Shevchenko is a pop culture icon today. (source: The Taras Shevchenko National Museum in Kyiv)
He was only 20, liked karate and poetry, wanted to study acting. Born in Ukraine, he was the only child of Armenian parents who fled the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He had a strong humanist sentiment and called on people around him not to be indifferent.
Together with others, he protested at Independence Square in Kyiv against the Russia's tight grip and autocracy, for Ukraine's orientation towards Europe. Serhiy Nigoyan was caught on camera reciting Taras Shevchenko's verses on the barricades, then raising his clenched fist.
He was killed by pro-Russian police snipers on the morning of January 22, 2014. He was the first person shot during the protests.
Serhiy Nigoyan did not recite Shevchenko's verses by chance. In Ukraine today, the latter's poems on Russian imperialism, against despotism, and the desire for a free Ukraine resonate strongly.
In Slovakia, the poems of the most important Ukrainian poet are being published in a new translation.
The atmosphere demanded Shevchenko
"We decided to reissue the poems of Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko because he is not, so to speak, a classic poet whose poems are rarely read. Ukrainians have always turned to his poetry when things were rough, when Ukraine found itself in danger, at war. For Ukrainians, Shevchenko is always at hand, his poetry recited at the right time. He should be considered a national hero, a symbol of Ukraine. This must be viewed as a return to Shevchenko's poetry," says prose writer, Ukrainian literature translator and the guarantor of the new book, Ivan Jackanin.
"Slovakia has returned to Shevchenko's poetry after more than 60 years. I feel that the current social atmosphere in Slovakia is just asking for Shevchenko's words."
The short book is titled 'And I Live On' and was published by the Association of Ukrainian Writers in Slovakia. The new edition features Shevchenko's verses, as well as excerpts from the poem Caucasus, which was recited by protester Serhiy Nigoyan before his death.
The poems were selected and translated by Marián Heveši. "As a translator I met Shevchenko many years ago when the normalisation was starting, with the themes of obligatory joy, happiness pouring down on us, the word 'smile' constantly sung. The words 'sadness' or 'suffering' were quite undesirable," Heveši recalls.
"Shevchenko's boundless sadness seemed untouchable to me at the time, so I have translated his poems every now and then ever since. When I'm told that there is unusually topical poetry in the new book, I will simply point out that this perhaps proves that Shevchenko's timelessness is permanent and universal."
A new collection of poems by Taras Shevchenko. (source: Peter Getting)
The price of freedom
Shevchenko lived for 47 years; 24 as a serf, 10 in exile, and the rest under police surveillance. When he wrote about freedom, he knew its price very well.
He lived during the era of Nicholas I's dark and nationalistic Russian tsarism, in an autocracy that more resembled the European Middle Ages rather than the 19th century. Tsarism was characterised by the repression of any attempt to gain insight into a freer world, as well as by a reluctance to abolish serfdom.
