Prominent Ukrainian writer. And his poems.

Taras Shevchenko (Ukrainian Taras Grigorovich Shevchenko. February 25 (9 March) in 1814, the village Morintsy, Zvenigorod County Kiev province, Russian Empire (now Ukraine, Cherkasy region, Ukraine) - February 26 (March 10), 1861 Saint-Petersburg, Russian Empire ) - Ukrainian poet. Also known as an artist, writer, ethnographer, and revolutionary democrat.
Shevchenko's literary heritage, in which the central role played by poetry, in particular the collection "Kobzar", is considered the foundation of modern Ukrainian literature and in many literary Ukrainian language. The activity of the Ukrainian national revival, a member of the Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood.

Most of the prose of Shevchenko (story, blog, many letters), as well as some poems written in Russian, in connection with which some researchers attribute creativity Shevchenko, besides Ukrainian, and also in Russian literature.
***********************************************Cherry Orchard Circle house*************************************************
Cherry Orchard Circle house,
Beetle buzzing over the cherries,
Clodhopper with plows go
Sing going girls
A mother waiting for dinner.

Family dinner circle the house,
Evening bright star rises.
Daughter dinner are served,
A mother wants to teach,
So nightingale does not.

She put the house to have a range of
Their little children;
Most slept their terms.
The crowd all maidens
But the nightingale is not subsided.

[Between 19 and 30 May 1847,
St. Petersburg]
*****************************************************My Testament**********************************************************

When I am dead, bury me
In my beloved Ukraine,
My tomb upon a grave mound high
Amid the spreading plain,
So that the fields, the boundless steppes,
The Dnieper’s plunging shore
My eyes could see, my ears could hear
The mighty river roar.

When from Ukraine the Dnieper bears
Into the deep blue sea
The blood of foes … then will I leave
These hills and fertile fields –
I’ll leave them all and fly away
To the abode of God,
And then I’ll pray …. But till that day
I nothing know of God.

Oh bury me, then rise ye up
And break your heavy chains
And water with the tyrants’ blood
The freedom you have gained.
And in the great new family,
The family of the free,
With softly spoken, kindly word
Remember also me.

Taras Shevchenko
Pereyaslav, December 25, 1845

Askold's Grave 1846. Paper, sepia and watercolor. 26 x 37.