Muses of Taras Shevchenko: women who inspired the great kobzar. Biography of Taras Shevchenko Women in the life of Shevchenko

Ukrainians celebrate Shevchenko days. Of course, Taras Shevchenko was a multifaceted genius! However, his personality is often deified, taking away everything human. We have prepared for you a text about Shevchenko the man. A man who knew how to love.

For your attention, all the poet’s favorite women, from serfs to princes: who they were, what they looked like and why the relationship didn’t work out.

Oksana Kovalenko

Researchers believe that Shevchenko’s first youthful, or even childhood, hobby was Oksana Kovalenko. The poet remembers his serf neighbor, three years younger, in the poem “The thirteenth day has passed…”. Taras and Oksana grew up in friendship. The adults joked that the children would eventually get married. Kobzar mentions this in his letters. However, at 15, Shevchenko left with Mr. Engelhardt for Vienna. He returned to his native village 14 years later, when his first love already had two children. The poem “Mar’yana – Chernitsa” is also dedicated to Oksana.

Amalia Kloberg

Shevchenko’s second hobby was also quite youthful. This happened even before studying at the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. Young Shevchenko “recaptured” the 15-year-old model of German origin Amalia Kloberg from his teacher Ivan Soshenko. Taras signed her nude portrait in bed with her hair down “Chevchenko.” According to the researchers, this is how the girl pronounced the artist’s last name. In the story "The Artist" Shevchenko portrays Amalia under the name Pasha. At 30, she will once again enter Kobzar’s workshop. However, a couple of them never worked out.

Varvara Repnina

When Shevchenko was already a metropolitan artist and famous person, a new love broke out, this time with a princess! He had just graduated from the Art Academy in St. Petersburg and came on a visit to Ukraine. That's when I met Princess Varvara Repnina. Shevchenko lived for a whole year in the family of the prince and general Nikolai Repnin-Volkonsky. Varvara was his daughter. At that time she was already 35 years old! The woman fell in love with Shevchenko and helped him in every possible way.

She openly spoke about her love in a letter to Charles Einard. However, various social levels did not allow relations to develop. Therefore, Taras and Varvara remained friends who maintained relationships throughout their lives. And after the death of the poet, Varvara allocated part of the money for the Shevchenko monument from her own savings. By the way, the Russian princess was also a writer.

Anna Zakrevskaya

Shevchenko also had forbidden relationships. Around the same time, he was visiting the landowner Platon Zakrevsky. His wife Anna was only 21 years old. Shevchenko met her even earlier, during the ball, and was delighted with her beauty. And when he lived with the Zakrevsky family, love arose between Taras and Anna... The relationship ended quickly, as Shevchenko left the Zakrevsky family’s home due to urgent matters. He remembers Anna in more than one poem. However, their destinies were no longer intertwined, and at the age of 35, Zakrevskaya passed away...

Feodosia Koshitsa

There is evidence that during a visit to Kirillovka, Shevchenko took a liking to the daughter of priest Grigory Koshitsa, Feodosia. He received a position at Kiev University and allegedly planned a family life. The poet went to woo Feodosia, but was refused by the bride’s parents. And the girl herself, according to stories, went crazy and died at a young age.

Anna Usakova

And one more feeling for a married woman. During his ten-year exile, Shevchenko fell in love with the wife of the commandant of the Novopetrovsk fortress, Anna Emelyanovna Usakova. They were gossiped about and judged, and this is what ended the relationship. However, in a letter to Zalevsky, the poet assures that he loved Anna with “immaculate love.”

Katya Piunova

Varvara Repnina, who was in love to the last, managed to get the emperor to pardon Shevchenko. At that time he was 44 years old. But he was exhausted and depressed. To make up for lost years, he dreamed of a young wife “from the common people.” For some time the poet lived in Nizhny Novgorod. Here he had the full opportunity to recover, because women from the local elite raced to order portraits from him. One of them was 16-year-old actress Katya Piunova.

Shevchenko was quite an influential person, so he helped Katya get a place in the troupe. But the girl, using Shevchenko, fled to Kazan with a 25-year-old actor, whom she later married. Later she recalled that it was her mistake, saying that she was not smart enough to appreciate Shevchenko’s genius.

Maria Maksimovich

Then there was either friendship, or love, or even a relationship with the wife of Mikhail Maksimovich’s close friend Maria. Some say that Mikhail and Maria's child is actually Shevchenko's. However, the poet’s biographers assure that Shevchenko did not give vent to his feelings and there was only devoted friendship between him and Maria.

Lukerya Polusmak

Shevchenko's last love was a simple girl, as he wanted. Lukerya was the servant of his St. Petersburg friends. At the request of the poet, the girl became free. He hired a tutor for her. However, Lukerya failed to appreciate what Shevchenko did for her.

Already engaged, the girl began to flirt indecently with the poet’s acquaintances. According to one version, she cheated on her fiance with a repeater. Like it or not, Shevchenko broke up with her. And 3 months later he died... Lukerya married a hairdresser, and after the poet’s death she spent more than one day at the grave of her former savior, repenting of her betrayal.

Attention! The material does not claim to be scientific research and is written on the basis of previously published materials.

FIRST LOVE

Taras Grigorievich Shevchenko's first love was Oksana Kovalenko, a serf, three years younger than him. Even as children, they seemed to others to be a good couple. But when Taras was 15 years old, and Oksana, respectively, 12, they parted forever: the future poet left his native Kirilovka. 11 years later, Oksana married the serf Karp Soroka, and Shevchenko remembered her all his life.

The poet's next passion was a free woman, the Pole Dunya Gashkovskaya. She did not know any other language other than Polish, which helped Taras improve his knowledge in the linguistic field.
In addition to Karl Bryullov, the artist Ivan Soshenko helped redeem Shevchenko from serfdom. Just at that time he was going to marry the 17-year-old daughter of the Vyborg burgomaster Maria Europeus. Taras not only seduced the girl, but also painted her half naked, despite the fact that he lived in Soshenko’s apartment. The latter soon kicked out the poet.

LOVE OF YOUR LIFE

Historians consider Kobzar’s longest passion to be his relationship with Princess Varvara Repnina, the daughter of the Little Russian Governor-General, Prince Nikolai Repnin-Volkonsky. Shevchenko met a girl in Yagotin, where he made a copy of a portrait of her father. Varvara was seven years older than Taras Grigorievich. There was no point in dreaming about marriage, although the princess frankly wrote to her mentor, the Frenchman S. Einard: “I, in a vile way, spend whole hours surrendering to the power of my imagination, which paints me ardent pictures of passion, and sometimes lust.” She gave the poet a scarf knitted with her own hand, it is a self-portrait and a dedication to the poem “Trezna”. Varvara Repnina helped Shevchenko with her connections, from a distance; they corresponded when the poet was in exile. We met when he was returning from there, and the princess was already 50 years old, which, understandably, did not attract Shevchenko too much.

The poet's desire to get married was so great that, despite his affair with Repnina, just before exile he wooed Feodosia Koshits, the 16-year-old daughter of a priest in the village of Kirilovka. And then social inequality got in the way: the girl’s parents refused the poet as a former serf.

THE HABIT OF MARRY

After returning from exile, Shevchenko became paranoid about the idea of marriage. He approached all his friends with a request to marry him. I was delighted with the actress of the Nizhny Novgorod Theater Katerina Piunova. She wrote: “After all, I was not yet sixteen years old! Well, what did I understand! It seemed to me that in Taras Grigoryevich there was nothing of Groom’s. The boots were greased, made of tar, the sheepskin coat was almost naked, the simplest lambskin hat, and in Taras’s pathetic moments Grigoryevich slamming onto the floor a hundred times a day... Yes, I just imagined and remembered all this, but in my spiritual world, I forgot about the mind of the great poet, the mind was not enough!”

In general, another failure. Here is how Geo Shkurupiy explains it: “Shevchenko, like all the old people who married young before success as wives, can no longer come to terms with the fact that he has lost his charm. s cym i Having tried again and again to befriend women", "Recently, his attempts to make friends with women from an intelligent point of view led him to the thought that such women would not suit him, no matter how crooked he was, that all the same the stench would not understand him, please have and take away the empty master's life that we have taken From now on, we begin to dream about a woman from our oppressed people, about a strong woman, who will give her free rein and who will be married to her for the whole of her life. villager, scho kohatime yogo, won’t empty coquette, if you don’t please him with inspectors and greedy arrangements, we will fight for his little reign, for his peace, and we can write many more good speeches.”

THE LAST PASSION

The last passion of Taras Grigorievich Shevchenko was 20-year-old Likeria Polusmakova, whom he was going to marry less than a year before his death. She worked as a maid in a wealthy St. Petersburg family. Shkurupy describes it very “savourily”: “... the chamber was drawn into the national Ukrainian culture, which had never happened to it before. It looked so exotic, it must have come from the very depths of the Ukrainian village. and smelled of barvista and green aroma Ukraine, so that the guests had a lot of respect for her. She began to serve at the table. Tse bula Liquera Polusmakova, a great drink of Makarova, originally from the Nizhensky district in Chernihiv region. Mati Makarova brought the Liquera to St. Petersburg and she wanted I was free with them, but lived as a hired worker - the chamber of Makarov’s sister, Varvara Yakovivna Kartashevskaya. Makarov, as an inveterate Ukrainophile, hopes to especially please Shevchenkova, having decided to sew for the Liqueur the right Ukrainian selection with all its bright and different-colored attributes, Therefore, let the chosen one serve at the table, if in the middle The guests will be Shevchenko. The girl of the rocks of twenty was as rich as liqueur. Her figure was plump, tall, bungy, her posture was straight and elastic. Round-shaped, with brown eyes, coral-colored bushes around her small mouth, with a thick, dark-white braid that went down to her waist along her plump, round, rather bulging shoulders. When she appeared in the new place, she called out to the guests, and especially in Shevchenko, the area of the burial place. This girl was a great leader of his people. This is the type of woman who resembled Shevchenkova so much. Rev. Turgenev, the famous woman's beauty, admires her youth, freshness, a little coarseness, not much garnet, but more, with wonderful white hair, with a little proud, calm posture, who is in power of her tribe. , without streaming, so as not to take it lightly for recruiting. The guests were buried."

The poet seduced the girl with expensive gifts and hired a teacher who was supposed to teach her good manners. It seems that he found her in the latter’s arms, which is why the engagement had to be called off. Later, Likeria married a hairdresser, and in 1904, after her husband’s death, she came to Kanev and visited Shevchenko’s grave.

Especially for Kobzar’s birthday, we have prepared a selection of 15 such facts - interesting and little-known information about Taras Grigorievich.

Two years of school, two hundred years of glory

“The thirteenth hour has passed...”

Taras's main education was two years of study at a parochial school. The future pride of Ukrainian culture, Shevchenko, owed much of his knowledge to Baroness Sofia Grigorievna Engelhardt. The charming beauty taught the young Cossack the Polish and French languages, and Taras received a general idea of the world from the lackeys.

Stormy leisure

Taras Shevchenko with friends in St. Petersburg

Contemporaries of the genius claimed that Taras Grigorievich had been fond of drinking since the days of St. Petersburg. Most of all, he loved to visit the tavern near the stock exchange, where foreign sailors usually feasted between voyages. Quiet in sobriety, after drinking alcohol, Taras became uncontrollable: he swore at everyone, and was ready to get into any fight. And getting drunk in company was common.

One of the poet’s acquaintances, who took an active part in the liberation of Taras from serfdom, spoke about his period of life in Kazakhstan: “I go out at about three in the morning to breathe fresh air. Suddenly I hear singing. And what do you think I see? Four people carry on their shoulders a door that has been removed from its hinge, on which lie two people covered with an overcoat, while others walk to the sides and sing: “Holy God, Holy Mighty” - As if they were hiding someone. “What are you gentlemen doing?” - I ask them. “So we had a party,” they answer, “at which two of our Taras and the lieutenant lay down with bones. That’s how we distribute them to people’s homes.”

Dear "soul"

Pavel Vasilievich Engelhardt, landowner of Taras Shevchenko

Various historical sources indicate different dates for Shevchenko’s dismissal from serfdom: some researchers call 1838, others say that Taras became a free citizen only a few years before his death. In his autobiography, Taras Grigorievich wrote that he owed his freedom to Karl Bryullov and Vasily Zhukovsky: the great Russian artist painted a portrait of the poet. They decided to sell the painting at auction and use the proceeds to free Shevchenko.

The portrait was sold for fantastic money by the standards of that time - two and a half thousand rubles. The most interesting thing is that part of the money was provided by the imperial family, as there is an entry in his diary: thus, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna spent 400 rubles, heir to the throne Alexander II and Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna - 300 rubles each. A week later, the landowner Colonel Mr. Engelhardt set this “serf soul” free.

19th century hipster

Karl Bryullov, Self-portrait for the Uffizi Gallery, 1834

We are accustomed to the image of Shevchenko, depicted in portraits as a tired, mustachioed man in a hat and retinue. However, such a one-sided picture does not quite correspond to the actual image of Taras. Shevchenko was a young progressive democrat and did not like either excessive pomp or modest restraint in clothing. But in the first years of his life in St. Petersburg, the fashionable portrait painter earned decent money, which he happily spent on fashionable clothes. In particular, in his diary the poet wrote about the special pleasure he received from purchasing a rubber mackintosh raincoat, which cost 100 rubles. For comparison, while on the archaeological commission, Shevchenko earned 150 rubles a year.

"Mochemordia Society"

Taras Shevchenko, “Viktor Zakrevsky, their drunkenness,” 1843

The rake Shevchenko was friends with Viktor Zakrevsky, the Ukrainian founder of the humorous “mochemordia society.” The alcoholic society held regular meetings at which the head of “his drunkenness” was elected. During a trip to Ukraine in 1843, Shevchenko was also in the “mochemordia society”.

The drinking buddies drank noble secular drinks: rum, liqueurs and liqueurs, conducting careless conversations “about life” and dreaming of freedom and a bright future. It was a kind of circle of drunkards - young freethinkers and people opposed to the Russian autocracy, to which Victor and Mikhail Zakrevsky, brothers Yakov and Sergei de Balmain, historian M. Markevich, officer Tsikhonsky and others belonged.

The young people, gathering, proclaimed free-thinking toasts, talked about “the falsehood of noble lordly life, which has developed over the centuries, and especially at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th reached its highest degree...”.

Lukerya Polusmakova: a wedding that did not happen

Taras Shevchenko. Polusmakov liqueur. Coal. 1860

The 20-year-old servant Lukerya Polusmakova completely captivated the poet’s heart, as is known from the writer’s biography. At the age of 46, Shevchenko fell in love with a girl and was going to marry her. He prepared a dowry for the bride, prepared for the wedding, hired a city teacher for the rude and simple-minded Lukerya. But not fate. They say that Taras found his beloved in the arms of the same teacher, which was the reason for the breakup.

According to the second version, Lukerya herself did not want to go with Shevchenko to St. Petersburg, preferring to remain in the usual circumstances of life. But most researchers are inclined to believe that Kobzar understood that Lukerya was greedy, rude and unkempt, and most importantly, agreed to marry Taras Grigorovich solely for selfish reasons.

Was there a boy?

Mikhail and Maria Maksimovich, 1859.

Shevchenko had very friendly relations with the famous Ukrainian scientist Mikhail Maksimovich Shevchenko. While visiting Moscow, Taras met the scientist’s young wife, Maria. Warm friendly relations began between them, they corresponded a lot, Maria promised to help in finding a bride for Taras. But some researchers of Kobzar’s biography are confident that the relationship between Maria and Taras was very close, because nine months after Taras visited the Maksimovich family, the couple had a son. Before this they had no children. However, opponents of this version argue that Taras would never have crossed the line, because Mikhail was his close and faithful friend.

“Just not in Moscow, otherwise I won’t even read it...”

Taras Shevchenko. Sketches on a letter to his brother Nikita Shevchenko. 1840

It’s hard to imagine, but until the end of his life Taras Shevchenko wrote surprisingly illiterately. Here are fragments from one of his letters sent to his brother: “Brother Mikito needs you to bark and I won’t be angry. Don’t let me be like that, as a robot.... For kissing old grandfather Ivan for me, and bow to all our family Yak... . Tell the Ivanovo Federtse not to blame you" before I write a sheet of paper around. - But it’s not in Moscow, otherwise I won’t read it - Bow to you. Stay healthy - Your brother Taras Shevchenko.

“The wide-field fallow deer, the Dnieper, and the steep slopes were visible...”

Kobzar has two graves: in St. Petersburg and Kanev. After all, at first he was buried in the northern capital, at the Smolensk cemetery, where a memorial stone was installed, and only two months later the coffin with the body of the deceased was transported to his homeland, to Kanev, where he was reburied, according to the covenant.

Miniature “Kobzar”

Ukrainian master Nikolai Syadristy created the world's smallest "edition" of "Kobzar", measuring a little more than half a square millimeter - much smaller than a poppy seed. This is almost 19 times smaller than the smallest Japanese book. The pages are so thin and miniature that you can turn them only with the tip of a pointed hair. The binding is sewn with gossamer, and the cover is made of an immortelle petal.

Shevchenko on Transnistrian banknotes

Somewhat unexpectedly, the memory of Kobzar was honored on the territory of the unrecognized Transnistrian Moldavian Republic: in 1995, banknotes of 50,000 rubles were put into circulation, on the front side of which there was a portrait of the Ukrainian hetman Bogdan Khmelnytsky, and on the back - a monument to Shevchenko in front of the university in Tiraspol.

And already in 2002, the design of the banknote was updated. Thus, a portrait of Taras Shevchenko appeared on the 50 ruble banknote. The banknote was green, so in the minds of Moldovans it was not American dollars that remained “green” for a long time, but money from Shevchenko.

In 2007, the final design of the money was approved - gray-green with the same Kobzar.

Shevchenko on Mercury

In 1973-1975, the automatic station Mariner 10 photographed Mercury for the first time at close range. It was discovered that the surface of the planet is covered with craters of various sizes. According to the rules of the International Astronomical Union, they were named after outstanding artists, musicians, writers and poets. Therefore, one of the 300 craters of Mercury received the name Kobzar. The diameter of the Shevchenko crater is 137 kilometers.

Works of Shevchenko in Esperanto

The works of Taras Shevchenko have been translated into more than a hundred languages of the world. Among them are Japanese, Korean, Arabic and even the international language Esperanto. The largest number of translations were carried out in Russian, German, Polish, and English.

180 settlements

Shevchenko Peak in the Caucasus

In 1964, when the 150th anniversary of the Great Kobzar was celebrated, 196 settlements in the USSR bore the name of Shevchenko. Now in Ukraine 164 settlements are named after the poet. In Kazakhstan, Fort Shevchenko was named in his honor; from 1964 to 1991, the city of Aktau was called Shevchenko. Also, 3 villages, 4 settlements and 8 hamlets in Adygea, Bashkortostan, Krasnodar Territory and 8 regions of the Russian Federation, and a village in the Rybnitsa region of Transnistria bear the same name.

In addition, a sea bay in the Aral Sea and a peak 4200 m high on the northern slope of the Greater Caucasus, on a side ridge, are named in honor of Taras Grigorievich Shevchenko. This name was given to it by Ukrainian climbers who first conquered the Caucasian peak in 1939.

Record number of monuments

Unusual monument to Shevchenko Ivan Kavaleridze

There are 1384 Kobzar monuments in the world. This amount is the second for one person. There are more, according to researchers, only monuments to Jesus Christ. True, there is a version that Vladimir Lenin is ahead of Taras Shevchenko. But in recent years, at least in Ukraine, the number of such monuments has decreased significantly.

There are 1,256 monuments on the territory of Ukraine, and another hundred and fifty in other 35 countries of the world, from Brazil to China.

Despite its popularity in Soviet times, “Kobzar” remains one of the national heroes for modern “decommunized” Ukraine. Experts argue that Shevchenko has long become a myth, and therefore Ukrainian scientists try not to focus public attention on his personal life and the quality of his works. Read about the sharp turns in the life of a serf, who became a national legend of Ukraine.

On May 4, 1838, thanks to the efforts of artists, poets and the Russian imperial family, a young serf, who was later destined to become one of the symbols of the Ukrainian nation, Taras Shevchenko, gained personal freedom.

The former serf thanked his liberators in an original way: he wrote a lampoon about the royal family and called for them to be drowned in blood, and he seduced the bride of his artist friend Ivan Soshenko, who was fussing about him. Despite his specific personal qualities and extravagant behavior, Shevchenko was successfully published in St. Petersburg for many years and during his lifetime became extremely popular, and after his death he completely turned into an “icon” of Ukrainians.

“I was herding lambs outside the village”

The future poet was born in 1814 in the village of Morintsy, near Zvenigorod, in the family of the serf peasant Grigory Shevchenko, who belonged to Grigory Potemkin’s nephew, Vasily Engelhardt. According to family legend, Shevchenko's ancestors were Cossacks. When Taras was two years old, his parents moved to the village of Kirillovka. In 1823, the mother died, and in 1825, the father of young Taras. The boy had to earn his own living. He tended sheep, served the sexton-teacher and sexton-painters, learning to read and write and the basics of drawing. The poet wrote about this period in his life: “The thirteenth year has passed. I was tending lambs outside the village.”

In 1829, Shevchenko became the personal servant of Pavel Engelhardt, the son of Count Vasily Engelhardt, with whom he moved to Vilna and then to St. Petersburg. Noticing his servant's ability to draw, Colonel Engelhardt decided to make him a house painter and began to apprentice him to artists.

In 1836, while painting in the Summer Garden, Shevchenko accidentally met the artist Ivan Soshenko. He took pity on the talented serf and decided to take part in his fate, introducing Taras to the painter Karl Bryullov, the poet Vasily Zhukovsky and other famous people of art.

According to contemporaries, at this time Shevchenko painted a portrait of a general who had a very unattractive appearance. The military man, seeing that the artist did not hide his shortcomings, refused to buy the painting. Then Shevchenko took the portrait and gave it to the hairdresser as a sign. The general found out about this, fell into a rage and turned to Engelhardt with an offer to sell Taras to him.

Shevchenko was frightened by this prospect, and he asked Bryullov to help him with his release. Bryullov turned to Zhukovsky for help, and he, in turn, turned to the wife of Nicholas I, Alexandra Feodorovna.

At this time, the Empress just asked Bryullov to paint a portrait of Zhukovsky. It was decided that the artist would fulfill the empress’s request, and the painting would be played in a lottery between members of the royal family. And so it happened.

The Empress allocated 400 rubles for participation in the drawing of Zhukovsky's portrait, and her son Alexander and Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna - 300 each. Guests collected another 1,400 rubles. For this colossal sum (an ordinary serf cost in the first half of the 19th century from 100 to 200 rubles) Shevchenko was ransomed, and finally received his freedom.

Bohemian life

Having become a free man, Shevchenko, according to his own recollections, went on a binge for two months, and then began to study painting on a professional basis. In 1843, the former serf received the degree of free artist.

It is worth noting that the young artist was very loving. Throughout his life, he constantly fell in love, was disappointed, and fell in love again. Shevchenko dedicated poems and poems to women, painted their portraits and swore his love.

In 1838, an ugly story happened between Taras and the initiator of his release, Ivan Soshenko. One day, in his friend’s studio, Shevchenko saw a young German model (and according to some sources, the artist’s bride) Amalia Kloberg. The girl was the niece of Soshenko’s landlord, and he was going to marry her. Shevchenko, while living with a friend, seduced 15-year-old Amalia, which quarreled friends and forced Shevchenko to move out of the apartment.

In parallel with painting, Shevchenko began making his first literary attempts. In 1840, friends published “Kobzar” - a collection of his poems in the Little Russian dialect. In 1842, he wrote the poem “Haydamaky,” filled with naturalistic descriptions of scenes of violence committed by peasant and Cossack rebels in the 18th century.

In the 1840s, Shevchenko traveled extensively throughout Ukraine and worked as an artist in the archaeographic commission at Kiev University.

In 1846, Taras Shevchenko became close to members of the so-called Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood - a secret revolutionary organization that included philologist Panteleimon Kulish, historian Nikolai Kostomarov, journalist Vasily Belozersky and other radical representatives of the Little Russian intelligentsia.

Shevchenko’s political views during the “Cyril and Methodius period” of his life are assessed ambiguously by historians. If Soviet scientists emphasized socialist motives in Shevchenko’s political views, then researchers from among the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States and Canada, as well as historians of independent Ukraine, usually present Shevchenko and other “Cyril Methodists” as nationalists.

Ukrainian journalist Andrey Samarsky, exploring Shevchenko’s political legacy, is not inclined to see him as either a socialist or a nationalist, seeing in the poet’s ideas a desire for justice, local patriotism and Cossack romanticism.

The famous Ukrainian political scientist Rostislav Ishchenko gives quite harsh assessments of Shevchenko’s ideological quest. “He was not a socialist. It’s just that Shevchenko, like many other people, wanted to have more than he had, to live better. Having found himself as a serf in St. Petersburg, he walked along its streets and envied those around him. It is this envy, caused by a feeling of social inferiority, which they sometimes try to pass off as socialist views, and has become an important motive in many of his affairs,” the expert believes.

In 1847, one of the students, who accidentally attended a meeting of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood, reported the activities of the organization to law enforcement agencies, and it was destroyed.

By this time, Shevchenko had managed to write the satirical poem “The Dream,” in which he allowed himself personal insulting attacks against the Tsar, caustically ridiculed the Tsarina’s appearance and expressed the idea that it would be a good idea to drown the entire imperial family in blood. Despite this, Taras was not sentenced to either imprisonment or hard labor. The poet was sent to serve as an ordinary soldier in the Orsk fortress in Kazakhstan, also with the right to become an officer - the tsar did not take Shevchenko’s verses seriously.

National hero

According to historians, Shevchenko’s service (first in the Orsk fortress, and then in Novopetrovsky) was not too burdensome.

For the commanders, he was a famous artist and poet from the capital, who, moreover, had the potential right to an officer rank. Therefore, they treated him practically as an equal. Despite the fact that Shevchenko was formally prohibited from writing and drawing during his service, this ban was constantly violated. In addition, the poet regularly participated in officer feasts, regularly dined with representatives of the command at home, went hunting, and became a participant in love affairs.

However, Shevchenko categorically did not want a military career, and was burdened by the very fact of being in the army, and even on distant borders.

In the 1850s, he began to ask his St. Petersburg patrons to lobby for his dismissal. In 1857, thanks to the efforts of the vice-president of the Academy of Arts Fyodor Tolstoy, Shevchenko was released and returned to St. Petersburg, where he continued his literary work and developed a textbook of the “South Russian” language for children.

In St. Petersburg, Shevchenko tried to find a bride and get married, but he never succeeded in family matters. Women repeatedly refused him, and the serf servant Lukerya, who, at Shevchenko’s request, was given her freedom by his friends, accepted expensive gifts from the poet, and then cheated on him with a tutor hired for her.

In 1861, at the age of 47, the poet died. The cause of his death was dropsy, caused, according to some historians, by alcohol abuse. He was buried in St. Petersburg, but then, according to his will, the poet’s ashes were transported to Ukraine, near Kanev.

National legend as a result of propaganda

During his lifetime, Taras Shevchenko was quite popular - against the backdrop of Russian society's interest in Little Russian themes - however, critics, in particular Vissarion Belinsky, reacted coolly to him, seeing narrow provincialism in his poetry.

“Shevchenko had average poems, average paintings, he had no inclination towards philosophy. Even attempts to use the folk language for literary purposes by other writers and poets were more successful - for example, by Kotlyarovsky,” noted Rostislav Ishchenko.

“Taras Shevchenko contributed to the formation of the literary Ukrainian language. However, when we say that he is a Ukrainian poet, we often forget that he is also a Russian writer. All of his prose is written in Russian. Moreover, judging by his diary and letters, Shevchenko even thought in Russian. True, Shevchenko’s prose in Russian is of an average level. As for poetry, we need to understand what we are comparing it to. For Ukrainian literature of its time, this was the pinnacle. However, it still falls short of the works of Russian literature of the same years,” emphasized Alexander Uzhankov, Doctor of Philology, Academician of the Academy of Russian Literature, in a conversation with RT.

With the beginning of revolutionary events in Ukraine in 1917, interest in Shevchenko’s personality grew sharply. First, the popularization of his work began in the Ukrainian People's Republic, then, as part of the policy of Ukrainization, in the Soviet Union. Even Vladimir Lenin appreciated the “revolutionary” motives in Shevchenko’s work.

The Ukrainian poet became one of the first historical figures to be awarded a monument in post-revolutionary Russia - in 1918, his sculpture was installed on Trubnaya Square in Moscow.

In Soviet times, by 1985, the total circulation of Shevchenko’s “Kobzars” alone amounted to over 8 million copies.

Today, streets and squares named after Shevchenko exist in almost every locality in Ukraine; over a thousand monuments to him have been erected all over the world.

“Shevchenko for Ukraine today is an icon and a national legend. But this is largely the result of propaganda. Everyone knows his face, but only a few can quote at least two or three of his poems. They try not to study Shevchenko’s work too deeply, so as not to admit that it is not as outstanding as is usually said,” Ishchenko concluded.

T. G. Shevchenko. Portrait of V. N. Repnina-Volkonskaya. Around 1830.
Being an emotional and sensitive person, T. Shevchenko, like every poet, often fell in love. But an evil fate haunted him all his life, depriving him of the happiness of living in marriage, in love with the wife he dreamed of, especially in the last years of his life.
Women could not appreciate either the poetic or artistic genius of the great poet. This is how he writes about marriage.

Don't marry a rich man
Bo vision z hati,
Don't marry a poor person
Bo won't sleep.
Get married freely,
On the Cossack's share,
As you will be, so will you be,
Chi gola, then y gola.
But no one bothers
I don’t disrespect -
What to hurt and where to hurt,
Nobody feeds.
Double, I think, and cry
Mov is not any easier;
Don't worry: it's easier to cry,
Don't bother anyone.
(T.G.Shevchenko)
Much of the information in this article has not been documented. But to be fair, I will give both the positive and negative aspects of the life of the famous poet. It's up to you to believe it or not.

Taras's first crush was Oksana Kovalenko, three years younger than him. They lived next door. Their mothers, looking at the fun of their children, thought that they would get married someday. But childhood sympathy and teenage love did not develop into a real and deep feeling. The 15-year-old Cossack serf Taras, in the retinue of Pavel Engelhardt, was supposed to go to Vilna (now Vilnius). The separation was unexpected and long.
He wrote about this hobby in a poem.
I'm past thirteen.
I was tending lambs outside the village.
Why did the sun shine so brightly,
What happened to me?
I turned around to face -
There is no hatred in me!
God didn't give me anything!..
And the tears flowed,
Heavy tears!.. And the girl
At the highest dose
Not far from me
I chose flat
She felt that I was crying.
She came, greeted,
Wiped away my tears
I kissed...
Somehow the sun began to shine,
Otherwise everything in the world has become
Moe... doe, go, garden!..
And we, frantically, drove off
Someone else's lambs reach the water.

Shevchenko arrived in his native Kirillovka only fourteen years later - already as a free man, a promising metropolitan artist and poet. By that time, Oksana had already been married for three years and was nannying two daughters born to a serf from the village of Pedikovka... T. Shevchenko Woman in Bed. 1841
Ivan Maksimovich Soshenko played a big role in Shevchenko’s life: it was he who first raised the issue of freeing talent from serfdom, and sheltered his friend who had received his freedom in his room...

Shevchenko began courting his fiancée Masha, persuaded the 17-year-old girl to pose for him as a model and, in the end, seduced her. Ivan Maksimovich was shocked. He drove away the future Kobzar. The fate of the girl is unknown.

The town of Yagotin, Poltava province, lies not far from Mosivka and Berezovaya Rudka, where Shevchenko visited in the summer of 1843, freely traveling around Ukraine as a poet and artist.
He came here for the first time in July, and from October 43 to October 44, he lived intermittently with the family of Nikolai Grigorievich Repnin-Volkonsky - prince, general, elder brother of the Decembrist S. Volkonsky.

Varvara Nikolaevna Volkonskaya Repnina. The prince's daughter, 35-year-old Varvara was delighted with Shevchenko's talent and poetry and fell in love with him for life. Since the love was not mutual, the princess decided that she was destined by God to become the poet’s guardian angel, and with all the strength of her soul she fought against the passionate feeling.
In letters to her mentor, the Frenchman S. Einard, she frankly wrote about her mental anguish: “In a vile way, for whole hours I surrender to the power of my imagination, which paints me ardent pictures of passion, and sometimes lust.”

The poet treated Varvara’s reverent feelings with the greatest respect, but could not force his heart to respond to sincere love.
In the end, a warm, trusting friendship began between them, which was not interrupted almost until the last years of T. Shevchenko’s life. He dedicated poetry to her.

DEDICATION

A soul with a wonderful purpose
One must love, endure, suffer;
And the gift of God, inspiration,
Should be watered with tears.
This word is clear to you!..
For you I happily folded
Your worldly shackles,
I officiated again
And poured tears into sounds.
Your good angel has dawned on
Me with immortal wings
And soft-spoken speeches
Awakened dreams of paradise.

Yagotin,
November 11, 1843
In 1858, returning from exile, Taras Grigorievich visited the princess several times, who by that time lived in Moscow and “happily changed, became fuller and younger,” as Shevchenko noted. Their last meeting took place on March 24.

Shevchenko stayed in Berezovaya Rudka near Kiev in 1840, in the family of the landowner Platon Zakrevsky. And here love broke out between 29-year-old Taras and Plato’s 21-year-old wife, the beautiful Anna Zakrevskaya.
It was a strong and mutual feeling that tore apart their young souls for many years.

The 21-year-old wife of the colonel awakened a great feeling in Taras. Taras Shevchenko carried his love and tenderness for Anna Zakrevskaya throughout his life. He dedicated two poems to her: “G.Z.” (“There is no bitterness like in captivity...”) and written by the poet in the mid-1850s in the link “As if we had gotten along again”:

“The Yakbis got along with us again,
Why would you be angry, why not?
What a quiet word
Would you have washed me away?
No way. I wouldn’t have known.
Or maybe I’d guess later,
Having said: “I had a bad dream.”
And I’m happy, my wonder!
My share is black-browed!
Yakbi got excited, guessed
More fun and younger
Kolishna is just too dashing.
I zaridav bi, zaridav!
I prayed that we are not being truthful,
And it became a cunning dream,
It spilled like slime and water
What a holy miracle!”

But he did not have to meet his passion - she died at the age of 35 in the year when the poet received release from 10 years of soldiering.
MATCHING TO THE POPOVNA.
During his first trip to Ukraine, Shevchenko came to Kirilovtsy, and he liked the daughter of the local priest Grigory Koshitsa, Feodosia.

Having received a position at Kiev University, Shevchenko went to the temple festival to get married. But he received a categorical refusal from Popovna’s parents. The girl did not dare to contradict the will of her parents and soon went crazy.

There is an opinion that Shevchenko ended up in exile in the Orenburg province because... he offended a woman. Moreover, the Empress herself. It was she who received the famous portrait of Zhukovsky by Bryullov, thanks to which Shevchenko was bought out of their serfdom.
In the scandalous poem “Dream” at that time, Taras allowed himself to compare Empress Alexandra with a dried honey mushroom, saying that she was so “thin, long-legged.” And the Russian emperor, offended by such a comparison, severely punished the poet.

Ten years of soldier's life completely crippled the poet's personal life.
Shevchenko called his love for the wife of the commandant of the Novopetrovsk fortress Uskov, Anna Emelyanovna, a sublime, pure, platonic feeling. Unfortunately, dirty gossip interrupted their friendly conversations, but Uskova remained a sincere friend of Shevchenko for many years.

Shevchenko was already in his forty-fourth year when the new emperor signed a decree of pardon, and he already felt like an old man. Taras Grigorievich also grew a shaggy beard, with which he really looked like an old man. But, as it happens, he dreamed of a young wife, “from the simple ones,” next to whom he wanted to regain his former youth.

Returning to St. Petersburg, Shevchenko remained under police surveillance and “hung out” in Nizhny Novgorod for several months. And here I fully felt my popularity. Women from local society vied with each other to order their portraits from him, and the artist assessed them with a meticulous eye.

And the poet, thirsty for love, found the girl of his dreams in Nizhny Novgorod. He first saw her on the theater stage on October 13, 1857. The 16-year-old aspiring actress Katya Piunova seemed to him the ideal of female beauty.

For the sake of her theatrical career, he called the famous actor Mikhail Shchepkin to Nizhny, and he played in performances with her for three days. Shevchenko wrote an enthusiastic note about her acting in a local newspaper, which was later republished by the Moscow press. He begged the director of the Kharkov Theater to agree to the actress’s conditions and enroll her in his troupe.

But the young actress turned out to be too ungrateful, or maybe she simply did not dare to connect her life with a fashionable but notorious artist, who was almost thirty years older than her. She eventually went to Kazan with 25-year-old actor Maximilian Schmidthoff and married him.

From Piunova’s memoirs:
“After all, I was not yet sixteen years old! Well, what did I understand! It seemed to me that there was nothing groom’s about Taras Grigorievich. The boots were greased, made of tar, the sheepskin coat was almost a sheepskin, the sheepskin hat was the simplest, and in Taras Grigorievich’s pathetic moments it flapped on half a day hundreds of times...
Yes, only all this was imagined and remembered, but I forgot about the spiritual world, about the mind of the great poet, there was not enough reason!”

On the way from Nizhny to St. Petersburg, Shevchenko stayed in Moscow for several days, where he visited the Maksimovich family. Mikhail Alekseevich Maksimovich, a longtime acquaintance of Taras Grigorievich, a Ukrainian scientist, naturalist, historian, folklorist and linguist, was the first rector of Kyiv University (1834-1835), hosted a dinner in honor of the poet.

There Shevchenko met his young wife Maria, to whom that same evening he gave an autograph of one of his best lyrical poems, “The Cherry Fish Tank,” written in the Peter and Paul Fortress casemate before exile.

An entry appeared in the diary: “We stopped by Maksimovich... The hostess did not find him at home... Soon she appeared, and the dark abode of the scientist brightened. What a sweet, beautiful creature.
But what is most charming about her is the pure, spontaneous type of my countrywoman. She played several of our songs on the piano for us. So purely, without manners, like no great artist can play. And where did he, the old antiquarian, dig up such fresh and pure goods? And sad and envious...”

G. Maksimovich was 50 years old at that time, and how old his wife Maria Vasilievna was is unknown, but judging by the portrait painted by Shevchenko in 1859, then, apparently, somewhere around 20 and no more than 25. There, in Moscow, she allegedly promised to help the poet find a bride in Ukraine.

Taras Shevchenko and Maria Maksimovich corresponded. The poet even sent her his first photo in one of his letters. Here are a few phrases from Taras Grigorievich’s letter to Maria Vasilievna.
“Thank you, my dear, that you remember me and do not forget my requests.”
“...if God helps you, then maybe I’ll become friends.”
“My beloved, my only friend! Thank you, my heart, for your broad, affectionate letter... I’ll leave you in poverty and become friends with you (? - Yu.K.) and love"

Although, if you look closely at the portrait of Maksimovich, painted by Taras Grigorievich during this rather short visit, you can conclude that he had never painted any woman with such inspiration, with such sincerity.
Her unusually dreamy eyes, a particularly radiant expression on her face, a smoky halo around her head - everything indicates that the image was created by a loving artist who deified his model.

It is believed that Taras Grigorievich became close to Maria Maksimovich, since nine months after the poet’s visit, her son was born. Before that, the Maksimovichs had no children. Other researchers of the poet’s life reject this version, citing the fact that Shevchenko’s decency would not allow him to cross the line beyond which a friend’s betrayal begins, and intimate and tender conversations with Maria Maksimovich concerned only the choice of a bride.

By the way, one of the contenders for marriage with the poet was the maid of his second cousin Bartholomew, Kharita Dovgopolenko. But the 19-year-old peasant woman considered Taras to be too much of a master and therefore did not agree to the marriage. And she married a young clerk.
ABOUT THE POET'S LATEST, BRIGHTEST LOVE FOR LUKERIA POLUSMAK IN THE NEXT ARTICLE.
If you want to look at Shevchenko’s favorite women, text with illustrations.
http://maxpark.com/community/6782/content/2181573