Taras H. Shevchenko

Taras H. Shevchenko. , Taras Shevchenko, bard of freedom, Ukrainian poet and artist born a serf and orphaned early passed a wretched childhood in the service of a brutal sexton. He was apprenticed to Icon and Mural painters until he was bought and freed in 1838 by a group of intellectuals who recognized his talent. Shevchenko became a prominent Realist painter. While his Ukrainian ballads were being published he joined a Ukrainian nationalist society writing bitterly against serfdom and Russian autocracy. It was his poetry that inspired the Ukrainian movement for independence in 1917 and encouraged forces within Soviet Union to continue their struggle for freedom. Banished to an appalling military existence in Central Asia for his Liberal ideas, he wrote exquisite lyric poetry and numerous novels in exile (1847-1857). Dogged by terrible misfortune in life, the poet died seven days before the emancipation of serfs was announced.