Skip to content
Call Us Today! 212-533-4646 | MON-FRI 12PM - 4PM (EST)
DONATE
SUBSCRIBE
Search for:
About Us
UNWLA 100
Publications
FAQ
Annual Report 2023
Annual Report 2022
Annual Report 2021
Initiatives
Advocate
Educate
Cultivate
Care
News
Newsletters
Sign Up For Our Newsletter
Join UNWLA
Become a Member
Volunteer With Us
Donate to UNWLA
Members Portal
Calendar
Shop to Support Ukraine
Search for:
Print
Print Page
Download
Download Page
Download Right Page
Open
1
2-3
4-5
6-7
8-9
10-11
12-13
14-15
16-17
18-19
20-21
22-23
24-25
26-27
28-29
30-31
32-33
34-35
36
Ukraine's World Freedom Singer — Taras Shevchenko For Ukrainian people the world over, the year 1961 has a dual meaning. In this year occurs two events, im portant not only to them , bu t to all m ankind: the celebration of the 43rd anniver sary of U kraine’s independence as a nation, and the Centennial of their g reatest voice of liberty, the poet T aras Shevchenko, 1814-1861, to whom a statue is to be erected on public grounds in W ashington, D. C. On Sept. 13, 1960, President Eisenhower signed Resolution 311 m aking it Pub. Law 86-749. Centennial ob servances are to begin in March. The Independence Day has al ready been accentuated by the 37 million U krainians en slaved in the USSR, who declar ed them selves Ukrainian, and th eir m other tongue Ukrainian, in the latest Soviet population census. It is believed th a t at least 10 million other U krainians either were afraid to declare them selves Ukrainians, or sim ply preferred to assum e the safe appellation of Soviet citizens. Throughout th e free world are some 2,500,000 more Uk rainians, and their descendants, to whom is entrusted th e task of voicing their desire and aspi ration to achieve freedom and i n dependence. The United States has 1,500,000 Ukrainians, Cana da 500,000, South Am erica 400,- 000 and some 100,000 in A ustra lia, G reat Britain, France, Bel gium and W est Germany. This year, for the first tim e in Am er ican history, the U. S. Census Bureau recognized the, U krain ian language, and Ukraine, as a separate entity th a t could be en tered in the U. S. population census of 1960. In th e past all countries on crossroads of th e world have suffered, more especially if they have rich natural resources, or lead to them . The very name Uk raine means “border land.” It is one of the richest regions in the world, and equals in area E ng land, A ustria, Belgium, Hol land, Denmark, Portugal and Switzerland. In integrating the elements in a nation th a t make for a free people a native language is among the forem ost. Shevchen ko w rote his poetry entirely in Ukrainian. The Encyclopedia Britannica states th a t as early as the 16th century U krainian literature was em erging separ ate and distinct from Russian literature. This poet, though born a serf and a peasant, ac cording to the political p attern superimposed on enslaved peo ples under Russian domination, introduced a new and essentially democratic spirit into w hat had become modern U krainian litera ture. He is described as a rom an tic nationalist in his early w rit ing, a revolutionary internation alist in his later work, and re mains ever a symbol of U krain ian freedom. Ukraine is the largest non- Russian nation in the USSR of Europe, and th e second largest in the entire USSR. It is also th e second largest Slavic people in Europe, outnumbered, in this respect, only by th e Russians. Nor is the Soviet Union in reality a Union. It is not a uni fied and homogeneous nation, but a colonial empire composed of a conglomorate of m any non- Russian nations and peoples. And, so long as Ukraine, th e largest of its European colonies rem ains spiritually intact as a people, combined w ith its imme diate proxim ity to Moscow, w ith which it has never been linked in language or in thought, it is a powerful deterrent to Kremlin ambitions. And no amount, or type of Russification efforts to w ards state-directed genocide of the U krainian people will suc ceed. Someone has entitled him ‘ Europe’s Freedom F ig h ter”, which confines him to too re stricted an area. There has been no other world poet whose entire life was devoted to singing against hum an slavery. His ten years imprisonm ent, and four years police surveillance for it cost him his life. His was a free spirit: th ere is no tyranny to which he would have subm itted himself, even to th e treasuring of his poems in th e sole of his boot in those dreadful prison days in Siberia, when th e czar forbade him to w rite or paint. E ver of U kraine he recorded the incidents of her varied tra vail. His poems are th e perfect dis tillation of his lonely life, lonely from th e very beginning, and of his sorrow for Ukraine. On May 18,1861 his final bur ial was on a favorite spot of his, Chernecha Hora, on the west bank of th e Dnieper, near Ka- niv, a town a few miles down stream from Kiev. In 1892 his brother’s wife’s brother, V arto- lomey, w ith whom he had en joyed a warm friendship, bought this ground, and handed it over to the local duma of Kaniv to preserve as a memorial to th e poet. The last eulogy was made by his friend, Mikhaylo Chaly who said: “The poetry of Shev chenko has won for us the rig h t to literary citizenship, and has spoken aloud in th e fam ily of 16 НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ — БЕРЕЗЕНЬ, 1961 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
Page load link
Go to Top
1 
2-3 
4-5 
6-7 
8-9 
10-11 
12-13 
14-15 
16-17 
18-19 
20-21 
22-23 
24-25 
26-27 
28-29 
30-31 
32-33 
34-35 
36 
