?.. Forgive the orphan!
Whom does she love? She's lonely
alone, like a bird in a distant land.
Send her happiness, send black-eyed,
Otherwise, people will laugh at her completely.
Is the dove guilty that she loves the dove?
Is the dove guilty that it fell dead?
Girlfriend flies - cooing, yearning,
calls and does not know where he disappeared.
And yet it is easier for her: after all, she flies, -
rush to God - to learn about the sweet.
And that one - an orphan - who will torture,
and who will tell her, and who knows about it,
where is the darling: is the horse watered on the Danube?
Are you going to spend the night in a dark forest?
Or maybe on the other, he caresses the other,
Well, black-browed, began to forget?
When would she become a swift-winged bird,
I would fly around the whole world, and I would find a friend;
If he is alive, she would love, but she would strangle that one,
if he died, I would lay down next to him in the grave
The heart does not love so much to share with someone,
not as it wants, as God has given:
It is given to him in life to suffer and languish,
but it does not want to live and languish.
Such is your will, O Lord,
Such is the happiness of the poor and the share!
Everything wanders - silently, like a dumb,
the Dnieper at night calmed down;
the wind rests by the sea,
dispelling the clouds above the earth.
The moon sparkles in the clear sky;
and all - and the Dnieper, and the shady forest -
full of deep silence.
And suddenly the little mermaids over the reach
rose, sailed from the Dnieper
(naked; from sedge - braids),
shouting: "It's time for us to get warm!"
“It's time! - the sun has already gone behind the forest ... "
Their mother asked, “Is everyone here?
Let's go get dinner.
Let's play, let's go for a walk
let's sing, let's sing:
Uh, uh!
Straw spirit, spirit!
My mother didn't christen me
laid unbaptized.
The moon is clear!
Our dove!
Come quickly to dinner with us:
lies a Cossack in a cave there,
he's in a cave in the sand
and with a ring on his hand;
young and black-browed,
we found it in dubrov.
Shine on us in the open field,
we want to take a walk.
While the witches are flying here
roosters don't crow
shine for us ... Who is wandering there?
What's going on with oak?
Uh, uh!
Straw spirit, spirit!
My mother didn't christen me
Taras Grigorievich Shevchenko
KOBZAR
Translated by Russian writers:
N. V. Berg, I. A. Bunina, I. A. Belousova, F. T. Gavrilova, I. V. Gerbel,
V. A. Gilyarovsky, E. P. Goslavsky, N. N. Golovanov, S. D. Drozhzhin,
V. V. Krestovsky, P. M. Kovalevsky, A. A. Korinfsky, L. A. Mey,
M. I. Mikhailov, S. A. Musin-Pushkin, A. A. Monastyrsky, A. N. Pleshcheev, N. L. Pushkareva, I. D. Radionova, I. Z. Surikova, P. A. Tuluba, A. Shkadfa and others.
February 25, 1814, in the village of Morintsakh, Zvenigorod district, Kiev province, the son of Taras, the future famous Ukrainian poet, was born to a serf peasant landowner Engelhardt, Grigory Shevchenko. Taras was the third child of Gregory: - the first was the son Nikita, and the second was the daughter Katerina. Soon after the birth of Taras, his father moved to live in the village. Kirilovka, the same district where the first infancy of the future poet passed; on this basis, T. G. Shevchenko in his famous autobiography, written at the request of the editor of the journal "People's Reading" A. A. Obolensky, calls Kirilovka his homeland.
How T. G. Shevchenko's childhood passed, we find a description of this in one of his writings in the Great Russian language. This is how he remembers his childhood:
“In front of me is our poor, old, white hut, with a darkened thatched roof and a black “smoke”, and near the hut “to the prichka”, an apple tree with red-sided apples, and around the apple tree a flower garden, a favorite of my unforgettable sister, my patient, my gentle nanny . And at the gate there is an old spreading willow with a withered top, and behind the willow there is a “clone” (bread shed), and behind the “clone” a garden will go along the slope, and behind the garden - “levada” (haymaking), - and behind the “levada” - a valley, and in the valley a quiet, barely murmuring, brook lined with willows and viburnum, wrapped in broad-leaved, dark green burdocks. And in this stream bathes a cubic blond boy; having bathed, he runs into a shady garden, falls under the first pear tree and falls asleep ... Waking up, he looks at the opposite mountain and thinks: what is there, beyond the mountain? .. There must be iron pillars that support the sky! .. "
“And this blond boy (none other than the author of the story, Taras Grigorovich) went to the iron pillars, walked for a long time, until nightfall, and came, not knowing where; fortunately, he came across chumaks and brought him home ... When I came home, my elder sister (shevchenko continues the story) ran up to me, grabbed me in her arms, carried me across the yard and put me in a circle to “supper” (have dinner), saying: "Sit down to supper, stray." “After evening, my sister took me to bed, put me to bed, crossed me, and kissed me” ...
These memoirs refer to the age of 5-6 years of the poet. Apparently, here Taras Grigorovich remembers his sister with great love and does not say a word about his mother. How to explain this circumstance? In our opinion, it’s very simple: the mother, the “eternal worker”, a laborer for her family, could not take care of the children, whom she had two more after Taras - Irina and Osip. The children were left to themselves: older sisters acted as nannies for younger brothers.
In 1823 Shevchenko's mother died; Since that year, a big change has taken place in the life of little Taras: a carefree childhood ended, a life began full of hardships, hardships and misfortunes that did not leave the poet until the very last days of his life.
Shevchenko's father, who had 5 children in his arms, could not run a household without a woman, and soon after the death of his first wife, he married a widow with children for the second time. There were strife; - the stepmother hated Taras for his hostile attitude towards her children, for secrecy and stubbornness, but the father did not stop caring for the orphans who were left without their own mother: not wanting his children to be illiterate, Grigory Shevchenko sent little Taras to study with the tradesman Gubsky.
The diploma was given to the boy immediately, but the endless pranks and pranks of the freedom-loving child interfered with success in learning. In addition, this teaching was interrupted due to a sad circumstance: Grigory Shevchenko died when his son Taras was only 11 years old. Dying, Grigory Shevchenko left his children from his 1st wife as orphans, and now he wanted to provide them with something; when, during the division of “peasant thinness”, the turn came to Taras, Grigory said: “Son Taras does not need anything from my household; he will not be some kind of person: either something very good will come out of him, or a big scoundrel ”...
After the death of her husband, the stepmother, in order to get rid of the extra mouth in the house, so as not to see the annoying child, tried to sell Taras out of the house: she found him something to do - to herd the pigs and calves of the Kirillov peasants. With a slice of black bread in his bosom, with a whip in his hands, the boy spent whole days in the pasture, in the steppe, where there are only "graves" - mounds "stand and sum up." Taras loved these silent "graves"; - lies on the grass, props his head with his little hands and looks long, long into the blue distance. Who knows - maybe these native pictures of the free steppes were so sharply imprinted in the children's brain that they then floated out, poured out in wonderful verses during the period of the poet's creative activity ...
But now the winter has come; - Taras was again left without work, again the stepmother had to think what to do with the hated stepson; in order to get him out of the house, she apprenticed him to the sexton Bugorsky, where Taras again sat down at the Book of Hours and the Psalter; then he went to the priest Nesterovsky, where he learned to write ... What kind of teacher Bugorsky was can be judged by what the poet himself later wrote in his memoirs: “My childish heart was offended by this offspring of despotic seminaries a million times, and I how defenseless people, brought out of patience, generally end up with revenge and flight.
“Finding him once senselessly drunk, I used his own weapon against him - rods, and, as far as my childish strength was enough, repaid him for all the cruelties” ...
At first, Shevchenko hid in the gardens, where the sisters brought him food; then Taras fled to Lisyanka to the deacon, who was engaged in “painting art”, that is, he was a painter. Passion for drawing already at this time Shevchenko awakened; but only 4 days could Taras endure with the deacon - the "artist", who did not differ in any way from his former teachers in teaching methods. First, Shevchenko went to Steblov (Kanevsky district), and then to Tarasovka to the sexton - "chiromancy", but this last mentor found the future poet incapable of anything and removed him from himself.
Where was the poor orphan to go? He returned to his native village; – there seemed to be nowhere else to go? He decided to take up his old job again - herding pigs and calves.
Shevchenko's elder brother, Nikita, wanted to teach Taras to the household, but Taras' mobile nature was not akin to this hard and constant work - and he again left his native village and settled in the village of Khlebnovsky, famous for "painters". One of Khlebnov's "painters" kept him for two weeks, but did not dare to keep him any longer: the serf boy did not have a vacation certificate. It was for this evidence that the “painter-owner” Taras was advised to go to the manager of Engelhardt’s estates, Dimitrenko; Shevchenko went to him; but the manager, instead of giving him a residence permit in Khlebnovsky, noticing the quickness of a 15-year-old youth, left him among the yard servants. This happened in 1829, and just at that time Engelhardt needed various household people, whom he ordered the manager to recruit from his serfs. Dimitrenko gathered up to a dozen boys, including Shevchenko; before sending them to the master in Vilna, the manager first placed them in various positions in the form of a test. Shevchenko got into the kitchen and began to help the head cook; his duties were to carry firewood, clean pots, and carry out slops. But the passion for drawing did not leave Shevchenko even in the midst of this work: in a remote corner of the garden, he set up something like an art gallery, hung pictures in knots, and in a free moment he went there to copy copies of them with a pencil. If the absence of the "artist" was noticed by the chief cook, then the "artist" received an inevitable scolding.
After testing the courtyards, Dimitrenko sent them to Vilna with a list of names, which included the abilities and qualities of each. The future poet was noted - "suitable for a room painter."
However, this certificate was not paid attention to in Vilna, and Shevchenko was made a “room Cossack”, whose occupation consisted in constant stay in the front rooms, in giving the pipe, and so on. But even here the artist broke out: Shevchenko copied everything as soon as he found the time and place.
Barin at this time traveled around Russia; Shevchenko followed him as an inseparable Cossack. A year has passed; the master, perhaps, noticed Shevchenko's inclinations towards art and, when he was in Warsaw, gave him to science to a room painter, but the latter, possessing the art of painting only ceilings and walls, noticed the student's extraordinary abilities and announced this to the master, advising him to give Shevchenko to the well-known portrait painter Lumpy at that time. Engelhardt, hoping to have his own good artist, took the advice and the “Cossack” was transformed: they cleaned, washed, dressed up and ordered to go to lessons, which, however, did not last long: on the occasion of the uprising in Poland, Engelhardt left for Petersburg, and all his household ordered to send there by stage; this technique is explained by the fact that the landowner did not want to spend money on the delivery of people, and by the way, in order to be guaranteed from escaping from the road.
Upon arrival in St. Petersburg, Engelhardt did not abandon his intention to make "his" artist out of Shevchenko and gave him for 4 years to the painter Shiryaev. This new teacher Shevchenko used exactly the same methods in teaching as his previous mentors, i.e., a deacon-Spartan, a deacon-"painter" and another deacon - a "chiromantic".
“Despite all the oppression of his triple genius,” writes Shevchenko, “on bright autumn nights I ran to the Summer Garden to draw from the statues.” At this time, Shevchenko met an artist - fellow countryman, Ivan Maksimovich Soshenko ... I. M. Soshenko tells about his acquaintance with Taras Grigorovich: “When I was“ in plaster heads ”, or not, it seems“ in figures ”, not in On the 1935th, or maybe not in the 1936th, the schwager Shiryaev came to the academy with me. From him I learned that his son-in-law had my countryman Shevchenko as a boy, about whom I had heard something back in Olshana, while living with my first teacher, Prevlotsky. I strongly requested. relative Shiryaev to send a countryman to my apartment. Having learned about my desire to get to know him, Taras the very next day, on Sunday, found my apartment in the 4th line of Vasilyevsky Island and came to me in this form: he was wearing a greasy teak dressing gown; his shirt and trousers, made of thick rustic linen, were stained with paint; barefoot, "disguised" and without a hat. He was sullen and shy.
From the first day I noticed in him a strong desire to learn painting. He began to visit me, not missing a single holiday. During such visits, Taras in fits and starts gave me some episodes from his past and almost always ended his stories with a murmur of fate ... "
Soshenko was touched by the fate of his young countryman and with all his heart wanted to help him. First of all, he consulted with his acquaintance, the well-known Little Russian writer E. Grebenka. Grebenka treated Taras Grigorovich cordially: he helped him with both advice and money; gave him books to read from his library. But Soshenko was not satisfied with this first step to alleviate the fate of Shevchenko: he turned with a request to the secretary of the academy, Grigorovich, to save the gifted young man from the plight of the painter Shiryaev.
At this time, Taras Grigorovich through Grebenka met with the court painter Venetsianov, who, at the request of Grigorovich, introduced Shevchenko to V. A. Zhukovsky. One can judge how these acquaintances influenced the young man. Zhukovsky, wanting to get to know the novice artist better, asked him the topic: to describe the artist's life. How Shevchenko satisfied Zhukovsky's desire remains unknown. It is only known that since that time the educator of the Sovereign Liberator of the peasants began to work hard for the redemption of the serf author.
And Shiryaev's life for Shevchenko went on as usual; position did not change. Having worked all day in the workshop, Shevchenko liked to go to the Summer Garden late in the evenings or at night, sketch out the outlines from the statues or dream of freedom.
In the same Summer Garden, its first literary experiments. “The strict Ukrainian muse,” he says, “for a long time shied away from my taste, perverted by life at school, in the landowner's hall, in inns and city apartments. But when the foreboding of freedom returned to my feelings the purity of the first years of childhood, spent under the wretched father's fear, she, thanks to her, hugged and caressed me on a foreign side "...
Shevchenko's cherished dream was to get into the academy; Engelhardt, pursuing the goal of having a gifted artist, was not against this desire, but at that time access to the academy was closed to the serfs; Shevchenko stayed halfway; cherished dreams were destroyed; the oppression of serfdom fell even more heavily on his sensitive soul, and when he learned that those who had taken up the task of freeing him from serfdom, even such influential people as Zhukovsky and Vielgorsky, could not do anything with the stubborn landowner, a bad feeling woke up in heart, a much sore heart, of a poet, and in a moment of irritation he swore cruelly to take revenge on his master. It was in Soshenka’s apartment: the latter, seeing such a mood of his friend, was very worried about him, realizing that in such moments a person is capable of anything ...
Soshenko went to Shiryaev and begged him to give Shevchenko a month's leave so that he could go to the hall of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts to study painting. Shiryaev agreed; but the oppressive state did not leave the poet. V. A. Zhukovsky accidentally found out about this and sent a soothing note. How grateful Shevchenko was to Zhukovsky for his participation and cordial attitude towards him, one can conclude from the fact that Taras Grigorovich kept the note sent by Zhukovsky as a shrine, and constantly carried it with him.
If this note could reassure Shevchenko, then it probably contained something positive about his release.
In addition to Zhukovsky, K. P. Bryulov also bothered a lot about the release of the poet; he himself went to Engelhardt, but from his visit he took away only the conviction “that this is the largest pig” and did not go to Engelhardt again, but asked Soshenok to go to him. The latter, in turn, begged Venetsianov, as a more influential person, to whom Engelhardt directly cut off: "My decisive price is 2,500 rubles."
Then Bryulov and Zhukovsky came up with a means to get the "price of freedom." - Bryulov undertook to paint a portrait of Zhukovsky and play it in a lottery, and buy Shevchenko with the money raised. Shevchenko at that time fell ill with typhus and was in the hospital. The portrait was ready; tickets are sold out. By the way, the Royal Family also took part in this lottery. The draw took place, and on April 22, 1838, Shevchenko became a free man; at that time he was on the road to recovery and knew nothing about what had happened. Soshenko wanted to immediately inform his friend of such great joy, but the doctor advised him to wait, so that the strong excitement would not damage the patient's fragile health. However, Shevchenko found out about his freedom from Shiryaev, and when Soshenko came to the hospital to visit him, Taras Grigorovich asked him: “Is it true that they ransomed me?” Soshenko replied: "So far it looks like the truth." Shevchenko burst into tears and could not calm down for a long time.
Upon leaving the hospital, Shevchenko began attending classes at the Academy of Arts. He settled with his countryman - Soshenok. The change that had taken place in the life of the recent serf gave him infinite joy. “I,” Shevchenko writes in his memoirs, “an insignificant mess, flew on wings to the magical halls of the academy and enjoyed the instructions and friendly power of attorney of the greatest of artists.”
At this time, through Bryulov, Shevchenko got acquainted with the best St. Petersburg houses; he came into fashion; he was invited as a curiosity, and he began to drive around in the evenings, dressing like a dandy. “In general,” Soshenko says, “a secular demon has taken possession of him,” and more than once scolded him for this and forced him not to waste time, but to get down to business; Soshenko considered only painting to be his business. “I myself thought,” Shevchenko writes in 1857, “that painting is my future profession and daily bread, but instead of studying the deep mysteries of painting, under the guidance of such a teacher as the immortal Bryulov, I,” he says, “ I composed poems for which no one paid me a penny and which deprived me of my freedom.
“What did I do in this sanctuary (in Bryulov’s workshop)? - Shevchenko asks himself and answers: “It is strange to think that I was then engaged in composing Little Russian poems, which later fell on my soul with such a weight. Before the marvelous works of Bryulov, I thought and cherished in my heart "The Blind Kobzar" and my bloodthirsty "Gaydamak". In the shadow of his exquisitely luxurious workshop, as in the sultry steppe of the Dnieper, the martyred shadows of the poor hetmans flashed before me. Before me stretched the steppe, dotted with mounds. My beautiful, my poor Ukraine flaunted before me in all its immaculate, melancholy beauty. I could not take my spiritual eyes away from this native, enchanting charm ... Calling - and nothing more! .. "
Taras Grigorovich lived with Soshenka for 4 months, then settled with the artist Mikhailov.
No matter how great the temptations of secular life were, however, the poet did not forget himself either: in the first years of his academic life, in 1888-1889, Taras Grigorovich worked especially hard on his development; in this zeal for self-education, Bryulov and Grebenka greatly contributed to him. Bryulov's extensive library was open to Shevchenko, and in it he read the best works of Russian and Polish word artists; not content with this, he attended some lectures by university professors, studied French...
Shevchenko's circle of acquaintances expanded: there were many familiar artists, there were also fellow countrymen ... But no matter how good Shevchenko felt, freed from serfdom, he did not forget for a minute that his brothers and sisters were still serfs. He wrote letters to the village, entered into their family affairs, and generally took care of their situation.
At the end of 1839, Shevchenko met P.I. Martos, who went to him for sessions. At this time, Grebenka decided to publish Shevchenko's poems, but there was no publisher; Martos agreed to be such, and in the next 1840 a small collection of Shevchenko's poems was published in the Little Russian dialect, under the title "Kobzar".
In Ukraine, they were delighted with the poems of their native poet, and joyfully welcomed the appearance of the Kobzar. The old writer Kvitka-Osnovyanenko, having received a copy of Kobzar, wrote this to its author: “When my wife and I began to read Kobzar, the hair on our heads rose, my eyes turned green, and my heart somehow hurts ... I pressed your book to heart; your thoughts fall on the heart ... Good! Very good! I can't say anymore."
In 1841, the poem "Gaidamaki" was published as a separate edition.
The first appearance in print of the works of Taras Grigorovich was met by Russian critics with mockery and ridicule of the Little Russian dialect and nationality. These reviews strongly influenced Shevchenko, and he began to write in Russian; as far as is known, at this time he wrote the drama "Blind Beauty". Country friends tried to convince the poet of a false understanding of criticism and pointed out to him that criticism recognizes his talent, but only attacks the language and the fact that he is a “male poet”. Shevchenko hesitated for a long time and, finally, in 1843, he expressed himself in his letter to Tarnovsky:
“They call me an enthusiast, that is, a fool, so be it! Let me be a peasant poet, if only a poet; I don't need anything else!"
In 1843 Taras Grigorovich went to his homeland; At first, he began to diligently attend the balls of wealthy landowners, who spent most of their time playing cards and drinking, and even formed the Mochemordia society. Shevchenko at first shared the company with these "mochimords", but he soon became disillusioned with them: the serfdom, which the poet saw at every turn, poisoned the minutes of his existence. Chuzhbinsky in his memoirs tells a very characteristic incident that happened to Shevchenko when he visited a certain rich pan. “We came,” says Chuzhbinsky, “for lunch quite early. In the front a servant was dozing on a bench. Unfortunately, his master looked out the door and, seeing the dozing servant, woke him with his own hands, in his own way, not embarrassed by our presence. Taras Grigoryevich blushed, put on his hat and went home.
Another case, similar to the first, occurred with the landowner Lukashevich:
“Once, in a harsh winter, Lukashevich sent his serf to Shevchenko in Yagotin (30 miles away) on some unimportant matter and severely ordered him to return with an answer on the same day. Upon learning of such an inhuman order to a servant, Taras Grigorovich did not want to believe his ears; but the fact was there, and he had to be bitterly disappointed in his opinion of a man whom he considered to be decent. Shevchenko wrote a letter to Lukashevich, full of bile and indignation, and told him that he was ending his acquaintance forever.”
The feudal lord Lukashevich responded to Taras Grigorovich with a letter, where it was clearly stated that he had 300 souls of such boobies as Shevchenko. At first, when Taras Grigorovich told someone about this incident, he cried like a child.
But among this kind of acquaintances, people stood out who were distinguished by their humanity and education: among the latter belonged the family of the Ukrainian governor-general, Prince. Repnin, to whose daughter, Princess Varvara Nikolaevna, Taras Grigorovich had some special reverence.
In 1844, Shevchenko was at home, and the next year he again visited his native places; this time he traveled most of the Ukraine and visited all his relatives and everywhere he was greeted with greetings. A mass of acquaintances appeared, the doors of the apartment occupied by him did not close, everyone was in a hurry to look at their Kobzar.
In the spring of 1846 Shevchenko arrived in Kyiv; here he decided to copy many of the sights of this city: he settled in the apartment of the artist Sozhin. “In the evening,” says Chuzhbinsky, “all three of us got together. Nothing was more pleasant than our evenings; we sat down to tea and told each other our day's adventures.
In the same 1846, in Kyiv, Shevchenko met N.I. Kostomarov. “I lived then,” writes N.I. Kostomarov, “on Khreshchatyk, in the village of Sukhostavskogo.
“Opposite my apartment there was a tavern with rooms, and Shevchenko appeared in one of these rooms, on his return from the Dnieper Ukraine. After Easter, I don’t remember which of my acquaintances, Shevchenko came to me and made a good impression on me from the first time. It was enough to talk with this man for an hour to fully get along with him and feel a heartfelt attachment to him.
“At that time, the idea of Slavic reciprocity occupied my soul. On the first day of the feast of the Nativity of Christ, the same year 46, we met with the poet and one young landowner at our mutual friend N.I. Gulak. Our conversation was about the affairs of the Slavic world; hopes were expressed for the future unification of the Slavic peoples into one federation, under the scepter of the All-Russian Emperor, and at the same time I expressed the idea of \u200b\u200bhow good the existence of a "scientific Slavic society" would be. This society was to be called "Cyril and Methodius".
“Meanwhile, behind the wall of Gulak’s apartment there was another apartment, from which some unknown gentleman, who turned out to be Alek’s student, listened to our conversations. Petrov, who tried to write and send a message about us to the right place, knocking together in a monstrous way our conversations about Slavic reciprocity and about the Khmelnitsky era, which I then diligently studied, and deducing from this the existence of a political society.
Shortly after this event, Shevchenko left for the Chernigov province, and when he returned to Kyiv a few days later, he was detained on a ferry crossing the Dnieper by a police officer.
In June 1847, Shevchenko was taken to St. Petersburg, enlisted in the ordinary Orenburg linear battalion; three months later he found himself at the place of exile in the Orsk fortress; he was forbidden to write and draw. And the long years of imprisonment dragged on with many vicissitudes that depended on the people who had power over the exiles. There were times when the punishment of punishment fell on Shevchenko with all its burden, and only his tempered nature could endure this oppression. But there were also concessions; by the way, Shevchenko was taken by Lieutenant Butakov on an expedition to explore the shores of the Aral Sea, to take pictures; when the works of Shevchenko were presented to the general, with a petition to alleviate the fate of the exile, it turned out quite the opposite: from St. Petersburg an order came to transfer Shevchenko to the Asian coast of the Caspian Sea in the remote Novopetrovsk fortification, with a strict order to the commandant to watch that Shevchenko could not write anything, nor draw.
Literally cut off from the living world, the poet became sad. It must have been so cold around him, so empty, if such words could escape from him in a letter to Gulak: “I was born and raised in captivity, and I think I’ll die a soldier! .. Some kind of end would be, but then, right, tired of "...
At the end of 1852, a change took place in the Novopetrovsk administration: a new commandant, Major Uskov, was appointed.
Uskov's wife heard about Shevchenko while still in Orenburg and went to Novopetrovsk with the idea of taking part in alleviating the fate of the poet. Shevchenko did not immediately, gradually, but closely became friends with the Uskov family, where there were two small children - this was one of the reasons that attracted him to the commandant's house: Taras Grigorovich passionately loved children. The Uskovs fell in love with Shevchenko like a close relative; he became, as it were, an inseparable member of their family.
Since that time, gradual relief in the service began. Shevchenko sighed more freely: they no longer tortured him uselessly with “drilling drills”, and he began to live not in the “stinky barracks”.
And in St. Petersburg, the poet's friends did not forget to fuss about him; the first place among these people was occupied by A. I. Tolstaya, the wife of the vice-president of the academy; first, through the artist Osipov, and then personally, she corresponded with the poet and, as soon as possible, encouraged him and supported the hope of liberation in his tormented soul.
At this time, Emperor Nicholas I died and Emperor Alexander II ascended the throne. Shevchenko was looking forward to a gracious manifesto. The manifesto appeared, but there was no mention of Taras Grigorovich in it. “And why was it that I was not presented to this Highest mercy and deleted from the register of martyrs? My crime is great, but my punishment is limitless. Moral suffering joined the material suffering of a 50-year-old soldier: I, whose whole life was devoted to divine art, was forbidden to write poetry and draw. Yes, for nine years now I have been executed for the sinful passion of my stupid youth!.. Oh, save me!..,” wrote Taras Grigorovich gr. Tolstoy in 1856.
With the accession of the new Emperor, much has changed in Shevchenko's position; the poet's friends, previously deprived of the opportunity not only to correspond with him, but also to sympathize with his situation, now seemed to come to life, they began to send him letters, money, and the efforts for release intensified. M. M. Lazarevsky did a lot of useful things at that time for the poet; he was the first to tell Taras Grigorovich the news of the pardon. “I congratulate you on the great Royal Grace. At the request of Mr. Tolstoy and Count Tolstoy, you receive a resignation and choose a kind of life, ”Lazarevsky wrote on May 2, 1857.
Expecting final freedom, the poet made a trip plan; - he wanted to visit Yekaterinodar, the Crimea, Kharkov, Poltava, Kyiv, Vilna, but the poet's friends did not approve of this plan. “Come soon to St. Petersburg; do not go to Ukraine; the countess asks you about this, and you must listen to her, ”Lazarevsky wrote to him.
The release order had to go through the entire ladder of instances, starting from the chief of gendarmes, ministers and ending with the company commander. This would take a lot of time.
“On July 22, 1857, an official announcement of my release was received (Taras Grigorovich writes to Count F. P. Tolstoy). On the same day I asked the commandant to give me a pass through Astrakhan to St. Petersburg; but he cannot do this without the will of the higher authorities”…
Finally, Taras Grigorovich persuaded Uskov to give him a pass to St. Petersburg, and on August 2, 1857, at 9 pm, he left the Novopetrovsk fortification, having been in captivity for 10 years, 3 months and 27 days.
After a three-day voyage in a fishing boat, Shevchenko arrived in Astrakhan.
In Astrakhan, Taras Grigorovich lingered for several days, waiting for the steamer; On August 15, the steamer “Prince Pozharsky” arrived from Nizhny and stayed in Astrakhan for 7 days, and on the 22nd sailed back to Nizhny, taking Taras Grigorovich with him.
REASON
The roar and the stack of the Dnipro is wide,
Angry wind curling,
Dodolu verbi gnat high,
Mountains whilu pіdіyma.
I bright month at that time
Іz gloomily de de de looking,
Nenache chauvin in the blue sea,
Now virinav, then drowning.
Another third pivn did not sleep,
No one anywhere is homophonic,
Sichi in Gaia called to each other,
That is clear once in a while creaking.
In such good fortune under the mountain,
I beat that guy
What is black above the water,
It's whiter.
Maybe a little mermaid
mothers joke,
Or maybe, wait for the goat,
Shut up.
Not a mermaid blukaє -
That girl walk
I don’t know myself (because it’s causal),
What is it like to work.
So the fortune teller broke,
Sob less bored
Schob, bach, walking around,
Slept and looked
young goat,
What torik leaving.
Promised to return
That, maybe, and having died!
Not covered with Chinese
Cossack eyes,
We didn’t win in person
Slizonki girls:
Eagle waving brown eyes
On a foreign field,
Bile body vovka z "їli, -
Such a yoga share.
Darma shonich girl
You look.
Black-shaven will not return
She doesn’t welcome
Do not braid your long braid,
Khustka is not the head of the "yazhe,
Not easy - in the domino
Lie down as an orphan!
Such a share ... Oh my dear dear!
Why are you karaesh її, young?
For those that she loved so much
Cossack eyes?.. Forgive the orphan!
Whom do you love? No dad, no baby,
Alone, like that bird in a distant land.
Send your share, - there is a young one,
Bo people of strangers laugh.
Chi winna dove, what is blue to love?
Chi is guilty of that pigeon that killed the falcon?
Sumuє, cooing, with light to force,
Litaє, shukaє, thought - lost.
Happy dove: flying high,
Polina is up to God - to feed the dear.
Who is an orphan, who is asked,
І who їy tell, and who you know,
De mily night: chi in the dark guy,
Chi in the bistrim Danube horse on the spot,
Chi, maybe, with another, another koha,
Її, chernobrivu, is it already forgotten?
Yakbies were given wings to the eagles,
Behind the blue bi sea, I knew the dear one;
I would love a living, I would strangle a friend,
And before the inanimate at the pit would lie.
It’s not so heart to love, to share with Kim,
Not so much you want, like God gives us:
I don’t want to live, I don’t want to scold.
"Zhuris" - seems like a thought, I'm sorry for you.
Oh my God dear! this is your will
Such її happiness, such її share!
Won all walk, s mouth no bet.
Do not talk about the Broad Dnipro:
Broke, wind, black gloom,
Lie the white of the sea to rest,
And from the sky the month is so and so;
І over water, і over haєm,
All around, like in a mustache, everything is silent.
Already a gurk - from the Dnipro they blamed
Little children, laugh.
"Let's get warm! they shouted. -
The sun is already gone!” (Holy creak;
From sedge mowing, more girls). …
“What is all here? - call mother. -
Let's go to dinner.
Let's play, let's take a walk
Sleep that little song:
Wow! Wow!
Straw "yany spirit, spirit!
Mother gave birth to me
I put it down.
Missy!
Our dove!
Come to us to supper:
We have a Cossack in line, in social,
Silver ring on the hand;
Young, black-browed;
We knew yesterday at the dibrov.
Stay fresh in the clean field,
Schob work up enough.
While the witches are still flying,
Shine on us... He can walk!
He was under an oak tree to work there.
Wow! Wow!
Straw "yany spirit, spirit!
Mother gave birth to me
I laid down the bastard."
The unbaptized…
Guy called; galas, zeke,
Horde mov smaller. Mov said,
Fly to the oak ... nichichirk ...
The unbaptized have changed
Marvel - flicker,
Let's go up the Stovbur
To the very edge.
Oh, that girl,
What sleepy fornicated:
Otaku some reason
The worm has broken!
To the very top on the hill
Became ... in the heart of a stake!
Look at all sides
That lіze until the end.
Around the mermaid oak
Movchki waited;
They took її, cordial,
They rumbled.
Long, long marveled
On її freak out ...
Third pivnі: kukuriku! -
They fluttered into the water.
The lark chirped,
Eel flying;
The zozulenka was cuddling,
Sitting on the oak;
chirping nightingale -
The moon has gone haєm;
Chervonie beyond the mountain;
Plugatar sleeps.
Black guy over the water,
The de lyakhs walked;
Blueed over the Dnipro
high graves;
Pishov rustling in the woods;
Whisper thick vines.
And the girl sleeps under the oak
At the beaten cost.
To know, to sleep well, what you don’t feel,
Yak kuє zozulya,
Why not heal, how long to live ...
Know good sleep.
And at the same time from the forest
Kozak vizhzhzhaє;
Under him is a raven horse
Step hard.
“I’m dying, comrade!
Today we will calm down:
Close to the hut, girl
Fix the gate.
And maybe already fixed
Not me, another...
Shvidche, horse, shvidche, horse,
Hurry home!”
Tired crow,
Ide, stumble, -
Kolo Kozatsky heart
Like a reptile in "yet.
“Axis and oak of that curly hair ...
Won! Dear God!
Bach fell asleep looking
My sizocryla!
Throwing a horse to her:
"My God, my God!"
Cliche її ta tsіluє ...
No, it won't help!
“Why did they separate the stench
Me from you?
Zaregotavsya, rozіgnavsya -
The kind in oak head!
Girls go to the harvest field
That, you know, they sleep when they go:
Yak saw off mother's sina,
Like a Tatar fought unochi.
Idut - under the green oak
Kіn muzzle to stand,
A bіla yogo young
Kozak and that girl lie down.
Tsіkavі (nowhere is true children)
They crept, to squeal;
If you marvel at what you have driven in, -
Worry well vtіkat!
The girlfriends were picked
Rub the slimes;
Comrades were selected
Dig those yams;
Send popi with korogvami,
Called bells.
poohovali huge
Like a trace, according to the law.
Dumped the edge of the road
Two graves in life.
No one to ask
Why were they killed?
Planted over a Cossack
Yavir ta yalina,
And in the heads of the girl
Chervona viburnum.
The little bunny is coming
Kuvati over them;
Arriving nightingale
Shonic Twitter;
Whisper that chirp,
Until the month is here,
Poki tії mermaids
From the Dnipro you will see.
DUMKA
Flowing water in the blue sea
She does not turn;
Shuka Cossack his share,
And there is no share.
Pishov Cossack light for the eyes;
Gray blue sea,
Grae the Cossack heart,
And the idea is to say:
“Where are you going without drinking?
For whom leaving
Dad, little old,
Young girl?
In a foreign land, not those people,
It's hard to live with them!
You will not cry with Kim,
Don't talk."
To sit a Cossack on tіm botsі,
Gray blue sea.
Thinking the share will grow,
Sorrow blew up.
And the cranes fly together
Dodomu keys.
Weeping Cossack - paths of battle
Overgrown with thorns.
DUMKA
Wild wind, wild wind!
You speak from the sea
Wake up yoga, play with him
Sleep blue sea.
You know, de my dear,
Bo yoga wore,
There, say, blue sea,
De yogo fell.
When the dear one was drowned -
Rozby blue sea;
I'm going to joke cute,
I will drown my grief
I'll drown my little one,
I will become a mermaid
I'll poke around in black hairs,
Kanu to the bottom of the sea.
I will find yoga, I will bow down,
On the heart of the earth.
Todі, hvile, carry it with milim,
Where the wind is blowing!
If you are nice on the team,
Violent, you know
De vin to walk, what to rob,
You are talking about him.
If you cry, then I cry
If nі - I sleep;
If the black-breasted one has died, -
Then I die.
Then carry my soul
Toudy, de my dear;
Red viburnum
Placed on the grave.
It will be easier in a foreign field
Orphans lie -
Be over him yogo mila
Stand with a ticket.
I flower and viburnum
I will bloom over him
So that the sun did not scorch,
People were not trampled.
I'll think tonight
And I'll pay a lie.
Zіyde sun - tears in the morning,
No one can help.
Wild wind, wild wind!
You speak from the sea
Wake up yoga, play with him
Sleep blue sea...
DUMKA
It's hard and important in the world of life
Orphans without family:
There is no place to heal,
Hotch s burn that in the water!
I would drown myself young,
Sob not to force light;
Drowning b - it's hard to live,
I don't have children.
In that share to walk the field -
Collecting spikelets;
And mine is here, ice-cream,
Behind the sea.
Good for that rich man:
Yogo people know;
And chat with me -
Mov is missing.
rich lips
The girl is moving;
Above me, an orphan,
Laugh, cap.
“Why am I not ugly to you,
Chi is not inside you
Chi do not love you shiro,
Why am I laughing at you?
Love yourself, my heart,
Love who you know
Don't laugh at me
Like when you guess.
And I'm going to the end of the world...
On the other side
I will find the best, or I will die,
Like that leaf in the sun."
Pishov Cossack sumuyuchi,
I didn’t throw anyone;
Shukav shares in a foreign field
But there I perished.
Dying, wondering
De sunechko syaє ...
It's hard to die
At a foreign land!
DUMKA
Our black eyebrows,
Our brown eyes
Nascho lita youth,
Happy girls?
Lita of my youth
Marnot to disappear
Eyes cry, black eyebrows
Shed in the wind.
Heart in "yana, force with light,
Like a bird without will.
Why me, my beauty,
When there is no share?
It's hard for me as an orphan
On this world of life;
Own people - like strangers,
Nі z kim to speak;
No one to drink
Why cry eyes;
No one to tell
What does the heart want
What heart, like a dove,
Day and night cooing;
Nobody eats yoga
Don't know, don't hear.
Strangers do not sleep -
Ta th nascho feed?
Let the orphan cry
Don't waste your time!
Cry, heart, cry, eyes,
Until you fall asleep
Voice, complain,
Sob vіtri felt
Shchob suffered bujnesenki
Beyond the blue sea
To the black-haired quarrelsome
On a fierce mountain!
ON VICNU IN MEMORY "YAT TO KOTLYAREVSKY"
The sun is grіє, the wind is viє
3 fields to the valley
Above the water willow
Chervona viburnum;
On viburnum alone
Goyda's nest, -
And where is the nightingale?
Don't eat, don't know.
Guess famously - that baiduzhe ...
Gone...gone...
Guess good - heart in "yana:
Why is not left?
I’ll take a look and guess:
Bulo, like dusk,
Zashchebeche on Kaliny -
Nobody misses.
Chi rich, whom share,
Like a mother to a child,
Remove, watch, -
Don't miss viburnum.
Chi orphan, what's up
Get up and practice
Lean, listen;
Mov father and mother
Drink, roam, -
Heart beat, any ...
I light of God like a great day,
I people like people.
What a lovely girl
The child looks
In "Yana, dry as an orphan,
Children do not know;
Come on the way to marvel
Cry in the vines -
chirping nightingale -
To dry dry tears.
Listen, smile,
Go to the dark haєm ...
Nіbi z milim spoke ...
And vin, know, sleep,
That dribno, that evenly, like God is good,
Poki vide villain on the way to take a walk
With a knife at the halayvi, - rune runa haєm,
Pide ta zamovkne - why twitter?
Do not back the baked soul of the villain,
Only to waste your voice, do not teach good.
Let it be fierce, until you die,
Pokey headless "I'm a raven scream.
Sleepy valley. On Kalina
I nightingale zadrim.
Move the wind through the valley -
I sent a dibrov rune,
The rune walks, my God.
Get up hearts to practice,
Cows walk in the wild,
The girls will see to take water,
Look at the sun - heaven, that year!
Willow laugh, holy creak!
Cry evil, fierce villain.
Bulo is so persh - now marvel:
The sun is grіє, the wind is viє
3 fields to the valley
Above the water with willow
Chervona viburnum;
On viburnum alone
Goyda's nest, -
And where is the nightingale?
Don't eat, don't know.
Recently, recently in Ukraine
Old Kotlyarevsky chirped like that;
The castle of a skyscraper, throwing orphans
I burn, and the sea, de perche vitav,
De vatagu proydisvista
Leading after you -
Everything is left, everything is summed up,
Like the ruins of Troy.
All sums - only glory
The sun shone.
Don't die kobzar, more naviki
Yogo welcomed.
Budesh, dad, panuvati,
As long as people live
As long as the sun is shining from the sky,
Don't you forget!
Sleep me about Ukraine!
Let your heart laugh in a foreign land,
Want to smile once, marvel, like you
All glory to the Cossack for the word єdinim
Transferred to a wretched orphan's hut.
Ling, blue-eyed eagle, because I'm lonely
An orphan in the world, in a foreign land.
I marvel at the sea wide, glibok,
Having drunk bi on that bik - do not give a chovna.
I guess Aeneas, I guess the homeland,
I'll guess, I'll cry, like a child.
And the wind on that bik goes that roar.
Or maybe I'm dark, I'm not running anything,
An evil fate, maybe, on the tіm botsі crying, -
The orphan should be accepted by people.
Come on and laugh, that there is a gray sea,
The sun is there, the moon is clearer there,
There, with the wind, the grave in the steppe is moving,
There is not a lonely buv bi with her and I.
Righteous soul! accept my language
I'm not wise, I'm shy. Accept, welcome.
Do not throw an orphan, as if throwing dibrows,
Cling to me, even for one word,
Sleep me about Ukraine!
KATERINA
Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky as a keepsake
April 22, 1838
I
Shut up, black-browed,
But not with Muscovites,
Bo Muscovites are strangers,
Robbing famously with you.
Muscovite love hot,
Zhartuyuchi kine;
Go to your Moscow region,
And the girl's gyne -
Yakby herself, nothing else,
And then the old mother,
What brought to the light of God,
Tempt to die.
Heart in "I am sleeping,
If you know what;
Don't pamper people's hearts
And to say - ice cold!
Shake well, black-browed,
But not with Muscovites,
Bo Muscovites are strangers,
Knowing you.
Katherine didn't listen.
No dad, no baby,
I loved the Muscovite
Yak knew intimately.
Loved the young
I went to the garden
Give yourself, your share
She messed up there.
Cry mother supper,
But the donka doesn’t feel it;
De jart with a Muscovite,
I'll spend the night there.
Not two nights karі ochі
Lovely kissed,
For now, glory to the whole village
It became bad.
Bring yourself to your people
What do you want to say:
Vaughn to love, then you don’t feel it,
What grief has crept in.
The bad news came -
They trumpeted the campaign.
Pishov Muscovite to Turechchina;
They covered the boat.
Nezchulasya, that baiduzhe,
What braid is covered:
For dear, how to sleep,
Anybody push.
Black shaven,
When you don't die
Decided to return.
Toydi Katerina
Be yourself a Muscovite,
Forget grief;
In the meantime, let people know
What do you want to say.
Do not scold Katerina -
Rubbing the slimes
More girls on the street
They sleep without her.
Do not scold Katerina -
Weep with tears
Take the wind, opivnochi
Go for water
Shchob the enemies did not bachil;
Come to the cranium
Become sobі pіd viburnum,
Fall asleep Gritsya.
Whisper, sing,
Already viburnum crying.
I returned - and happy,
No one is a bachelor.
Do not scold Katherine
I don't know nasty things -
At the new hustinochtsi
I look into the window.
Watching Katerina...
Passed pіvroku;
Tired of the heart,
Stuck in the side.
Unwell Katerina,
Ledve-Ledve Dishe…
She sang it in a zapіchka
More child.
And zhіnochki famously call,
mothers mourn,
What Muscovites are turning
They spend the night in it:
“You have a daughter of a dark-brown,
That one is not alone,
And drill at the back
Moscow son.
Black-haired bastard ...
Mabut, she herself vchila ... "
Gore you, clatters,
That evil one was beaten,
Yak that matir, what do you think
Sina gave birth.
Caterino, my heart!
Only with you!
Children will rise in the world
Are we little orphans?
Who is sleeping, vaccinating
Without a sweetheart in the world?
Father, mother - strangers,
It's hard to live with them!
Vichunyala Katerina,
Odsun a flat,
Look at the street
Kolishe a child;
Look - no, no ...
Chi then i will not?
I would go to the garden to cry,
So wonder people.
Zayde sun - Katerina
Walk through the garden
On the hands to wear sin,
Eyes to lead:
“I looked out of the drill,
From here she spoke,
And there ... and there ... blue, blue!
She didn't prove it.
Greenery in the garden
Cherries and cherries;
Like I used to go,
Katerina Wiishla.
Viishla, she is not sleeping anymore,
I slept like before
Young Muscovite Yak
I waited in the vishnik.
Do not sleep black-brown,
Curse your share.
And at the same time the witches
Make your will
Forge unkind words.
What can work?
Yakby dear black-shave,
Umіv bi spiniti…
So far dark-shaven,
Don't feel, don't babble
Like enemies laugh at him,
Yak Katrusya is crying.
Maybe, a black-shaven
Behind the quiet Danube;
And maybe - already in the Moscow region
Another kohai!
Nі, dark-haired not killings,
Vin alive, healthy ...
And where will you find those eyes,
So black eyebrows?
To the end of the world, in the Moscow region,
By those bots of the sea,
There is no place for Katerini;
She gave up on the mountain! ..
Mother gave eyebrows,
Kari is very young,
She did not win in this world
Happiness-share dates.
And without a share more personally -
Like a ticket on the floor:
Bake the sun, goyda wind,
Rav every one according to his will.
Kill yourself more personally
With dry tears,
Bo returned Muscovites
Other ways.
II
Sitting father end of the table,
He shrugged on his hands;
Do not marvel at the light of God:
I frowned heavily.
Kolo yogo stara mother
sit on a donkey,
Behind the tears, lead, lead,
Vimovlya don: “What is fun, my don?
Where is your couple?
De candles with friends,
Old age, boyars?
In Moscow, my dear!
go shukati,
Don't tell good people
What is in you mother.
Cursed hour-year-old,
What are you born!
Yakby knew before sleep
Bula would have drowned ...
I gave up to those bastards,
Now - Muscovites ...
Donya my, donya my,
Blossom my rozhevy!
Like a berry, like a little bird,
Kohala, grew up
For more ... My donya,
What did you get?..
Oddyachila! .. Go, joke
Moscow has a mother-in-law.
Didn't listen to my speeches,
Then її listen. Go, donya, find її,
Find, welcome
Be happy in strangers
Don't come back to us!
Don't turn around, my child
From a distant land...
And who is my little head
Are you dying without you?
Who will pay for me
Like a dear child?
Who to plant on the grave
Red viburnum?
Who without you sin dutu
Will you remember?
Donya my, donya my,
My love child! Come join us…”
Ledwe-ledwe
Blessed:
"God is with you!" - that one is dead,
Fell down on the dil ...
Calling the old father:
"What are you waiting for, heavenly?"
Zaridala Katerina
Ta boh youmu in the legs:
"Forgive me, my father,
What did I get!
Forgive me, my dove,
My dear falcon!”
"God forgive you
That good people;
Pray to God and go with yourself -
It will be easier for me.”
Ledve stood up, bowed,
Viyshla movchki s hati;
Left orphans
Old father and mother.
I went to the cherry garden,
prayed to God
I took the earth under the cherry,
I scratched on the cross;
She said: “I won’t come back!
In a distant land
To a foreign land, foreign people
I'm being suffocated;
And your own cryo
I need to lie down
The one about the share, my grief,
Tell other people...
Don't tell me, little dove!
No matter what,
Sob sinful in this world
People didn't borrow.
You won’t say ... axis who will say
What am I yoga mother!
My God! .. famously mine!
Where can I hide?
I'm choking, my child,
She herself drank water,
And you, my sin, are calm
Orphans in people
Bezbutchenko! .. "
I went to the village
Cry Katerina;
Khustinochka on the head,
In the hands of a child.
Viishla from the village - the heart of a million;
I wondered back
nodded her head
She voted.
Like poplars, stood in the field
When beaten dear;
Like the dew until the sun fades,
Tears dripped
Behind the tears I'm hot
I do not scatter light,
Only the blue burns,
Kiss and cry.
And there, like Yangelatko,
Know nothing
Little hands
Sinuses whisper.
The power of the sun, because of the wind
The sky is red;
Lost, turned around
Went ... only dream.
In the village they talked for a long time
Dechogo rich,
She didn’t hear already quiet speeches
No father, no mother...
Otak something in this world
Robbing people people!
Togo in "they are slaughtered, they are slaughtered,
The one to destroy himself ...
And for something? Holy know.
Light, bachsya, wide,
That dumb de heal
In the world alone.
So I sold the share
Edge to edge
And left to another
Those de zahoyut.
De you people, de you kind,
What did the heart take
To live with them, to love them?
Gone, gone!
There is a share in the world,
And who її know?
There is a will in the world,
And who can you?
There are people in the world -
Shine with gold,
Hail, panic,
And do not know the share
No share, no will!
With nudgoyu and with grief
Zhupan put on,
And cry - rubbish.
Take silver-gold
So be rich
And I will take tears -
Famously wiggle;
I will flood the undershare
With dry tears,
I will trample on bondage
Bare feet!
Then I'm cheerful
Then I'm rich,
How to be cordial
Walk at will!
III
Scream owls, sleep dibrova,
Zironki shine,
Above the path, shiritsa,
Hovrashki walk.
Rest good people
What bothered someone:
Whom - happiness, whom - tear,
Everything was covered.
All covered with dark blue,
Like a mother's child;
De Katrusyu burned up:
What's in the fox, what's in the hut?
Chi on the field under the dig
Sina amuses,
Chi in dіbrovі z-pіd deck
Do you see the wolf?
Gore you, black eyebrows,
No one's mother
When it's so famous for you
Need to wear!
And what's next to sleep?
Be smart, be!
Zestrinatsya Zhovti piski
I foreign people;
The winter is getting worse…
And that chi zustrіne,
What do you know Katerina,
Hello son?
Behind him, blackbrive would have forgotten
Ways, peeps, grief:
Vin, like a mother, graft,
Like a brother, speak ...
Let's go, let's hear...
And for now - calm down
I’ll drink it at the same time
Way to Moscow region.
Far way, pani-brothers,
I know yoga, I know!
Already in the heart of the cold,
I guess yoga.
Popomiryav i kolis -
Don't die yoga!..
Telling bi about those famously
But then believe it!
“Breche,” to say, “so-and-so!
(Obviously, not in the eyes),
And so only psuє mov
That fool people.
The truth is yours, the truth, people!
That and now you know
Cho tears in front of you
Will I wobble?
Is it out? Everyone
I didn’t read my own ...
Tzur same youmu!..
Kete leash kresalo
That tyutyunu, shob, you know,
They didn't scold at home.
And then famously tell
Schob dreamed!
Let yoga dashing take it!
I better die
That's my Katerina
Z Іvasem mandruє.
Beyond Kiev, that beyond the Dnipro,
Popid dark haєm,
To go along the path of a chumachenka,
They sleep the scarecrow.
Ide way young people,
Musit buti, forgive me.
Why is it vague, unhappy,
Crying eyes?
At the latan svitinochtsi,
On the shoulders of a bag,
In the hands of a chipok, and on the other
The child fell asleep.
Zestrilasya with chumaks,
Closed the child
Eats: “Good people,
Where is the way to Moscow region?
"To Moscow? oh yourself.
Far, sky?
"To Moscow itself, for Christ's sake,
Let's get on the road!"
Take a step, as much as a coward:
It's hard to take yoga! ..
That navischo?.. And the child?
Wow Yogo mother!
I cried, I went down the path,
Rest in Brovary7
That sinovі for gіrkogo
Bought a copper.
Long, long, hearty,
She fed everything;
Bulo y take, scho pіd mud
I spent the night with blue ...
Bach, what did the Kari look like:
Shchob under someone else's ooze tears wag!
Then wonder and repent, girls,
Schob did not have a chance to joke with a Muscovite,
It didn’t happen, like Katya is joking ...
Then do not feed, for which people bark,
For what they are not allowed to spend the night in the hut.
Don't feed, black-breeds,
Bo people do not know;
Whom God punishes in the world,
Then stink punish ...
People bend, like the lozi,
Where the wind is blowing.
Shine the orphan's sun
(Shіtit, that is not grіє) -
People would take over the sun,
Yakby mali force,
So that the orphans did not shine,
Slozi did not dry.
And for everything, dear God!
For what light to force?
What zrobila out to people,
What do people want?
She was crying!.. My heart!
Don't cry, Caterino
Don't show people tears
Hang on to death!
And schob personally didn’t marnіlo
With black eyebrows -
Until the sun disappears in the dark forest
Wash away the tears.
Umieshsya - do not cheer,
They won't laugh;
And heartily,
Until tears shed.
Otak something famously, bachite, girls.
Zhartuyuchi throwing a Muscovite to Katrus.
Nedolya do not succumb, with kim їy jartuvat,
And people want to bachat, that people are not sorry:
“Come on, - it seems, - the guinea ice child,
If you didn’t dare to play around with yourself. ”
Shake well, love, in a bad time,
Schob did not have a chance to joke with a Muscovite.
Where is Katrusya to fornicate?
I spent the night,
Got up early
Hastened to Moscow;
Already gurk - winter has fallen.
Fistula field zaveryuha,
Ide Katerina
Lichaks are famously hard! -
I in one suite.
Ide Katrya, shkandibaє;
To marvel - it's a dream ...
Libon, Muscovites are coming...
Famously! .. my heart is million -
I flew, I shot,
Pita: "Chi don't know
My black-haired Ivan?
And you: "We don't know."
I, obviously, like Muscovites,
Smіyutsya, fry:
"Ah yes, baba! oh yes ours!
Who will not be fooled!
Katherine wondered:
“I see, bachu, people!
Do not cry, sinu, my dashing!
What will be, then you will be.
I go further - I went more ..
And maybe, th zustrіnu;
I will give you, my dove,
And I'll die myself."
Roar, stack of khurtovin,
Kitten, right by the field;
Stand Katrya in the middle of the field,
She gave way to tears.
The finisher is tired
De de de pozikhaє;
If only Katerina would cry,
Those tears are no more.
Surprised at the child:
Wash away with tears
Chervonie, like a flower
Lies under the dew.
Katerina smiled,
Smiled hard:
Kolo heart - like a reptile
Black turned around.
She marveled all around;
Bachit - black fox,
And under the forest, the edge of the road,
Libon, hello chicken.
"Let's go, blue, it's getting dark,
If let into the hut;
And do not let it go, then outside
We'll spend the night.
We’ll spend the night under the hut,
Sinu my Ivane!
Where are you going to spend the night
How will you not become me?
With dogs, my little tit,
Get outside!
Dogs are angry, bite,
But don't speak
Do not tell laughing ...
With dogs, eat and drink ...
My bad little head!
What do you want me to do?”
An orphan dog gets his share,
May a good word in the world of an orphan;
Yogo b "yut and bark, cast into captivity,
That nobody about matir does not sleep on smіh,
And Yvasya to sleep, to sleep in advance,
Don't let your child live to see it.
Who are the dogs barking at in the street?
Who is naked, hungry under the mud to sit?
Who is to drive a lobur?
Black bastards...
One yoga share - black eyebrows,
Don't let people wear it quietly.
IV
Popid mountain, fury, valley,
Mov tі didi vysokocholi,
Dubi from the hetman stand.
Yaru has rowing, verbi in a row,
Rates under krieg in captivity
І rinsing - take water ...
Mov pocotiolo - red,
It's gloomy - the sun is busy.
The wind blows; how do you feel -
There is nothing: a creak of white ...
But only the fox died.
Roar, fistula zaveryuha.
The fox curled;
Like those sea, white field
The snow slumped.
Viyshov s hati karbivnichiy,
Sob lіs look around,
Ta de tobi! so dashing
What is not visible th world.
“Yege, bachu, yak fugue!
Tzur youmu I am a fox!
Drink in the hut ... What is there?
From their dignity!
Unkind dispersed them,
Mov right behind the case.
Nichipore! look away,
Yaks got better!” “What, Muscovites? ..
De Muscovites? “What are you? be shy!"
"De Muscovites, swans?"
"That he, wonder."
Katerina flew
I did not dress.
“Mabut, good Moscow region
Into the tyamka I was given!
For at night only I know
Cho moskal kliche.
Through stumps, notes,
Fly, lead the way,
Bosa became the middle way,
Rubbed into sleeves.
And Muscovites їy nazustrich,
Yak alone, on horseback.
“My goodness! my share!"
Until їх ... if you look -
In front of the senior їde.
“Love my Ivane!
My heart is shaking!
Why are you so messed up?”
That to yoga ... for stirrups ...
And I wondered
That spurs the horse to the sides.
“What are you hiding?
Hiba forget Katerina?
Hiba don't you know?
Marvel, my dove,
Gaze at me:
I Katrusya your love.
Why are you tearing the stirrups?”
And you spoil the horse's wine,
Don't bother.
“Strive, my dove!
Look - I'm not crying.
Didn't you know me, Ivane?
Heart, look
By God, I am Katrusya!
"Fool, get off!
Take the crazy one away!"
“My God! Ivan!
Are you leaving me?
And you swore an oath!
"Take it away!
What have you become?
"Whom? take me?
Why, tell me, my dove?
Who wants to give
Your Katrya, what's up to you
I went to the garden
Your Katrya, what is for you
Sina gave birth?
My father, my brother!
Don't be afraid!
I will become your hired hand…
Fuck the other one...
With the whole world ...
I will forget
What if she hooted,
Why is your sin small,
It became a cover…
Pokritkoy ... what rubbish!
Why am I dying!
Leave me, forget me
Don't give up.
Won't you leave?
My heart
Don't stick around me...
I will bring you son."
I threw stirrups
But in the hut. turn around,
Bring youma sin.
Unhappy, crying
Heart child.
“Stop it, look up!
Where are you? choking?
Utik! .. mute! .. Sina, sina
Daddy is pissed off!
My God!.. My child!
Where am I going with you?
Muscovites! doves!
Take it with you;
Do not hesitate, swans:
Vono is an orphan;
Take yoga and give it
Senior for sin,
Take yoga ... I’ll leave,
Like a father leaving
Bodai did not throw yoga
Dashing year!
Sin to you in the light of God
Mother gave birth;
Virostay same on smіh people! -
I put it on the tracks.
Stay kidding dad
And I already joked.
The one in the forest from the way, like hanging!
But the child remains
Crying for the poor... And for the Muscovites
Baiduzhe; passed.
Won and good; that on famously
The foxes felt it.
Big Katrya barefoot,
Biga and voice;
Then curse your Ivan,
Now cry, then ask.
Vibіgaє on vlissya;
Surprised all around
She is in the yar ... live ... in the middle of the stav
Movchki stumbled.
"God, take my soul,
And you are my body!”
Fur coat in the water! ..
Popid ice
Get gurgled.
Chornobriva Katerina
Found what she was kidding.
Blowing wind over the stave -
I was gone.
It’s not the wind, it’s not violent,
What oak lamai;
It’s not dashing, it’s not hard,
What mother is dying;
Do not be orphans, little children,
What did they hide a little:
I got good glory,
The grave is gone.
Laugh at evil people
Small orphan;
Ville slide to the grave -
Rest heartily.
And to that, to that in the world,
What happened to youmu
Whom father and not bachiv,
Mother freaked out?
What happened to the baystryukov?
Who to speak to him?
No homeland, no khatini;
Ways, peeps, grief ...
Mrs. personal, black eyebrows ..
Nascho? Schob knew!
I scammed, I didn’t hide ...
Bodai shed!
V
Ishov kobzar to Kiev
That siv calm down,
hung with hoops
Yogo shakes.
Male child colo yogo
On the sun kunya,
And at the same time the old kobzar
I with at with and spіvaє.
Who goes, where - do not miss:
Who is a bagel, who is a penny;
Who is old, but girls
Mikhonosh's little step.
Black-browed wonder -
I barefoot, and naked.
“Dala, - it seems, - eyebrows,
She did not give a share! ”
Ide way to Kiev
Berlin gear,
And in Berlin gentlemen
With pan and sem "єyu.
Leaning against the elders -
Kuryava kick.
Pobіg Ivas, more from the end
Wave your hand.
Give pennies to Ivasev,
Wonder, sir.
And pan looking ... turning around ..
Knowing, prepostaniya,
Knowing your brown eyes,
Black eyebrows…
Having known the father of his son,
You don't want to take it.
Pita pani, what is your name?
"Іvas", - "What a cute!"
Berlin is devastating, and Ivasya
Kuryava covered ...
They got what they got
Siromahi got up,
Prayed for the retreat of the sun,
We went over the way.
The most common, widespread, in general, fair definition of the founder of the new Ukrainian literature, Taras Shevchenko, is a folk poet; it is worth, however, to think about what is sometimes invested in this.
There were people who considered Shevchenko only a competent songwriter in the folk spirit, only a successor of nameless folk singers known by name. There were reasons for this view. Shevchenko grew up in the folk song element, although, we note, he was cut off from it very early. Not only from his poetic heritage, but also from his stories and diary written in Russian, and from the numerous testimonies of his contemporaries, we see that the poet knew and passionately loved his native folklore.
In his creative practice, Shevchenko often resorted to folk song form, sometimes completely preserving it and even interspersing entire stanzas from songs into his poems. Shevchenko sometimes felt like a really folk singer-improviser. His poem “Oh, don’t drink beer, copper” - about the death of a Chumak in the steppe - everything is sustained in the manner of Chumat songs, moreover, it can even be considered a variant of one of them.
We know the masterpieces of Shevchenko's "female" lyrics, poems-songs written from a female or maiden name, testifying to the extraordinary sensitivity and tenderness of the reincarnated poet, as it were. Such things as “Yakbi mesh chereviki”, “I am a bagata”, “I fell in love”, “I gave birth to my mother”, “I went to the peretik”, of course, they are very similar to folk songs in their system, stylistic and linguistic mode, their epithetics etc., but they differ sharply from folklore in rhythmic and strophic construction. The "Duma" in the poem "Blind" is indeed written in the manner of folk thoughts, but differs from them in the swiftness of the plot movement.
Let us further recall such poems by Shevchenko as “Dream”, “Caucasus”, “Maria”, “Neophytes”, his lyrics, and we will agree that the definition of Shevchenko as a folk poet only in the sense of style, poetic technique, etc., must be rejected. Shevchenko is a folk poet in the sense in which we say this about Pushkin, Mickiewicz, Beranger, Petofi. Here the concept of "folk" is approaching the concepts of "national" and "great".
The first poetic work of Shevchenko that has come down to us - the ballad "Spoiled" ("Cause") - begins completely in the spirit of romantic ballads early XIX century - Russian, Ukrainian and Polish, in the spirit of Western European romanticism:
The wide Dnieper roars and groans,
An angry wind tears the leaves,
Everything below the willow tends to the ground
And the waves are formidable.
And the pale moon at times
Behind the dark cloud wandered.
Like a boat overtaken by a wave,
It floated, then disappeared.
Everything here is from traditional romanticism: an angry wind, and a pale moon peeping out from behind the clouds and like a boat in the middle of the sea, and waves as high as mountains, and willows bending to the very ground ... The whole ballad is built on a fantastic folk motive, which is also characteristic of romantics of both progressive and reactionary tendencies.
But following the lines just quoted are:
Still in the village did not wake up,
The cock of dawn has not yet sung,
Owls in the forest called to each other,
Yes, the ash tree bent and creaked.
“Owls in the Forest” is also, of course, from tradition, from the romantic poetics of the “terrible”. But the ash tree, from time to time creaking under the pressure of the wind, is already a living observation of wildlife. This is no longer folk-song and not bookish, but its own.
Soon after "Spoiled" (presumably 1837) was followed by the famous poem "Katerina". According to its plot, this poem has a number of predecessors, with Karamzin's "Poor Liza" at the head (not to mention Goethe's "Faust"). But read the speech of her heroes and compare this speech with the speech of Karamzin's Liza and her seducer, take a closer look at Shevchenko's descriptions of nature, life, characters - and you will see how Shevchenko is closer than Karamzin to the earth, and at the same time to his native land. Features of sentimentalism in this poem can only be seen by a person who does not want to notice the harsh truthfulness of her tone and the whole story.
The description of nature, which opens up, is quite realistic. fourth part of the poem:
And on the mountain and under the mountain,
Like elders with a proud head,
Oaks are hundred years old.
Below is a dam, willows in a row,
And a pond covered with a blizzard
And cut a hole in it to take water ...
The sun shone through the clouds
Like a bun, looking down from heaven!
In Shevchenko's original, the sun turns red, like pokotyolo,- according to Grinchenko's dictionary, this is a circle, a children's toy. This is what the young romantic compared the sun with! The word used by M. Isakovsky in his new edition of the translation bun seems like a great find to me.
Shevchenko's lyrics began with such songs-romances as "Why do I have black eyebrows ...", but she more and more acquired the features of a realistic, infinitely sincere conversation about the most cherished - it is enough to recall at least "I really don't care ..." “Fires are burning”, the famous “When I die, bury ...” (the traditional name is “Testament”).
A very characteristic feature of Shevchenko’s poetics are the contrasting phrases that Franko once noticed: “not a share of jart”, “it’s hot to laugh”, “to laugh famously”, “churba in a tavern of a honey-pot circling a supplier”, etc.
His later poems - "Neophytes" (allegedly from Roman history) and "Mary" (on the gospel story) - are replete with realistic everyday details. Evangelical Mary he has "outside the greater strand" for a festive burnous for old Joseph.
St. Petersburg: in Type. E. Fischer, 1840. 114 p., engraved frontispiece. In semi-coloured binding of the era. 17.5x11 cm. The etching at the beginning of the book (a folk singer - a kobzar with a guide boy) was made according to a drawing by Vasily Sternberg. "Kobzar" (in modern spelling Ukrainian Kobzar; in the spelling of Shevchenko's lifetime editions Kobzar) is the name of a collection of poetic works by Taras Shevchenko. For the first time, "Kobzar" was published in 1840 in St. Petersburg with the assistance of Yevgeny Grebyonka. The collection includes eight works: "Perebendya", "Katerina", "Poplar", "Thought" ("Why do I need black eyebrows"), "To Osnovyanenko", "Ivan Pidkov", "Taras Night" and "My Thoughts, Thoughts my, woe is with you”, written especially for this collection, and being, as it were, an epigraph not only to this edition, but also to the entire work of Taras Shevchenko. After the publication of this collection, Taras Shevchenko himself began to be called a kobzar. Even Taras Shevchenko himself, after some of his stories, began to sign "Kobzar Darmogray". The first "Kobzar" had the most attractive appearance of all lifetime publications: good paper, convenient format, clear type. A notable feature of this "Kobzar" is the etching at the beginning of the book based on a drawing by Vasily Sternberg: a folk singer - a kobzar with a guide boy. This is not an illustration for a separate work, but a generalized image of a kobzar, after which the collection is named. The first edition of "Kobzar" is printed on a yaryzhka (spelling Ukrainian language based on Russian reading rules); Shevchenko adhered to it in most manuscripts and lifetime editions:
Bo you lyho on retinue on laughter spawned,
Weeping tears ... not flooded,
Not taken out to sea, not washed out in poly? ...
Don’t torture, people - why hurt me?
The second edition was published in 1844, supplemented by the poem "Gaidamaki". The release of the first "Kobzar", even curtailed by the tsarist censorship, is an event of great literary and national significance. Only a few copies of the Kobzar by T.G. have survived in the world. Shevchenko 1840. National treasure of independent Ukraine. Extreme rarity!
Bibliographic sources:
1. Smirnov–Sokolsky N.P. My Library, Vol. 1, M., "Book", 1969, No. 1283;
Who has not read these lines, written by Taras Grigorievich himself: I am the son of a serf, Grigory Shevchenko. Born in 1814, February 25, in the village of Kirilovka, Zvenigorod district, Kiev province, on the estate of a landowner. Having lost my father and mother in the eighth year of my life, I took refuge in the school of the parish deacon, in the form of a schoolboy-pikhacha. These schoolchildren in relation to the deacons are the same as the boys sent by their parents or other authorities to be trained by artisans. The master's rights over them have no definite limits; they are complete servants of him. All household work and the fulfillment of all kinds of whims of the owner himself and his household lie on them unconditionally. I leave it to your imagination to imagine what a deacon could demand of me, mind you, a bitter drunkard, and what I had to fulfill with slavish obedience, without having a single creature in the world who would or could take care of my position. Be that as it may, it was only during my two years of hard life in the so-called school that I went through Gramatka, Chaslovets, and, finally, the Psalter. At the end of my school course, the deacon sent me to read, instead of himself, a psalter for the departed serf souls and deigned to pay me a tenth kopeck for this, in the form of encouragement. My help gave my stern teacher the opportunity to indulge more than ever in his favorite pastime, together with his friend Ionah Limar, so that, upon returning from the deed of prayer, I almost always found them both dead drunk. My deacon treated cruelly not with me alone, but with others, and we all deeply hated him. His stupid captiousness made us sly and vindictive in relation to him. We cheated him at every opportunity and did him all sorts of dirty tricks. This first despot, whom I came across in my life, instilled in me for the rest of my life a deep disgust and contempt for any violence of one person over another. My childish heart was offended by this offspring of despotic seminaries a million times, and I ended with him the way defenseless people, driven out of patience, end up with revenge and flight. Finding him once insensibly drunk, I used his own weapon against him - the rod, and, as far as my childish strength was, I repaid him for all his cruelties. Of all the belongings of a drunkard sexton, the most precious thing always seemed to me to be some booklet with kunshtik, that is, engraved pictures, probably of the worst work. I did not consider it a sin, or could not resist the temptation to steal this jewel, and at night I fled to the town of Lysyanka. There I found myself a new teacher in the person of a painter-deacon, who, as I soon became convinced, differed very little in his rules and customs from my first mentor. 
For three days I patiently dragged buckets of water from the Tikacha River up the mountain and rubbed copper paint on an iron sheet. On the fourth day, my patience failed me, and I fled to the village of Tarasovka to the sexton-painter, who was famous in the neighborhood for the image of the Great Martyr Nikita and Ivan the Warrior. I turned to this Apelles, with firm determination to endure all trials, as I thought then, inseparable from any science. To assimilate his great art, even in the smallest degree, I passionately desired. But - alas! - Apelles looked carefully at my left hand and refused me flatly. He announced to me, to my extreme chagrin, that I had no capacity for anything, not even for the militancy or cooperage. Having lost all hope of ever becoming even a mediocre house painter, I returned to my native village with a contrite heart. I had in mind a modest fate, to which my imagination attached, however, a kind of ingenuous charm: I wanted to become, as Homer puts it, "a pure shepherd of the flocks" so that, although behind a huge gang, I could read my kind stolen book with kunshtik. But that didn't work for me either. The landowner, who had just inherited his father's property, needed an efficient boy, and the ragged vagabond schoolboy ended up right in a teak jacket, in the same trousers, and, finally, in the room Cossacks. The invention of indoor cossacks belongs to the civilizers of the Zadneprovskaya Ukraine - the Poles; the landowners of other nationalities adopted and continue to adopt the Cossacks from them, as an invention, undeniably clever. In a land that was once a Cossack, making a Cossack tame from childhood is the same as in Lapland subjugating a swift-legged deer to the arbitrariness of a man ... The Polish landlords of the past kept the Cossacks, in addition to servility, even as musicians and dancers. The Cossacks played merry, ambiguous songs for the amusement of the gentlemen, composed by the folk muse out of grief under a drunken hand, and set off in front of the gentlemen, as the Poles say, here and there and there. The newest representatives of the noble gentry, with a sense of enlightened pride, call this the patronage of the Ukrainian people, which, supposedly, their ancestors always distinguished themselves. My landowner, as a Russian German, looked at the Cossack woman with a more practical look and, patronizing my people in his own way, made it my duty only to remain silent and immobile in the corner of the hall until his voice was heard commanding me to put down the pipe standing right next to him or pour a glass of water in front of his nose. Due to my innate impertinence of character, I violated the master's order, singing in a barely audible voice the dull songs of Haidamaka and stealthily copying the pictures of the Suzdal school that adorned the panorama. I drew with a pencil, which - I admit it without any conscience - I stole from the clerk. My master was an active man: he constantly traveled first to Kyiv, then to Vilna, then to Petersburg, and dragged me behind him in the wagon train, to sit in the hallway, to pipe, and similar needs. It cannot be said that I was weary of my then position: only now it terrifies me and seems to me like some kind of wild and incoherent dream. Probably, many of the Russian people will sometime, in my opinion, look at their past. Traveling with my master from one inn to another, I took advantage of every opportunity to steal a popular print from the wall and in this way made myself a precious collection. My special favorites were historical heroes, such as Nightingale the Robber, Kulnev, Kutuzov, Cossack Platov and others. However, it was not the thirst for acquisition that controlled me, but an irresistible desire to copy from them as faithful copies as possible. Once, during our stay in Vilna, in 1829, on December 6, pan and pani went to a ball in the so-called resources (noble assembly), on the occasion of the namesake of the deceased Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich in the Bose. Everything in the house calmed down, fell asleep. I lit a candle in a secluded room, unwrapped my stolen treasures, and, selecting the Cossack Platov from among them, began to reverently copy. Time flew by for me imperceptibly. I had already reached the little Cossacks, prancing around the hefty hooves of the general's horse, when the door opened behind me, and my landowner, who had returned from the ball, entered. He furiously tore my ears and slapped me - not for my art, no! (he did not pay attention to art) - but for the fact that I could burn not only the house, but also the city. The next day he ordered the coachman Sidorka to give me a good beating, which was done with due diligence. In 1832 I turned eighteen years old, and since my landowner's hopes for my lackey promptness did not come true, he, heeding my relentless request, contracted me for four years of various pictorial affairs to a guild master, a certain Shiryaev, in St. Petersburg. Shiryaev combined in himself all the qualities of a deacon-Spartan, a deacon-painter and another deacon-chiromantic; but, despite all the oppression of his triple genius, I, on bright spring nights, ran to the Summer Garden to draw from the statues that adorn this straightforward creation of Peter. In one of these sessions, I met the artist Ivan Maksimovich Soshenok, with whom I still have the most sincere brotherly relations. On the advice of Soshenok, I began to try watercolor portraits from life. For numerous, dirty samples, my other fellow countryman and friend, the Cossack Ivan Nichiporenko, the serf of our landowner, patiently served as a model for me. Once the landowner saw my work at Nichiporenko's, and he liked it so much that he began to use me to take portraits of his beloved mistresses, for which he sometimes rewarded me with a whole ruble of silver. In 1837, Soshenko introduced me to the conference secretary of the Academy of Arts, V. I. Grigorovich, with a request to release me from my miserable fate. Grigorovich conveyed his request to V. A. Zhukovsky. He made a preliminary deal with my landowner and asked K. P. Bryullov to paint a portrait of him, Zhukovsky, in order to play him in a private lottery. The great Bryullov immediately agreed, and soon the portrait of Zhukovsky was ready for him. Zhukovsky, with the help of Count M. Yu. Vielgorsky, arranged a lottery of 2,500 rubles in banknotes, and my freedom was bought at this price, in 1838, on April 22. From the same day I began to attend classes at the Academy of Arts and soon became one of my favorite students - comrades Bryullov. In 1844 I was awarded the title of free artist. About my first literary experiments, I can only say that they began in the same Summer Garden, on bright, moonless nights. The strict Ukrainian muse for a long time shied away from my taste, perverted by life at school, in the landowner's hall, in inns and in city apartments; but, when the breath of freedom returned to my feelings the purity of the first years of childhood, spent under the wretched fear of the father, she, thanks to her, hugged and caressed me on a foreign side. Of my first, weak experiments, written in the Summer Garden, only one ballad by Cause has been printed. How and when the poems that followed it were written, I now feel no desire to expand on this. Short story my life, sketched by me in this discordant story to please you, to tell the truth, cost me more than I thought. How many lost years! how many faded flowers! And what did I buy from fate with my efforts - not to perish? Almost one terrible comprehension of his past. It is terrible, it is all the more terrible for me because my brothers and sister, whom it was hard for me to remember in my story, are still serfs. Yes, sir, they are still serfs!
After a fourteen-year stay abroad, Karl Pavlovich Bryullov arrived in St. Petersburg, already preceded by the glory of his Pompeii. The halo that surrounded him was especially dazzling at that time: Bryullov was not called anything other than "Charlemagne". Walter Scott called "The Last Day of Pompeii" an "epopee", Gogol - "a complete, universal creation" of art; Zhukovsky and Glinka, Belinsky and Herzen bowed before Bryullov; Pushkin dedicated poems to him and on his knees begged the artist for one of his drawings.
Miracle hero! - spoke about Bryullov Shevchenko.
The whole academy was fanatically carried away by Bryullov, they did not talk about anything else, but about Bryullov. They told each other how, after each new portrait or painting by Bryullov, the conference secretary of the Academy, Vasily Ivanovich Grigorovich, asked the artist for permission to take his new work to his apartment, locked himself with a key and sat in front of him for two days, not taking his eyes off him. All this was good-naturedly believed by the narrator himself and his listeners. When Bryullov returned to Russia, in St. Petersburg circles among figures of art and literature they were already talking about a young and gifted serf youth who needed help. Musician and composer Mikhail Yuryevich Vielgorsky, a friend of Pushkin and Glinka, Zhukovsky and Batyushkov, Gogol and Griboyedov, having met the young Shevchenko, was captivated by his talent. In the house of Vielgorsky on Mikhailovskaya Square, musical meetings were held, which were attended by Glinka and Bryullov. Once Bryullov went to Soshenko's apartment. At this time, Ivan Maksimovich was Taras, and the great artist immediately drew attention to his intelligent face.
Is this a sitter or a servant? - Bryullov asked when Taras left.
Neither one nor the other, - answered Ivan Maksimovich, immediately telling the story of the young man.
Barbarism! - Bryullov whispered and thought, then asked to show the drawings of Taras. For a long time he looked at the mask of Laocoön, copied by Shevchenko, raised his head and asked:
Only some time later, Shevchenko found out that Soshenko's guest was none other than the "Great Karl".
Why didn't you tell me? - Taras was upset.
At least I would look at him. And then I thought it was just some gentleman! Will he visit you again sometime? My God, my God! How would I even look at him from a distance! You know, when I walk down the street, I think about him all the time and look at the passers-by, looking for him between them with my eyes ...
One fine morning, Soshenko finally introduced Taras to Bryullov. Friends came to the artist's apartment, to his favorite "red room", with a red sofa and red curtains through which the bright sun shone. The walls were hung with weapons and oriental decorations. Karl Pavlovich met them in a red robe. He looked over the drawings brought by Taras and affectionately praised them. Once Soshenko, having come to Bryullov, found Zhukovsky and Vielgorsky in his studio. Seeing Ivan Maksimovich, Bryullov seemed to remember something, smiled and took Zhukovsky into another room. Half an hour later they went back to the workshop, and Bryullov approached Soshenko.
There is a foundation - he said, smiling. And both of them understood well what in question: about the release of Shevchenko.
And then one day in the winter of 1836/37, Bryullov went straight to Engelhardt's apartment. On the evening of the same day, Soshenko went to Bryullov and found him in great annoyance.
Well, what about Engelhardt? - asked Soshenko.
This is the largest pig in Torzhkov's shoes! - Bryullov exclaimed angrily.
What's the matter? Soshenko continued to inquire.
The fact is that tomorrow you go to this amphibian so that he sets a price for your student.
Karl Pavlovich could not contain his indignation. He paced the room silently for a long time, then stopped and spat:
Vandalism!
The next day, Soshenko was to go to Engelhardt for the final terms of the ransom of Taras. However, Ivan Maksimovich was overcome by doubts:
I have seen in my lifetime a lot of different analysis of Russian landowners: both the rich, and the middle class, and the farmers. I even saw those who constantly live in France and England and speak with enthusiasm about the well-being of the farmers and peasants there, and at home they rob the peasant's last sheep. I have seen many originals of this kind. But I have never seen such an original Russian person who would rudely receive Karl Bryullov in his house.
In the end, Soshenko went to the old man Venetsianov for help. After all, Venetsianov, who once organized an art school specifically for the talents of the people, more than once dealt with slave-owning landowners. Venetsianov Ivan Maksimovich, despite the early morning hour, found him at work: he was drawing in ink his own picture "Mother and Child" for the almanac "Morning Dawn". The artist was carried away, but as soon as Soshenko announced the purpose of the visit, Venetsianov put everything aside and began to dress. Returning home, Ivan Maksimovich found Taras at his place. He came to show his new job: a rather complex composition from ancient life, inspired by the reading of Ozerov's tragedy "Oedipus in Athens". Shevchenko was clearly agitated, and his hands were trembling as he unfolded and handed the drawing to Soshenko.
I didn’t have time to draw with a pen ... - As if apologizing, he spoke at the same time.
Boldly and concisely, the arrangement of the three figures depicted in the figure was decided: Oedipus, Antigone, and at a distance Polynices. Soshenko seriously and cordially congratulated his friend on his success. Taras blushed like a girl. Ivan Maksimovich was very touched in Taras by this modesty, which at times could seem timid. He thought like this: “This is a sure sign of talent!” Soshenko advised Taras to read historical works and gave several volumes of History ancient greece, settlements and conquests thereof, from the primitive state of this country to the division of the Macedonian state”, the works of John Gillis, translated from English by Alexei Oginsky. Taras grabbed the books. He always retained this passionate, insatiable love for the book; as soon as he took in his hands a volume in a tightly opening leather binding or an uncut, in a thin pinkish cover book of a magazine, he already experienced excitement, as if a door to an unknown world were opening before him. Some books brought him bright joy, others caused pain or indignation, others made him think deeply, he threw the fourth with contempt, rewarding the authors without any hesitation with the most harsh epithets ... Shevchenko learned early on to independently evaluate what he read, regardless of "conventional" opinion, nor with the judgments of "authorities". Maybe he sometimes - at first - was mistaken in this, but on the other hand he always nurtured his assessment himself, verifying it with his own mind, his own life experience.
Yes, you know... - suddenly said, smiling, Taras.
What? Soshenko asked.
When I told Shiryaev that you took me to Karl Pavlovich and showed him my drawings, and that Karl Pavlovich ... yes, by the way, I can’t believe it myself ... like some kind of dream ...
Does your master not believe that Bryullov praised your drawings?
Yes, he does not believe at all that I saw Karl Pavlovich ...
Shevchenko wanted to continue, but at that moment Alexey Gavrilovich Venetsianov entered the room and, smiling good-naturedly, said:
Well, nothing special! The landowner is like a landowner! True, he kept me in the anteroom for an hour—yes, that’s their custom. And the custom is the same law ... He received me in his office. I didn’t like his office: everything is luxurious, expensive, and magnificent, but this magnificence is tasteless!
Well, what about our business? - interrupted Soshenko impatiently.
And Taras's mouth went dry from tense expectation.
First I spoke to him about education in general and about philanthropy in particular, - continued Venetsianov calmly, still with the same good-natured grin.
The landowner listened to me in silence for a long time, and then interrupted: “Yes, tell me directly, what do you and your Bryullov want from me? You know, Bryullov just borrowed me yesterday - after all, this is a real savage! - and at the same time he began to laugh loudly, so that I was embarrassed, but soon recovered and quite clearly and calmly explained the whole matter to him. “That’s what they would say a long time ago! Mr. Engelhardt told me smugly. - It's completely understandable. And that is philanthropy! What kind of philanthropy can be here? I need money - and nothing else. Do you want to know the real price? Is that how I understand you?" I confirmed that indeed he understood me quite correctly. “Well, here’s my decisive price for you: two and a half thousand rubles. Do you agree? He, my Taras, is a craftsman, necessary at home ... ”Here he was about to say something else to me, but I only answered that I agreed, quickly bowed and left.
And here it is in front of you! - finished the old man, smiling, although it was evident that the bitterness from the unpleasant visit had settled heavily in his soul.
V.A. Zhukovsky. Portrait by K.P. Bryullov.
A new difficulty arose: where to get the two and a half thousand rubles demanded by Engelhardt? It was an unheard-of price for those times. The Society for the Encouragement of Artists, which helped Shevchenko financially, could not release such a large sum from its meager funds. In February 1837, the committee of the society wrote in its resolution: “On the occasion of the presentation of benefits to young artists Borisov, Petrovsky, Nersesov, Shevchenko ... it is necessary: to postpone their judgment until a special meeting of the committee, in which the rules have to be determined for the future, regarding the assistance provided to artists. Bryullov and Zhukovsky got down to business. Zhukovsky knew at that time not only the drawings, but also the poems of Taras Shevchenko. It was decided that Bryullov would paint a portrait of Zhukovsky that he had long conceived, the portrait would be raffled off; for this money, Taras will receive the long-awaited freedom. On Wednesday, March 31, 1837, two months after the tragic death of Pushkin, artists, writers, musicians gathered at Bryullov's apartment to honor the memory of the great Russian poet. Kraevsky read his unpublished works: "Mermaid", "Stone Guest", "Tazita". At that evening, Bryullov told Mokritsky that the cause of Shevchenko's release had moved on.
“After dinner, Bryullov called me. He had Zhukovsky ... Our cause, it seems, will take a good turn ... Today, a portrait of Zhukovsky has been started.
Days and months stretched languidly in anticipation of freedom. Shiryaev was still very reluctant to allow Taras to attend Soshenko, Bryullov, drawing classes. I had to resort to various tricks. When Soshenko, for example, came to Shiryaev with a request to release Taras for a month, replacing him in the artel with an ordinary painter, the contractor answered:
Why not replace? Can. Painting work has not yet begun. And then excuse me. He is my draftsman. As for the draftsman, you yourself know what it means in our art. Yes, what do you think? Will he be able to appoint a worker for himself?
I will put a worker for you, - Soshenko insisted.
You? - Vasily Grigorievich was sincerely surprised. - Yes, from what self-interest you are fussing?
Yes, nothing to do. For my own pleasure... - Ivan Maksimovich answered calmly.
Soshenko undertook to draw a portrait of Shiryaev for the sake of Taras. At the same time, the following conversation took place.
How much do you charge for a portrait? - asked Shiryaev.
What is the portrait answered Soshenko. - And what a giver. For example, I will not take more than a hundred rubles of silver from you.
Well, no, father, take a hundred rubles from anyone, but if they take ten from us, it’s still all right.
So we'd better do it like this - stretching out his hand to Shiryaev, concluded Soshenko. - Give me two months for your draftsman - here's a portrait for you.
For two? - Shiryaev said thoughtfully, - Two too many, I can't. You can for a month.
Well, at least for a month. Agree. - And they, like horse traders, shook hands.
Beggar in the cemetery. Etching T.G. Shevchenko.
The portrait of Shiryaev was duly painted by Ivan Maksimovich in payment for Taras's monthly vacation. The servitude became so unbearable that Shevchenko even attempted suicide. Only the warm, sympathetic attitude of his friends saved the young man, and Taras kept Zhukovsky's letter for a long time, which kept him from a crazy step. All these experiences ruined my health. Taras fell dangerously ill. He was placed in the hospital at the orphanage of St. Mary Magdalene, near the Tuchkov Bridge, and for eight days he was unconscious, between life and death. Friends often visited the hospital. And every time they learned from the nurse that Taras was still on fire.
What doesn't come to mind?
No, father.
Delirious?
Only one repeats: red ... red ...
And nothing else?
Nothing, father.
Bryullov, worried, constantly asked Soshenko, Mokritsky:
-Well, is Taras better?
He began to come to his senses - Joyfully announced, finally, Soshenko.
Moonlit night on the Aral Sea. Drawing by T.G. Shevchenko.
A young, strong organism overcame a serious illness, against which at that time medicine did not know any radical remedies. Despite the doctor's prohibition to disturb the patient, conversations with Soshenko and Mokritsky sometimes moved Taras to tears. He was drawing a picture of returning to Shiryaev - and he, weakened by illness, began to cry like a child ... The Society for the Encouragement of Artists these days helped Taras as much as possible. In the expense report for 1837, the following entry was preserved: “May 30. Boarder Alekseev and student Shevchenko for medicine - 50 rubles.” The patient was already moving, holding on to the bed. He asked Soshenko:
Ivan Maksimovich asked if the patient could bring books.
Do not bring, - objected the doctor. - All the more serious reading.
A.E. Uskov. Portrait by T.G. Shevchenko.
Then Soshenko began here, in the hospital ward, to give Taras lessons in linear perspective, armed with a compass, a triangle and drawings of Professor Vorobyov's perspective course. Bryullov's work on the portrait of Zhukovsky was completed. However, a series of delays dragged out the lottery. Zhukovsky postponed his departure abroad from day to day and hurried Yulia Fedorovna Baranova, who was supposed to pay part of the money for lottery tickets:
“A historical review of the charitable deeds of Yulia Fedorovna and various other circumstances, curious incidents and all sorts of special things. Matthew's essay. This is Mr. Shevchenko. He says to himself: I would like to paint a picture, but the master orders revenge on the upper room. He has a brush in one hand and a broom in the other, and he is in great difficulty. Yulia Fedorovna is above him in the clouds. This is Bryullov painting a portrait from Zhukovsky. Both have laurel wreaths. In the distance Shevchenko sweeps the upper room. In the clouds Yulia Fedorovna. She thinks to herself: what a handsome man this Matvey is. And Vasily Andreevich, hearing this, inwardly thanks Yulia Fyodorovna and says to himself: I, perhaps, am ready to be Maxim, and Demyan, and Trifon, if only we can redeem Shevchenko. “Don't worry, Matyusha,” Yulia Fedorovna says from the clouds, “we will ransom Shevchenko.”
And Shevchenko, know yourself sweeping the upper room. But it's in last time. Zhukovsky in the form of Fate proclaims the winning ticket. In one hand is his card; and in the other, Shevchenko's vacation pay. In the distance is a portrait of Zhukovsky... Shevchenko grew up with joy and plays the violin kachucha... Yulia Fyodorovna descended from the clouds, in which only radiance remained. In her hand is a bag of money (2500 rubles) ... Note. Yulia Fyodorovna is in such a hurry to raise money because Matvey will soon go abroad and must finish this business before he leaves ... These are Shevchenko and Zhukovsky; both tumble with joy. And Yulia Fedorovna blesses them from the clouds. The lottery, in which the portrait was raffled off, took place on Saturday, April 16, 1838, in the house near Vielgorsky, after the concert, which was attended by the whole "light". The money was finally collected, handed over to the landowner, and Shevchenko's "free" was signed:
“In the year of one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight of April, the twenty-second day, I, the undersigned Colonel Pavel Vasilyev, son of Engelhardt, who was dismissed from the service of the guard, released my serf Taras Grigoriev, the son of Shevchenko, forever to the will of my serf, Taras Grigoriev, the son of Shevchenko, who was inherited by me after the late parent of my real Privy Councilor Vasily Vasilyevich Engelhardt, recorded according to the revision of the Kiev province, Zvenigorod district, in the village of Kirilovka, to which I, Engelhardt, and my heirs no longer care and do not interfere in anything, and he, Shevchenko, is free to choose the kind of life he wants. Colonel Pavel Vasiliev, son Engelhardt, who was dismissed from the service of the guard, had a hand in this holiday. I testify to the signature of the hand and the leave given by Colonel Engelhardt to his serf Taras Grigoriev, son of Shevchenko, the actual state councilor and cavalier Vasily Andreev, son of Zhukovsky. In the same I testify and sign the professor of the eighth grade K. Bryullov. In the same I testify and sign the Chamberlain and Privy Councilor and Chevalier Count Mikhail Vielgorsky.
The leave was signed, but Shevchenko knew nothing about it. On Sunday, April 24, he received an invitation to come the next day to Bryullov. On April 25, 1838, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, in addition to Bryullov himself, Zhukovsky, Grigorovich, and Vielgorsky gathered in Bryullov’s house. Mokritsky was also present. When Shevchenko came, Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky solemnly handed him a vacation document. “It was nice to see this scene!” Apollon Mokritsky wrote in his diary that day. Here, at Bryullov's, everyone dined, celebrating a joyful event. After dinner, Shevchenko, grabbing his "freestyle", rushed to Soshenko's basement. Ivan Maksimovich, having opened a window to the street, which was flush with the sidewalk, wrote Evangelist Luke. Suddenly, Taras fell into the room, right through the window, as if from the sky. Having knocked over the Luka, he threw himself into the arms of Soshenko, almost knocking him down and shouting loudly:
Freedom! Freedom!
"Trio" - Shevchenko, Zalesky and Turno. Drawing by T.G. Shevchenko.
Immediately after receiving a vacation pay, Shevchenko enters the Academy of Arts as a student of Professor Bryullov. At first, the young artist improved in drawing and composition. He made many watercolor drawings and portraits, drawing attention to the clarity and purity of lines and composition. And soon his successes were noted. Already at the third exam (taken at the end of each third of the academic year) in the spring of 1839, Shevchenko received a silver medal for drawing p. nature. At that time he was a boarder of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists, lived in the hostel of the society, but spent whole days with Bryullov, and often stayed with him and spend the night. Bryullov's personal library was at the complete disposal of Taras. Until dawn, he read Homer and Shakespeare, Walter Scott and Fenimore Cooper, the poetic creations of Dante and Goethe ... At this time, Shevchenko finishes large poems: "Katerina" (which he dedicated to V. A. Zhukovsky - "in memory of April 22, 1838" , that is, the day of signing the "vacation") and "Gaidamaki" (dedicated to V. I. Grigorovich, also "in memory of April 22, 1838"). Finally, Shevchenko decides to publish a collection of his poems, giving it the name "Kobzar". The Kobzar was published in early April 1840. The press greeted him enthusiastically. Belinsky wrote in Otechestvennye Zapiski:
“The name of Mr. Shevchenko, if we are not mistaken, still appears for the first time in Russian literature, and it was all the more pleasant for us to meet him in a book that fully deserves the approval of criticism. Mr. Shevchenko's poems come closest to the so-called folk chants: they are so artless that you can easily mistake them for the folk songs and legends of the Little Russians; this alone speaks a lot in their favor... And for all that, his poems are original: this is the babble of a strong, but poetic soul...”
Female head. 1830. Drawing by T.G. Shevchenko.
The first works of Shevchenko attracted Belinsky with their nationality, artistic originality. With warm lyrical colors, the poet painted the image of a woman, a girl from the people: such are the heroines of "Corrupted" and "Katerina", "The Drowned Woman" and "Poplar", the poem in Russian "Blind"; they passionately seek "share", happiness, but perish in a collision with hostile forces. From the very first steps in literature, the poet, who has become a truly national Kobzar, truthfully revealing the whole abyss of grief and suffering of the working masses, sings of the courage of the struggle, the heroic feat in the name of the people. Shevchenko creates images of brave defenders of the motherland, courageous leaders of the people (historical ballads and poems "Ivan Podkova", "Taras' Night", "Gamalia"). The struggle of the Ukrainian Cossacks against the Turkish, Polish invaders rises under the poet's pen in an emphatically romantic light:
Not three days, not three nights
Our shaker is beating;
From Liman to Troubail
The field is covered in blood...
At that time, the Cossack Taras convenes:
- Atamans-comrades,
My brothers, children!
The early poem "Gaidamaki", published at the end of 1841 as a separate book, is also devoted to the folk-heroic theme. However, the romantic heroes of the "Gaidamaks" - laborer Yarem Galayda, Haidamak leaders Maxim Zaliznyak and Ivan Gonta - are not "strong personalities" cut off from the masses, but genuine people's avengers. The poet depicts the people, draws pictures of the liberation uprising (chapters "Third Roosters", "Bloody Feast", "Feast in Lysyanka"). No wonder many excerpts from the poem have become folk songs:
Eagle flies, blue-gray flies
Yes, under the sky.
Zaliznyak walks dad
Steppes, forests.
Oh, gray-winged flies,
And behind him are the eagles.
Oh, the glorious father is walking,
And behind him - the guys ...
There is no farm, no hut,
No tables, no benches.
Steppe and sea - in the open
Wealth and glory!
Here, as in Shevchenko's lyrical poems, the influence of folk poetry, the richest Ukrainian song folklore, affected. At the same time, Belinsky already noted the originality and originality of Shevchenko's poetry. In many of Shevchenko's poems, the image of a poet-fighter, a folk kobzar, sings of the grief of the people and calls for a fight against despotism, appears. An honorable and important role is assigned to the elder kobzar, for example, in the poem "Gaidamaki". Such a Kobzar, inspiring the people to fight for their rights, their happiness, was Shevchenko himself. New Ukrainian literature took shape later than Russian literature, and the Ukrainian literary language developed later. Even the great Ukrainian philosopher and poet Hryhoriy Skovoroda at the end of the 18th century created his songs, fables and dialogues not in the Ukrainian folk language, but in an artificial mixture of Russian and Church Slavonic languages, only with separate Ukrainian words and phrases:
From when I don’t make fools,
So that I could not lose my liberty,
Be glorious forever, O man, election,
Liberty father, hero Bogdana!
The first classical work of fiction in the Ukrainian folk language is the famous satirical poem by Ivan Petrovich Kotlyarevsky "The Aeneid, turned into the Little Russian language" (its first parts were published in 1798). Outstanding Poet and a playwright associated in his youth with the Decembrist movement, Kotlyarevsky left far behind the Russian parodic poems of Osipov, Vasily Maikov. In his "Aeneid" he paints vivid pictures of folk life, exposes the cruelty of the landowners. In Ukraine, every schoolchild knows the scene in hell from this poem:
Paniv for those there muzzled
I fried zo incix sides,
Why didn't they give people benefits?
I put ix for livestock...
Until now, Kotlyarevsky's plays "Natalka-Poltavka", "Soldier-Sorcerer" do not leave the stage. The poor peasant girl Natalka, her mother Terpilikha (Patient) were the first real human characters in Ukrainian literature. The realistic and democratic tendencies of Kotlyarevsky's work were highly valued by Shevchenko; in one of his first poems, "In the Eternal Memory of Kotlyarevsky", he said:
The kobzar will not die - forever
This glory has risen.
You will be honored for a long time
As long as people are alive;
As long as the sun shines from the sky
You will not be forgotten.
In the twenties and thirties of the 19th century, the fables of Pyotr Gulak-Artemovsky (“Pan and the Dog”, “Fisherman”), Yevgeny Grebenka (“Little Russian Sayings”) appeared, written in the Ukrainian folk language. Nevertheless, Ukrainian poets before Shevchenko only slightly reflected all the variety of social reality; they did not rise to broad realistic generalizations and artistic typification. The same applies to prose and drama of that time. Already after the appearance of the first stories of Gogol, in the thirties, the talented Ukrainian prose writer Grigory Fedorovich Kvitka (under the pseudonym Gritsko Osnovyanenko But he was not free from the sentimental idealization of reality, and subsequently Chernyshevsky, Ivan Franko rightly noted the ideological and artistic limitations of his work. that corvee is a completely justified state in which a happy life of a peasant is possible if only he has a good pan...” Ukrainian literature of the first decades of the 19th century did not reach the level at which Russian literature of that time stood - in the works of Pushkin and Ryleev, Lermontov and Krylov, Gogol and Griboyedov. Shevchenko became the founder of the new Ukrainian literature, the literature of critical realism. He also finally approved the Ukrainian literary language, based on the living, common language of Ukrainians. Shevchenko's predecessors paved the way for his appearance in literature. Conservative circles greeted Shevchenko's poetry with hostility. Nikolai Markevich wrote in his Diary on April 23, 1840:
“The puppeteer criticized Shevchenko, assured that the direction of his Kobzar was harmful and dangerous.”
Even some of Shevchenko's close friends feared that poetry would interfere with his work as an artist. Soshenko says:
More than once I began to persuade Taras to seriously take up painting: “Hey, Taras, change your mind! What are you doing! Why is the unclean one wearing you around? You have such patronage, such a teacher!
True, at times my comrade sat at home, but still he did not do the real thing: either he sings songs, then he writes something for himself, but everything sticks to me:
“Come on, listen, Sokha, will it be good like that?” - Yes, and begins to read me his poems.
"Yes, let go," I say, - you with your worthless verses! Why aren't you doing the real thing?"
Later, friends reproached Soshenko:
Wasn't it a sin for you, Ivan Maksimovich, to persecute Shevchenko for poetry? You should encourage his studies, not scold!
And who knew him - Soshenko usually made excuses, What will make him such a great poet? And yet I stand my ground: if he had thrown his verses then, he would have been an even greater painter ...
However, Shevchenko did not even think of giving up painting. In the same year, when Kobzar appeared, he was again awarded a silver medal by the Council of the Academy “for his first experience in painting with oil paints - the painting “A Beggar Boy Giving Bread to a Dog”; moreover, it is necessary to declare praise to him. Taras received another award the following year for the painting "The Gypsy Fortune Teller". At the same time, he began working on oil paintings "Katerina" and "Peasant Family" and on book illustration. Shevchenko's drawings are found in the collection "One Hundred Russian Writers" (to N. Nadezhdin's story "Willpower"), in the non-periodic progressive edition of Alexander Bashutsky "Ours, written off from nature by Russians" (to the story of Kvitka-Osnovyanenko "Witch Doctor"), in the books of Nikolai Field "Russian commanders" and "History of Suvorov". About Bashutsky's edition, Belinsky wrote:
“Drawings of y.g. Timm, Shchedrovsky and Shevchenko are distinguished by their typical originality and fidelity to reality ... "Ours", as evidence of our success in the matter of taste and art, should please every Russian heart.
Shevchenko's close friendship with Vasily Shternberg began in September 1838, when they settled in a common apartment. Sternberg came from Ukraine, where he spent the summer with Glinka, singer Gulak-Artemovsky, Nikolai Markevich, Viktor Zabila. Through Sternberg, Taras became close to the students of St. Petersburg University and the Medico-Surgical Academy. Together with them he attended musical evenings, which were arranged at the university by Inspector Fitztum. Alexander Ivanovich Fitztum was a very original figure. A modest university inspector and an amateur musician, he enjoyed the special confidence of progressive students. On the recommendation of Fitztum, Shevchenko, after Sternberg's departure in the summer of 1840, settled abroad with his history student Leonard Demsky. Leonard Demsky, a perfect poor man, was an excellently educated man and a fiery democrat. He spoke many ancient and new languages, read Polish and French revolutionary literature together with Shevchenko, and successfully taught Taras French. Demecius, who dreamed of "surpassing Lelewel", was mortally ill and soon died of consumption in Shevchenko's arms. This death hit Taras hard. “Only the righteous die so calmly, and Demsky belonged to the host of the righteous,” he wrote. The small library of historical and political literature left after the death of a comrade passed to Shevchenko, and for a long time he studied the books selected by his friend. Shevchenko dreamed of escaping at least for a while from the stuffy Nikolaev prison, breathing in the air of at least relative “freedom”. He could most likely count on a trip abroad to Italy, provided by the Academy of Arts for "improvement in art." So Sternberg and Aivazovsky went on a trip abroad. On the deck of the Hercules steamer in Kronstadt, the friends drank a bottle of champagne, and the happy young men departed for Italy, for Rome. This was in July 1840. And two years later, Sternberg wrote to Taras from Rome: “God grant you success in order to be with us sooner. Vasily Ivanovich (Grigorovich) will help you. Let's go follow him." At the beginning of 1843, Shevchenko informed the Ukrainian writer Ya.G. Kukharenko: "I'm going abroad in March." However, he never carried out his intention. But in the spring, as soon as classes at the academy ended, Shevchenko decided to go to Ukraine, to his native places.
Illustrations for "Virsham" by T.G. Shevchenko 1844.
History of creation and work on the manuscript
I am not a despicable slave in this life:
I am the conductor of that fire,
that moves the whole universe,
And it pours from the sky on me!
A. Veltman
Think my, think my,
Famously me with you!
T. Shevchenko
T.G. Shevchenko. self-portrait. 1843.
Turning to archival materials (department of manuscripts of the Kiev state institute literature named after T.G. Shevchenko Academy of Sciences of Ukraine), where to this day there are drawings by Bashilov and de Balmain for Virches, it is very important to understand the significance of illustrations, both for the work of the artists themselves and for the development of the illustrative art of the 1840s proper. One can only wonder why Shevchenko's "Verses" have not yet been published and why this work has not been introduced into the scientific and artistic circles. It cannot be said that the researchers were not at all interested in this handwritten edition. One way or another, many literary critics, or rather, Shevchenko scholars, touched him.
Ya.P. Balmain. Initial "O" to the poem "Gamalia".
All articles are mostly written in Ukrainian, with the exception of one. The peculiarity of these articles is that they focus on the work and significance of the writer Shevchenko. The illustrations of artists, if they are considered, are only fragmentary, as part of their biography associated with the work of a talented Ukrainian poet, or an interesting digression into the history of the creation of the manuscript is given. All this, of course, is important, but does not at all reveal the meaning of the illustrations themselves and the role of artists in the interpretation of T.G. Shevchenko. In fact, despite the sufficient popularity of drawings in certain literary circles, this pictorial material is introduced into scientific use for the first time in this book. Bashilov's appeal to Shevchenko's work is not accidental. Surely he was familiar with the poet's book of poems "Kobzar" (1840). In addition, in the anthology "Molodik" for 1843, Shevchenko's poems "Dumka", "N. Markevich”, ballad “Drowned”. Bashilov also collaborated in the same almanac. By the time he started working on illustrations, Bashilov was already prepared professionally, having behind him experience in the design of literary and artistic almanacs (Molodik, Morning Star) and books printed at the university printing house. Perhaps the idea to create drawings for Shevchenko's poetry came to the two brothers Mikhail Bashilov and Jacob de Balmain at the de Balmain estate in Linowice.
"Verses". T.G. Shevchenko. 1844.
In any case, this idea was embodied, and the manuscript with illustrations was completed in 1844 in Odessa (here, after graduating from Kharkov University, Bashilov worked), as de Balmain reports in a letter to his friend Viktor Zakrevsky: “I send you, dear Victor, the fruits of our works: mine and Mikhail Bashilov. All the main creations of Taras with vignettes. They are written in Latin letters so that Taras's poetry can be seen abroad and so that everyone can read it, and first of all, the Poles. This is not a gift to you, but is sent only for preservation in case Taras himself arrives, to whom this work is dedicated, and he can do with it what he pleases.
Shmuttitul to "Kobzar". 1840.
Keep it in due care. I choose you as a person who feels and understands the meaning of many vignettes even without explanation. I rely on you like a stone mountain."
Ya.P. Balmain. The battle of the Cossacks with the Poles. 1844.
It is very strange that among Shevchenko scholars there are discrepancies about the writing of the text of poems in manuscript. It is written in Ukrainian in Latin letters. The Latin spelling is indicated in the letter by de Balmain himself. Another thing becomes clear: the authors of the illustrations planned to publish the book abroad, most likely in Poland, “so that everyone can read it.” Yakov Petrovich de Balmain (1813-1845) received his initial education in the family estate, the village of Linovitsakh, Piryatinek district of the Poltava province, and then in the Nizhyn gymnasium of higher sciences, where N.V. Gogol and N.V. Puppeteer. After the gymnasium, he entered the Belgorod Lancers Regiment, from there he was transferred to the rank of headquarters captain as an adjutant to General Leaders in the Caucasus, where he died. According to some reports, Yakov Petrovich studied for a short time with K.I. Rabus, who was not only a painter, but also an excellent draftsman. Balmain mastered the general concepts of perspective-spatial construction, which he later successfully used in his interiors and other compositions (Kornilova A.V. The world of landscape drawing. Russian landscape graphics late XVIII- the first half of the 19th century. L.. 1990. p. 180, 182, 188). The letter of J. de Balmain was found by the gendarmes during the search and arrest of Zakrevsky in 1848. During interrogation in III Division he replied that he had seen Shevchenko's 1845 book. The manuscript itself with illustrations was confiscated by the III Department in 1847 during the arrest of the historian N.I. Kostomarov in the case of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. She was in the affairs of the III Branch until 1917, then disappeared again and appeared only in 1924.
Ya.P. Balmain. Provincial masquerade. 1840.
Before Kostomarov, the book visited the assistant curator of the Kiev educational district M. Yuzefovich. Kostomarov mentioned this during interrogation. Answering the question: “Who copied and illustrated the named book?”, He said: “The book was illustrated and rewritten by de Balmain, whom I do not know at all. Yuzefovich had this book.” Whether Shevchenko himself received the “gift” can be confidently answered in the affirmative. During a trip to Little Russia in 1845, among other places, Shevchenko also visited Berezovaya Rudka, where Zakrevsky lived. But the most important thing is that Shevchenko's hand made corrections and notes on the pages of the manuscript. On the last blank pages at the end of the manuscript, the poet wrote two initial lines from the future poem "The Caucasus" (1845), dedicated to the memory of Jacob de Balmain, who died in the Caucasus in the same 1845, as well as the poem "For what we love Bogdan" (1845) . On the one hand, it seems strange why the book changed hands before her arrest in 1847, and was not published immediately after Shevchenko got acquainted with it.
Ya.P. Balmain. Screensaver for the chapter "Titar". 1844.
The question becomes clearer when you learn that the poet was preparing a new edition of the Kobzar and in 1847 wrote a preface to it. Most likely, the new edition was supposed to come out with illustrations by Bashilov and de Balmain, so the book was kept by Kostomarov, who was engaged in publishing books on the type of activity of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood and, obviously, was going to publish a new collection of Shevchenko's poems. It was he who wrote to the poet in 1847 and asked him to send new poems, wanting to include them in a collection illustrated by artists. Of course, these are only our assumptions, but they are quite reasonable, having the right to real life. It is also interesting how the collection is compiled.
Ya.P. Balmain. Two haidamaks in front of the church. 1844.
After each poem or poem there are blank numbered pages, and at the end of the book there are more than twenty of them. This also confirms our idea that the authors of the drawings were counting on the addition of new poems by the poet to the collection. It included previously published works by Shevchenko: "Kobzar" (1840), consisting of eight poems, the poem "Gaidamaki" (1841) and "Gamalia" (1844). The first section (“Kobzar”) was illustrated by Bashilov, the second and third (“Gaidamaki” and “Gamalia”) by de Balmain. The first written response to the manuscript was compiled by the gendarmes.
Ya.P. Balmain. Collection of haidamaks in the oak forest. 1844.
In the inventory of documents confiscated from Kostomarov during the search, we read: “Poems by the artist Shevchenko in two books, written in Ukrainian (Kobzar, published in 1840, was also found in Kostomarov’s possession. One of them is handwritten, excellently illustrated, and the other is printed ).
Ya.P. Balmain. Confederates. Ending. 1844.
The verses included in the manuscript, except for one, are the same as those included in another edition, allowed by the censors. The manuscript remained in Department III until 1917. Then, after the defeat of the department, she ended up in private hands, and then showed up in Kazan with one of the university professors.
Ivan coming from the field. 1844.
At the same time, the Russian captive Austrian foreman A. Vanchura took 75 photographs from the illustrations and in the autumn of 1918 sent the negatives from them to Lvov to the Partnership. Taras Shevchenko. Currently, the manuscript is in the Institute of Literature. T.G. Shevchenko of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine". Already the appearance - a large format (34.3x21.2 cm), a binding made of beautiful dark cherry-colored leather with gold embossing, elegant metal clasps - testifies to the monumentality and festiveness of the design handwritten book. The publication, despite the fact that it was made by two authors, is notable for the great thoughtfulness of the compositional and plastic solution of the illustrations, a certain stylistic unity of the artistic elements decorating the book. All poems and individual chapters begin on a new right page spread, regardless of where the previous part of the text ended. Each work and each chapter has a title, an initial and an ending.
Armed Cossacks. 1844.
The titles are on separate sheets. Each of the artists made an approximately equal number of illustrations. De Balmain made drawings for the poems "Gaidamaki" and "Gamalia" (42 images), they are signed "J. Balmain. Bashilov illustrated poems: “My thoughts, my thoughts”, “Perebendya”, “Poplars”, “Dumka (Why do I have black eyebrows)”, “To Osnovyanenko”, “Ivan Podkova”, “Tarasova Night” and the poem “Katerina” (39 drawings). In addition, Bashilov made the title page for the entire book and the half-title for "Kobzar", the drawings were signed - "M. Bachiloff" or are marked with the monogram "MB". The drawings and text of the manuscript are made with pen and ink. The use of vignettes looks quite traditional for Russian and European books of that time.
Intro to the letter "N" to the poem "Dumka". 1844.
Bashilov and de Balmain, not as often as in the book of the beginning of the century before last, nevertheless use vignettes-decorations in the endings and titles of works: laurel wreaths, open books and weapons (most often Cossacks). The interpretation of the form and the composition of individual drawings correspond to the classical canons accepted in academic art: for example, in the ending to the chapter “Confederates”, a group of confederates leading Leiba forms a pyramid shape; arched-pyramidal form - in the screensavers to "Gupalivshchina" or in the figures of Oksana and Yarema seated in "Swans (Gaidamaki)". On the intro to "Dumka" (at the same time it is also the initial, more precisely, the initial smoothly turns into the intro) the body of the girl lying on the branches resembles the figure and pose of ancient goddesses, etc. The style of the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century is also noticeable in the design of the title page of the manuscript, made by Bashilov - the branches of the ornament form a baroque motif of the frame, at the corners of which there are figures of Cossacks (below), a bandura player and a mermaid girl (above), as well as in allegorical solutions to some plots: two kissing doves in the initial of the line "Black-browed, love" or a flying angel in the ending to "Rebend".
Initial "C" to the poem "Ivan Podkova". 1844.
The intro to the second chapter of the poem "Ivan Horseshoe" is solved in a romantic-fairy style, depicting the stormy sea and Poseidon lifting ships on the waves. One of the artist's drawings is consistent with the text of the poem:
Chorna hmara z-za Limanu
Sky, the sun is crying,
Blue sea with a bird
Now stop, then vie,
The Dnipro was flooded.
Ya.P. Balmain. Sleeping girl. 1844.
The manifestation of some features of classicism and romanticism in the illustrations of both artists is quite natural: they were brought up on examples of this art. In addition, Shevchenko's poetry itself is characterized by "a combination of romance and real genre, stylization and naturalism, formed in a very specific individual manner." However, the main thing in the work of Bashilov and de Balmain is not manifested in this. The choice of themes and the interpretation of the form of most of the drawings testify to the realistic tendencies of the artists. Recall that the illustrations by G.G. Gagarin to "Tarantas" by V.A. Sollogub (1845) and A.A. Agin to Gogol's "Dead Souls" (1846), the best sepia (1844-1845) and paintings were not created. Fedotov (The Fresh Cavalier, 1846; The Picky Bride, 1847; The Major's Matchmaking, 1848), which laid the foundation for the most important principle of all realistic graphics of the 40s - direct life observation, reflection of the surrounding reality, a critical attitude towards it.
Seascape. 1844.
By the way, Gagarin's illustrations are closest in style to the drawings of Bashilov and de Balmain: they also use vignettes and initials, headpieces and endings. In addition, realistic principles of illustration are combined with individual elements of form inherent in romanticism and classicism. Bashilov and de Balmain had no predecessors, except for the illustration on the frontispiece of the first edition of "Kobzar" by V.I. Sternberg, depicting a specific genre scene from Little Russian reality. This drawing, as well as the poetry of Shevchenko himself, was met with great sympathy by critics. Belinsky, for example, wrote: “A picture made by Sternberg, a great master of depicting Little Russian folk scenes, is attached to the book.”
Poseidon raises the ships. 1844.
Bashilov and de Balmain, illustrating the works of Shevchenko, turned to new plots in Russian graphics, recreating the life of the Ukrainian people. It should be noted that both artists, who were born and lived in Ukraine, knew and loved its nature, history and people very well.
Ya.P. Balmain. Initial "N" to the chapter "Holy in Chigirin"
This love for Little Russia pervades all of Shevchenko's poetry. And, as already noted, it is typical for many masters of fine art who turned to this topic. The love for Little Russia and commonality of views explains the artists' understanding of the spirit of Shevchenko's poetry, the novelty of its ideological and thematic content. The innovation of Bashilov and de Balmain is more evident when comparing their work with illustrations in editions of the previous decade. “In plastic vignettes, cast in the form of polytypes and repeatedly used in various publications,” writes Yu.Ya. Gerchuk, - the symbols consecrated by a long tradition varied endlessly - lyres and laurel wreaths, ancient weapons and urns, cupids and Glories. The same language of allegorical figures dressed in antique attire and their attributes was also spoken by book engraving on copper - frontispieces, illustrations, title pages.
Ya.P. Balmain. Ending to the chapter "Titar". 1844.
The replacement of ancient "gods" with their attributes (although some symbols still remain) by specific characters of the real surrounding life is due not only to the manifestation in book graphics of the general features of the development of fine arts, but also to the close connection with the literary works for which the drawings were created, and deep understanding by artists of the poet's work. New Literature Written Alive vernacular, demanded a new visual system, alien to a set of emblems from "iconological lexicons".
Ya.P. Balmain. Screensaver. 1844.
Very important for the illustrators who turned to Shevchenko's poetry was the closeness of aesthetic views, the democracy of convictions that made the poet and artists related. Bashilov and Shevchenko were published in the same journal ("Molodik", 1843-1844). De Balmain and Shevchenko were closely acquainted and were members of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. All these facts, testifying to the importance of personal contacts for a successful creative solution of a theme within the framework of two arts - fine arts and literature, play a significant role in the understanding of a literary work by artists, in this case, poetry. The problem of the ideological and thematic unity of the text and its pictorial range was in the center of attention of the creators of the handwritten Kobzar.
Katerina's expulsion from her father's house. 1844.
The main plot action of one of the largest poems in the collection - "Katerina" - is conveyed in five (according to the number of chapters) screensavers:
1. Meeting with a Muscovite officer in the garden;
2. The expulsion of Katerina from her father's house;
3. Meeting with Chumaks on the way to Moskovshchina;
4. Meeting with a seductive officer;
5. Kobzar and guide boy on the way to Kyiv.
Katerina's meeting with the Chumaks. 1844.
Bashilov set himself two tasks closely related to one another: to reveal the content of the creation as far as possible and to find a subject-plastic and psychological way of pictorial solution of both the entire poem as a whole and the creation of a complete artistic image in each drawing. He chooses those scenes, those events in which the characters are directly and clearly revealed. actors especially the main character. The theme of the fate of a peasant girl, dishonored by her master, is reflected in a series of drawings so completely that one can judge the development of the action from them alone. It is characteristic that many subsequent interpreters of "Katerina" of the pre-revolutionary years, unfamiliar with the work of Bashilov (M. Mikeshin, N. Karazin, B. Smirnov, and others), turned to the same scenes, trying to accurately repeat the development of the literary plot.
Katerina's meeting with the seductive officer. 1844.
This approach to revealing the theme of the poem is typical for artists of the second half of the 19th century. It differs from the decisions of later illustrators, who focus their attention on individual episodes of the text. The development of the plot is reflected not only in the successive change of scenes shown by Bashilov and de Balmain, but also in the composition of each individual drawing, which is a pictorial story about what is happening.
Ya.P. Balmain. Cossacks in a Turkish prison. 1844.
The collection's illustrations include a fortune-telling scene (screen saver for "Topol"), an episode of a Cossack battle (screen saver for "Taras' Night"), a picture of Turkish captivity (screen saver for "Gamalia"). The genre character of many drawings of the handwritten "Kobzar" is a quality that makes them related to Sternberg's frontispiece.
Katerina's meeting with a Muscovite officer in the garden. 1844.
Thus, the final screensaver to "Katerina" (Kobzar and a guide boy on the way to Kyiv) in the interpretation of Bashilov is a detailed graphic narrative: a deserted road, a spruce standing alone near it. a laurel visible in the distance and two travelers in old, shabby clothes walking along this road. The artist was interested not only in compliance with the text, but also in the lifelike plausibility of the scene. The tendency to the story is also characteristic of the endings and, what is especially interesting, the initials. The initial of the letter "K" to the IV chapter of the poem "Katerina" is a knot of a bush branch, under which the heroine rests with her child. The capital letter in the line "Iszow Kobzar do Kyiewa" forms a pillar, under which the kobzar and his little guide sit ("Katerina", V chapter).
Fortune teller and black-browed Cossack. 1844.
The initial "R" to the poem "Topol". 1844.
Kobzar and boy on the way to Kyiv. 1844.
Initial "R" to the IV chapter of the poem "Katerina". 1844.
Ya.P. Balmain. Initial "U" for the chapter "Titar". 1844.
Two sticks of the letter "U" are drawn like tree trunks, between which stand, embracing, a Cossack and a girl ("Titar", "Gaydamaki"), the letter "H" ("Hetmany, Hetmany jak by to wy wstaly" - "Holy in Chigirin ”, the poem “Haydamaki”) looks like two monumental columns with a crossbar in the form of an arch, under which an armed Cossack army passes. An essential feature that unites and expresses the unity of the thematic correspondence of a literary text and its graphic interpretation is their social significance. Depicting the "humiliated and destitute", the artists sought to truthfully convey not only reality, but also (which is very important) to express their sympathy for ordinary people. This feature is especially pronounced in the drawings for "Katerina" by Bashilov and for "Gaidamaks" by de Balmain. The largest number of illustrations was made for the last of these poems. De Balmain showed scenes of a popular uprising: the Cossacks cut off the heads of the gentry (the intro to the "Bloody Feast"), shoot the gentlemen with guns (the ending to the "Gupalivshchina"), hang them on the gallows (the initial "Z" to the line "Zadzwonily w usi dzwony" - "Bloody feast", "Gaidamaki").
Ya.P. Balmain. Screensaver for the chapter "Blood Feast". 1844.
The theme of retribution with the oppressors, the uprising of a scolded person for his rights, only outlined by Shevchenko in his sketches for Blind (1845), was first embodied in the drawings of de Balmain and Bashilov, which was a new phenomenon for Russian book graphics. The main moments of the development of the plot in the poems and poems of the collection are interconnected by the poet's lyrical digressions.
Ya.P. Balmain. Initial "Z" for the chapter "Blood Feast". 1844.
The struggle of feelings, the dynamics of experiences is an organic part of the plot action. Bashilov and de Balmain convey the presence of the author by introducing images of the poet himself into the composition of the drawings. The portrait image of Shevchenko is found in the collection three times: on the half-title of "Kobzar", in the first screensaver to "Haydamaks" and in the end to "Taras Night" (in many publications this illustration, where Shevchenko is shown among a group of rebellious Cossacks, is mistakenly referred to as "Haydamaks" ). It is noteworthy that the artists painted the profile of the poet, at first glance, unusual for his iconography. However, the profile image is found in the drawings of Sternberg and the sketches of the poet himself, although it is unlikely that Bashilov could see them, just like the famous oil self-portrait of Shevchenko (1840), which was in St. Petersburg.
Kobzar among the rebellious Cossacks. 1844.
Initial "K". 1844.
Bashilov's drawings have the greatest portrait similarity, which allows some researchers to make a fair conclusion about the acquaintance of Bashilov and Shevchenko: "Bashilov saw Shevchenko and painted his portrait from nature." It is assumed that they met on the estate of J. de Balmain in Linoviny. By the way, there Bashilov met Zhemchuzhnikov. Shevchenko himself denied his acquaintance with Bashilov, but this is quite understandable, since the question of acquaintance arose during the interrogation of the poet and the III Division. To the question: “Who illustrated the handwritten books) of your writings and whether it belongs to. who was so busy with your poems, to malicious Slavs? Shevchenko replied: “My works were illustrated by Count Jacob de Balmain, who served as an adjutant to one of the corps generals, who was killed in the Caucasus in 1845, and a certain Bashilov. I met the first one once (which is not true), but I don’t know the second at all.
IN AND. Sternberg. Shevchenko and Sternberg. 1839.
IN AND. Sternberg. Shevchenko. Early 1840s.
The fact that the poet gave a negative answer is explained by the fact that he wanted to protect Bashilov from trouble. Let us recall once again that Kostomarov (the manuscript was found in his possession) did not name Bashilov at all, but referred only to the deceased de Balmain. Be that as it may, by choosing a portrait image of Shevchenko for the illustrations of the Kobzar, Bashilov and de Balmain thereby emphasized the relationship between the author's presence in the text and the pictorial commentary to it.
Barefoot Katerina walking across the field. 1844.
Introduction to the illustration of portraits of acquaintances, writers, artists, self-portraits will become a fairly common technique in those years. We can say that it was, to some extent, a tribute to the then fashionable literary games, practical jokes and hoaxes, which from literature eventually penetrated into illustration. In Agin, for example, the image of Fedotov appears as a type of captain Kopeikin, a self-portrait of the artist himself in the illustration, where Kopeikin rings a bell, etc.
Ya.P. Balmain. The Jewish owner and laborer Yarema. 1844.
In the transfer of plot scenes, the artists used a concise stock artistic means. Bashilov and de Balmain do not have such detailed descriptions of clothes, details of life, as later did K. Trutovsky or A. Slastion. For example, in the intro to the second chapter of "Katerina", depicting the estimates of the heroine's expulsion from her father's house, the interior of the hut is made up of a table, a bench and an icon entwined with flowers. The interior decoration of the hut, where Yarema worked as laborers (screen saver for the chapter "Galaida" "Gaidamakov"), is almost as sparingly shown. Only the landscape is outlined - a bare tree, a cross on the side of the road - in an illustration representing the heroine Chapter III of "Katerina"), or in a drawing in which a blind kobza-bandura player begs for alms (screen saver for the poem "Perebendya"),
Initial "K" for the poem "Katerina". 1844.
Sometimes artists limit themselves to just a neutral background, bringing the image as close as possible to the viewer. This is how one of Bashilov's most successful drawings for the poem "Katerina" is solved.
Ya.P. Balmain. Self-portrait. Fragment. 1830s
The image of the heroine, barefoot, wrapped in a scroll and hugging her little son, forced to continue on her way in bad weather, is unusually expressive and full of drama. The artist perfectly conveyed with oblique strokes and filling with ink both the cold, piercing wind and the pouring rain (the ending to the III chapter of "Katerina"). It was in this first serious work on illustrating a literary work that the creative method of Bashilov the illustrator takes shape; identification of bright climactic scenes in the narrative, the sequence of development of the plot action, conciseness in the use of details, thickening of the contour line circling the image.
The battle of the Cossacks with the Poles. 1844.
But, in addition, this is an attempt to reveal the originality of the writer's creative manner, his ideological and thematic attitudes. Obviously, therefore, each work illustrated by the artist does not repeat the previous one, but has its own special handwriting and style corresponding to a particular text.
Blind kobzar and guide boy. 1844.
In Shevchenko's Kobzar, this is manifested in the desire to combine reality and romantic elation, characteristic of poetry. Of course, the pictorial manner of artists differs from each other. Bashilov's drawings are more picturesque, de Balmain's are more linear.
Ya.P. Balmain. For drawing. 1838.
Bashilov often resorts to cross-hatching, which gives a greater plastic bulge to the forms. The thickened contour line and the stroke do not completely merge with each other. Quite often (especially in the drawings for "Katerina"), he uses not only line and stroke, but also ink filling, which gives a special picturesqueness to black-and-white illustrations (intro to chapter I - "Meeting with a Muscovite officer in the garden"; ending to III chapter - “Barefoot Katerina walking across the field in the rain and wind as a baby under a scroll”; headpiece for chapter IV - “Conversation with a seductive officer”; initial to the same chapter and ending-landscape). The contour drawings of de Balmain resemble the manner fashionable at the beginning of the century, in which L.F. Meidel illustrated Pushkin's "Gypsies", and F.P. Tolstoy "Darling" I.F. Bogdanovich. In the drawings "Gaidamaks" and "Gamalia" the outline style is joined by light horizontal or vertical shading, which unites the pen drawings of both artists. The space of the room, the landscape is built using the correct linear perspective.
Ya.P. Balmain. Faithful friends. 1836.
Depending on the distance and extent of space, the line either gains or loses its strength: the first plan is highlighted with a stronger pen pressure, the second and third are marked with a thin, hairline. This is how the interiors of the rooms are drawn in the intros to “Galaida”, “Swans” or “Confederates” (“Gaidamaki”). In the construction of compositions, de Balmain, as a rule, uses three-dimensionality, Bashilov also resorts to two-dimensional and one-dimensional compositions, decided on a neutral background . But with all the difference in creative manners, the illustrations in the book look quite organic and whole.
Initial "B" to the poem "Before Osnovyanenko". 1844.
Most likely, Bashilov and de Balmain quite consciously brought all the drawings to a certain unity. This is manifested, first of all, in the compositional construction of plots in the form of headpieces, initials and endings, in font signatures and titles of poems and poems.
Ya.P. Balmain. Initial "O" to the chapter "Confederates". 1844.
Perhaps that is why de Balmain's drawings are more worked out with a stroke, and sometimes with ink filling, and so differ from his other works. All of de Balmain's previous drawings of the 1830s and early 1840s were based on contour drawing.
Ya.P. Balmain. Oksana and Yarema. 1844.
The manner of linear drawing, common during this period, "without shading and shading, obviously, appealed to both Balmain himself and the audience to whom his albums were intended." All texts and figures are enclosed in double frames, only on the title page the frame is twisted around the corners into ornate monograms. Apparently, the artists complete their work together, in Odessa (remember that Bashilov works here after university and a letter from de Balmain and a manuscript book were sent to Zakrevskii from here). The entire text of the manuscript and the inscriptions on separate pages are most likely made by one person and, I think, Bashilov. This can be said almost positively if we compare the texts of the rewritten poems with the handwriting of Bashilov's letters found in the RGALI archive.
K.A. Trutovsky. Illustration for a poem
T.G. Shevchenko "Naymichka" 1868.
The very fact of handwritten edition is extremely interesting. It gave artists the opportunity to freely vary and combine text and images, not to depend on the tastes and desires of publishers and the printing possibilities of that time. However, it was precisely these possibilities that the brothers took into account when drawing with ink and pen. This technique could well have been reproduced in print in woodcut printing, a technique that was becoming more common in the 1840s.
A blind kobza player playing the bandura. 1844.
The design of a handwritten book (manuscript) has a long history. historical roots. These are, first of all, manuscripts of church content with illustrations on a religious theme. In the 19th century (especially in its first half), these were most often diaries illustrated by authors (recall the diaries of N.P. Lomtev) or those works that could not be published.
Ya.P. Balmain. Screensaver and initial to the chapter "Swan". 1844.
In fact, this is samizdat of that time. It was in this way that Griboedov's comedy Woe from Wit was distributed, which had already become known to readers "in the lists". The manuscript created by Bashilov and de Balmain undoubtedly occupies a special place in the publication of Shevchenko's poetry precisely thanks to a large number illustrations accompanying the text. In the "lists" of Griboedov's comedy there were also illustrations, but they were single, located on the title or cover. An important aspect of the problem of the unity of word and image is the interaction of the individual styles of the author of a literary text and its illustrator. This problem arises in any illustrated literary work, it is also relevant in this particular case.
Ya.P. Balmain. Shevchenko among his heroes. 1844.
The question of the correspondence between poetry and pictorial commentary to it is rather complicated, since it is difficult to compare such heterogeneous concepts as special turns of speech, the construction of phrases, the use of certain words, on the one hand, and the technique of applying strokes and spots, volumetric or planar solution of the composition, color, preference for the silhouette, which determines the nature of postures, movements and gestures, etc. - on the other hand.
Kobzar and guide boy. 1844.
The importance of this problem, however, is beyond doubt. O. Podobedova, for example, considers “the unity of the main pictorial unit both for a literary work and for an illustrative system, when the nature of the word will dictate to the artist the choice of this particular stroke, paint spot, etc.” - one of the highest forms of synthesis of words and images.
Ya.P. Balmain. Ending to the chapter "Gonta in Uman". 1844.
Obviously, this is precisely why the works of pre-revolutionary artists who turned to the work of Shevchenko (Zhemchuzhnikov, Trutovsky, Slastion, Mikeshin), even if they are made in a graphic manner, are picturesque in nature. Picturesque character distinguishes most of Bashilov's illustrations and even the "graphic" de Balmain. However, to find a complete "hit" in the word, in our opinion, is almost impossible and probably not necessary. Bashilov and de Balmain, for example, ignore the ethnographism inherent in Shevchenko, although it is organically included in the fabric of the poet's works, expressed in descriptive, purely external pictures of the life of the Ukrainian peasantry: "idyllic scenes and descriptions of folk customs and rituals, songs, dances, music."
Ya.P. Balmain. Gaidamaks meeting with a lad. 1844.
With ethnographic accuracy, the poet describes many literary images - in particular, the kobzar in "Katerina", Ganna in "Naymichka" and others. This feature of Shevchenko's work attracted the attention of many artists who strive to visually convey the content of the Kobzar's works. In their plot-narrative compositions, everyday and ethnographic motifs took a leading place. This applies, first of all, to Trutovsky's illustrations for Naymichka, made a little later. However, in their work on illustrations for the Kobzar, both Bashilov and de Balmain leave aside the ethnographic nature of Shevchenko's poetry. They express the content of the plots through the sharpening of the moments of the narrative, which are present in the poems "Katerina", "Gaidamaki", "Gamalia" and many other poems. The concreteness and descriptiveness of many scenes is closely related to the fact that the text itself contains almost visual pictures. And if Trutovsky in Naymichka is mainly interested in the opportunity to recreate the details of customs and mores, the fullness of the poem with everyday scenes and ethnographic descriptions, then de Balmain and Bashilov are attracted by the drama of this or that (1868). Ethnographism is inherent, as already noted, in Bashilov's paintings, dedicated to the Ukrainian theme and based on Shevchenko's poetry - "The Blind Kobzar-Bandura Player" (early 1850s), "The Laborer (Naymichka, 1855)".
Ya.P. Balmain. Initial "W" to the poem "Gaydamaki". 1844.
However, in their work on illustrations for the Kobzar, both Bashilov and de Balmain leave aside the ethnographic nature of Shevchenko's poetry. They express the content of the plots through the sharpening of the moments of the narrative, which are present in the poems "Katerina", "Gaidamaki", "Gamalia" and many other poems. The concreteness and descriptiveness of many scenes is closely related to the fact that the text itself contains almost visual pictures. And if Trutovsky in Naimichka is mainly interested in the opportunity to recreate the details of customs and mores, the fullness of the poem with everyday scenes and ethnographic descriptions, then de Balmain and Bashilov are attracted by the drama of this or that episode, the psychological expressiveness of the images, compassion for the common man.
Landscape with a house. 1844.
The image of the kobzar runs through the illustrators (as well as Shevchenko) through the entire first part of the Verses, corresponding to the title. The poet himself is a “kobzar”, and his portrait opens the book (shmuttitul). Then the image of a blind kobzar sitting on his knees and begging for alms appears on the intro to "Perebenda"; later - in the intro, initial and ending of the last V chapter of “Katerina; and also in the ending to "Taras' Night" and the intro to the poem "Gaidamaki" - again in the guise of a poet.
Decorative roots with leaves.
Ending to the second chapter of the poem "Katerina". 1844.
Bashilov and partly de Balmain solved one of the important artistic and figurative tasks that faced the illustration of the second half of the 19th century, "laying out" one theme into a whole series of scenes and episodes sequential in time. This is extremely important, since other illustrators of the 40s (Zhukovsky, Kovrigin, Gagarin, Agin) also followed this path. V.F. Timma, for example, in the early 40s (“Sensations and remarks of Mrs. Kurdyukova” by I.P. Myatlev, 1840-1843; “Ours, copied from nature by Russians”, 1841-1842; “Pictures of Russian morals”, 1842-1843 ; "Leaf for secular people", 1843) "the plot side of the drawing is of interest only to the extent that it contributed to the creation of a lively and direct characterization of the image."
Initial "S" for the poem "Katerina". 1844.
Timm avoids, unlike Bashilov and de Balmain, depicting eventful, detailed narrative scenes. In the illustrative graphics of the first half of the 1940s (up to Agin), especially in Timm's drawings, often a remark made in passing by the author, his slip of the tongue served as a pretext for a similar "slip" of the illustrator, representing a sketch of a household detail, a live sketch of one type or another. . As K.S. Kuzminsky: "Literary illustration until the mid-40s was a rare and accidental phenomenon." And yet, in the 1840s, the image more and more often plays the role of not just a “picture” attached to a particular plot, it takes an active part in the disclosure of the verbal artistic image. In essence, the very concept of "illustration" acquires the right to life and distribution during this period. Characteristically, in the 1940s, both a literary essay, a feuilleton, and an article about a new technical invention were called an illustration in the broad sense of the word. It is no coincidence that in the mid-40s a periodical of this universal type appeared under the name "Illustration". But lean, giving a definition of this concept, the critic and publicist V.N. Maikov writes in his Pocket Dictionary of Foreign Words that this is “a publication of books with drawings explaining the text. These drawings are either made especially on separate sheets and attached to the essay, or printed in connection with the text. The illustrations by Bashilov and de Balmain are based on essential principle all realistic book graphics of the 1840s - direct observation of life, reflection of the surrounding reality. It was along this path that many leading graphic artists of the second half of the 1940s went, including G. Gagarin in the illustrations for Sollogub's Tarantass and A. Agin in the drawings for Gogol's Dead Souls. The method of following the text arose because it helped artists to use the cognitive ability of literature and thereby contributed to the solution of the tasks put forward by life for the whole of Russian culture. In his annual review of Russian literature for 1846, assessing the importance of the developing "natural school", Belinsky wrote: "If we were asked what is the distinctive character of modern Russian literature, we would answer: in more and more close rapprochement with life, with reality, closer and closer to maturity and manhood. This well-known position of the critic may well be attributed to the field of fine art that interests us. Under the influence of literature, book graphics also came closer to the surrounding reality, enriched with socially significant content, and became more and more accessible. According to the testimony of the same Belinsky, many illustrated publications appear, striving to "combine Russian art with Russian literature." In the preface to the collection “Physiology of Petersburg”, the critic notes the increased need for essays “that would, in the form of travels, trips, essays, stories, descriptions, introduce Russia and its large population", and therefore he sees "the vanity of the compilers of the book", that is, writers and artists, in expressing "accurate observation" and "a more or less correct view of the subject that they undertook to portray." These publications, according to him, met with an echo in the love of compatriots for their native land, in the general inclination towards varied and nutritious reading. The work on the graphic interpretation of Shevchenko's works demanded from Bashilov and de Balmain to express their attitude not only from artistic, but also from public positions. And this task was successfully solved by them. The artists showed not only knowledge of the material, but also the breadth of their views. It was the life material that made it possible to give the brothers truthful pictures of contemporary reality. Their success is all the more significant because in this case and in this time period, Bashilov and de Balmain had no predecessors in illustrating Shevchenko's poetry, except for the already mentioned drawing by Sternberg. The artists very successfully coped with the general task facing the illustrators of any literary work - to express the essence of poetry and the era, the meaning of the ongoing plot action, which in this visual material coincides with the main idea of the author-poet. True, this work did not see the light of day and could not influence the development of new forms in fine arts, but she once again confirmed that it is in this direction that illustration and all democratic art as a whole are developing. Thus, some general conclusions can be drawn. The illustrative graphics of the 40s by Bashilov, de Balmain, Gagarin, Agin, Zhukovsky and other artists are enriched with new, previously unknown realistic achievements. A certain artistic direction appears, based in its works on new creative principles. Illustrating works of literature, artists, following the writer, focus on creating truthful, devoid of any idealization, sketches. Everyday life. A new method of interpreting the text is emerging, based on the illustrators' appeal to reality, on its sober analysis. Experiencing the fruitful influence of Russian literature of this time, the illustration of the 40s was enriched with a new vital content, democratic in its subject matter. Each of the leading masters had his own creative image, sometimes their political convictions were different, but all of them (including Bashilov and de Balmain) acted as a single creative force, contributing to the "rapprochement of art with life." Since the second half of the 40s, drawings have become not only a desirable accompaniment to numerous illustrated publications (such as Physiology of Petersburg, Petersburg Collection, Illustration), but also their necessary addition in a truthful and unadorned display of the social phenomena of life. This is fully realized by the leading figures of Russian culture of those years. The artist turns out to be an active assistant to the writer, who, by means of his art, can supplement the pictures presented in the literary text. Nekrasov very accurately defined this time: “Our life in all its phases is an inexhaustible source for the observer and the painter; what one does not notice in a living word, the other will finish with a pencil, in the right image. Article author: Koltsova L.A.
