2. Taras Shevchenko was born on 9 March,
1814 in Moryntsi, Kiev gubernia. (now
Cherkasy region)
He was born in the family of a serf.
This is the Building,
in which was born
Taras Shevchenko.
3. Young Taras became an
orphan very early.
He was a shepherd, a labourer
to a priest and, when he was
fourteen, his owner
Engelgardt took him into
the manor house as a boy-
servant — “kozachok”.
In 1829 Shevchenko’s owner
moved to Vilno and then —
to St. Petersburg and took
his boy-servant with him.
4. Still in his early childhood
Shevchenko was very fond of
drawing and his master decided
to make a serf painter of him.
For this purpose he sent Taras to
study painting.
Portrait of Engelgardt,1833
Portrait of a Woman.
Sketch.Pencil. 1839-1843
Portrait. Sketch.Pencil. 1839
Portrait of a Woman.
Sketch.Pencil. 1839-1843
5. The boy was so talented that several Russian artists
decided to free him from slavery.
Karl Brulov, the great Russian artist, painted a portrait
of Vasiliy Zhukovsky and sold it for 2 500 roubles.
With this money they bought out Shevchenko from his
master.
6. KATHERINA
From 1838 to 1845 Shevchenko was a student at
the Academy of Arts. Shevchenko was awarded
three silver medals for his works. He draw many
beautiful pictures there, but his second and main
calling was poetry.
7. In 1847 he was arrested and exiled as a soldier to
Orsk fortress in Kazakhstan.
Here, being a soldier, he wrote several novels in
Russian.
He also painted several of his best pictures.
In 1857 Shevchenko returned from the exile to St.
Petersburg.
8. In 1838 Shevchenko wrote his first poems in Ukrainian.
In 1840 he published his first book of poems which he
named “Kobzar”. In 1843 Shevchenko returned to
Ukraine. He travelled a lot about the country and learned
to know the heavy life of the Ukrainian serfs. He wrote
several revolutionary poems directed against the tsarist
despotism (“Dream”, 1844, “The Caucasus”, 1845, and
his famous “Testament”).
9. In 1859, when Shevchenko went to
Ukraine, he was arrested and forced to
return to St. Petersburg — the tsarist
government was afraid of the poet.
10. But ten years of exile had ruined the
poet’s health. At the beginning of
1861 he was seriously ill. on March
10, 1861 the great poet died of heart
disease.
11. Shevchenko’s works take an important place in Ukrainian
literature and history. Shevchenko was an outstanding poet and a
highly accomplished artist. There are 835 works written by him,
although 270 are known to have been lost.
His collection also contains over 150 portraits, 42 self-portraits.
There are many landscapes, watercolours and etchings.
His works are translated into many languages.
