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"Kazashka". Sepia (Summer, 1856). "Казашка". Сепія (літо, 1856). March. There is no group of Ukrainians anywhere in the world which does not honor Shevchenko sometimes during March. There is no mystery in the Shevchenko myth. For us he is not only a poet-writer, nor do we honor him for his poetic genius. His friend Panteleymon Kulish called Shevchenko a “light from the sky” and “the rouser of a nation.” When we honor him, it is not for his magnifi cent lyrical poetry, his ballads, dramas or stories. The Ukrainian nation honors Shevchenko as one who created a Ukrainian nation from an ethnic mass, conscious of its identity. Petro Hryhorenko, a Russian general, professor at the Frunze Military Academy in Moscow and a member of the communist party, wrote in his memoirs: “Then I received a copy of KOBZAR, and I understood that I am a Ukrainian. I have never forgotten this and my actions were always to benefit Ukraine...” During the times of the tzars and bolsheviks, a lot of Shevchenko’s work was falsified. There are studies now which show details in which publications of KOBZAR the censors underlined or changed lines, even whole verses. Shevchenko was presented as an atheist, as a poet of troublemakers, as a communist. None of this dirt clung to Shevchenko. Shevchenko’s "Zapovit” (Testament), “Kavkaz,” "Do szyvych і mertvych” (“To the living and the dead”), “Velykij Loch” (“The huge prison”), and other political poems rousted the slumbering Ukrainian mass. Even the lyrical poems, pearls such as “Sadok vyshnevyj” (“The cherry orchard”), or “Mynajut’ dni, mynajut nochi” (“So pass the days, so pass the nights”) make the Ukrainian people deeply bow to him who awakened the nation. And we are doing this today — in a quiet, short ceremony, but our foreheads touch the ground in a deep homage. Ivan K edryn (tra n s la te d fro m U k ra in ia n ) It is indifferent to me, if I Live in Ukraine or live there not at all, Whether or not men let my memory die; Here in an alien land, mid snows piled high It will not matter that such things befall. In serfdom, among strangers was I reared, And unlamented wholly by my own In exile I shall die, in grief uncheered, And to my nameless grave shall pass alone. No trace of me, alas, will then remain To see in all our glorious Ukraine, In all that land of ours that is not ours. No father will commend me to his son, To pray for me to God, source of all powers: ’’Pray then, my boy! For us his course was run. He died to save Ukraine, who Fate devours.” It is indifferent to me, I say, Whether or not that son for me should pray.... But while I live I cannot bear to see A wicked people come with crafty threat, To lull Ukraine yet strip her ruthlessly And waken her amid the flames they set — Sure, no indifference in me these wrongs beget! Translated into English verse by C.H. Andrusyshen, Ph.D. and Watson Kirkconnell, Ph.D. НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, БЕРЕЗЕНЬ 1990 17
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