Shevchenko and Muscovy

Various fiction and propagandistic stories are supposed to depict the positive attitude of official Russia and Russians towards Shevchenko, who was allegedly bought out of serfdom by the royal family, that Shevchenko is a bilingual writer, and he belongs to both Ukrainian and Russian literature. Reality and historical facts speak of completely different assessments and realities.

Shevchenko and the Russian language

For Shevchenko, the Ukrainian language was everything – not only a means of communication, but it was his soul and the foundation of his human and national consciousness. We will find many arguments about this in the poet’s works and correspondence.

Thus, in a letter to Nikita’s brother dated November 15, 1839, Taras Shevchenko wrote: “Please, write to me the way I write to you – not in the Moscow way, but in our way –

Because Muscovites are foreign people;

It is difficult to live with them;

There is no one to cry with

No talking, –

So let me at least hear my native language through paper (…) I am asking once again – write me a letter, but please in your own way – not in the Moscow way.”

In conversations and letters, Shevchenko never called Muscovites Russians, but only Muscovites, and Katsaps. In the “Preface” to the second edition of “Kobzar” he complained about his fellow countrymen who were exposed to the influence of Russian journalism (literally: “invasion of foreign journalists”) and urged: “Do not be afraid, the dog barks, but the wind blows. They shout, “Why don’t we write in the Moscow language?” Later, Shevchenko himself responds to this reproach: “Don’t count on Muscovites, let them write in their own way, and we – in our own way. They have the people and the word, and we have the people and the word, and whose is better – let the people judge.”

A very detailed study of the life and work of Taras Shevchenko was written and published by R. Zadesnyansky, i.e. Roman Brzesky’s “Apostle of the Ukrainian National Revolution” (Munich 1969). This book was published in a small edition and is now almost inaccessible to anyone. It is sharply polemical, but the author is not afraid to touch on sensitive subjects and does not stop before any, even academic “authority” when they are wrong.

We will only cite one place from this work where the bilingualism of Shevchenko is mentioned. “Shevchenko was not a bilingual writer, he considered only the Ukrainian language as the language of his work, but what he wrote in Muscovite – he wrote under the pressure of circumstances,” concludes Brzeskyi.

Who exactly bought Shevchenko? Not the Russians!

Literary researcher Hanna Cherkaska from Zaporizhzhia wrote a short, but unequivocal answer to this topic. Her critical note can be read on her personal Facebook page. We quote this text, which does not require additional comments, but only wide distribution:

“I didn’t want to raise this topic, but fatherless women from television in Ukraine (I say this because we don’t have Ukrainian television) proved it. How much can one say that “the figures of Russian culture bought out the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko from serfdom.”

Which of the Russians did you see there?

Russian artist Karl Bryullov and Russian poet Vasyl Zhukovsky decided to redeem Shevchenko from serfdom. Engelhardt agreed to release the serf for 2,500 rubles, at that time this amount was equivalent to 45 kg. pure silver To get such money, Karl Bryullov painted a portrait of Vasyl Zhukovsky, the tutor of the heir to the throne, and on May 4, 1838, the portrait was drawn in a lottery in which the royal family took part.

Russian Karl Bryullov (1799-1852) is a descendant of the famous French Huguenot emigrants on his father’s side, and German on his mother’s. Karl Bryullo became Karl Bryullov by decree of Alexander I so that the surname would inform foreigners about a subject from the Russian Empire and resemble Russian surnames, he was given the letter “v”. Since life in St. Petersburg did not work out, the artist asked for permission to leave for his beloved Italy. According to the legend, when he reached the border, there he took off all his clothes and threw them away because he did not want to take with him even the dust of his stepmother Russia.

The Russian poet V. Zhukovsky is the illegitimate son of the Russian landowner Panas Bunin (great-grandfather of the famous writer and Nobel laureate Ivan Bunin), his mother is Salkha, a Turk by origin, taken prisoner by the Russians during the storming of Bender in August 1770. The prisoner was baptized with the name of Elizaveta Turchaninova. Vasyl, the son born to her, was adopted by the Belarusian nobleman Andriy Zhukovsky (who lived “on bread” with the Bunins) at the request of P. Bunin, which allowed Zhukovsky to avoid the fate of an illegitimate child. His personal background deepened sympathy for Shevchenko’s fate.

It is known that items of porcelain and jewelry were displayed alongside Zhukovsky’s portrait. Who won them and did anyone win them at all? No one won Zhukovsky’s portrait! The royal family never made any claims against him. After the lottery, Bryullov worked on the portrait for another 14 years, and only after the artist’s death did the family sell it to the Russian businessman Tretyakov. In 1939, the portrait of Zhukovsky, for which Shevchenko was supposedly redeemed from serfdom, went to the newly established museum of T.G. Shevchenko in Kyiv.

Since the lottery for Zhukovsky’s portrait did not yield the desired amount, the funds for the poet’s ransom were collected in a fund started by K. Bryullov, V. Zhukovsky, O. Venetsianov and Yu. Baranova.

Oleksiy Venetsianov is the son of a Greek merchant from Nizhyn Farmaki-Veneziano and a Ukrainian woman. He studied painting with the Ukrainian Volodymyr Borovykovsky.

Yuliya Baranova (1789–1864) – German, countess, born Adlerberg, mistress of the court, stateswoman and tutor of the daughters of Nicholas I.

Funds for redemption were handed over by Shevchenko’s countryman, artist Ivan Soshenko; artist Apollon Mokrytskyi from Poltava region, a descendant of the Tavolga Cossack, a graduate of the Nizhyn Gymnasium of Higher Sciences; poet Yevhen Hrebinka (a Cossack descendant of the Tchaikovsky family); Count Mykhailo Wielhorskyi is a Pole, cellist and composer.

Vasyl Hryhorovych is a Cossack descendant from the Poltava region, a graduate of the Kyiv Academy, a conference secretary of the Academy of Arts who participated in the redemption of Shevchenko from serfdom and helped to place him in the Academy of Arts as a pensioner of the Society for the Promotion of Artists. Shevchenko dedicated the poem “Haydamaki” to Hryhorovych and mentions him on the pages of his diary and in the story “The Artist”.

The lottery was held on 22 April (4 May) 1838, and on 25 April 25 (7 May) Shevchenko was given a leave of absence.”