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March Milestones My Thirteenth Year During the month of March, Ukrainians com memorate the birth of composer Mykola Lysenko, of ten remembered as the Father of Ukrainian Music. Bom March 22, 1842, Lysenko, was a versatile com poser - one who created operas for children with the same passionate dexterity that enabled him to set to music the words of Ukraine’s national bard, Taras Shevchenko. Coincidentally, Shevchenko was also bom in March. A serf bom into a family of serfs, he died on March 10, just eight days after serfdom was abolished in Ukraine in 1861. Shevchenko left a timeless legacy - a wealth of words that continues to awe and amaze us, both as poet’s art and as the indestmctible and uni versal language of yearning for freedom. Throughout the world, Ukrainians pay hom age to Shevchenko as the symbol of our nation’s long and difficult road to independence. Among Ukrainians in the United States, the “Shevchenkivsk’a Akade- miya” has been a hallowed tradition for more than half a century. Statues and monuments erected in his honor can be found in every city with a sizeable population of Ukrainians. Of more consequence perhaps are monuments of paper, not of stone. These are the works of the myr iad writers and translators and biographers and pub lishers and educators who have lovingly preserved and disseminated Shevchenko’s works or works about Shevchenko. In the archives of Our Life , we find examples of these labors of love in various forms. Nearly every March for the past 10 years, one of Shevchenko’s po ems has appeared in these pages. In 1995, we were pleased to publish “English Language Shevchenkiana: Translation and Research” by Professor Roksoliana Zorivchak. A second article by Dr. Zorivchak, “The First Translator of Shevchenko into English” can be found in the March 1998 issue of Our Life. The article tells the intriguing tale of Ahapius Honcharenko, whose first edition of the Alaska Herald, which he be gan publishing in 1868, included a translation of pas sages from “The Caucasus”. In the same issue of Our Life , is an article by Professor Helene Turkewicz- Sanko about French schoolchildren studying Shevchenko’s poetry. In March 1997, Our Life pub lished Martha Bohachevsky’s review of Professor George Luckyj’s Shevchenko’s Unforgotten Journey. We continue the tradition by sharing with you this year one of Taras Shevchenko’s most loved poems. by Taras Shevchenko My thirteenth year was coming to an end - And I was grazing lambs beyond the village. Was it because the sun was shining so Or was it something without cause, that Made me feel such joy, such joy, As if I were with God .... They had already called us to our meal And I, hidden among the weeds, Prayed God ... nor do I know, Why as a child I prayed so fervently Or what it was that made me feel such cheer. God’s sky, the village, and the lambs, They all seemed joyful. And the sun warmed, it did not bum. Not long did the sun warmly shine And not long did I pray. It reddened and it burned And scorched the heavens. As if awakened from a sleep, I looked: The village had turned black And God’s blue heaven Had turned stark and grim. I glanced toward the lambs - No lambs of mine were they! I turned to see the houses then - Of my house there was none. God had given me nothing And my tears gushed forth Such heavy tears! ... a little girl There by that very road Not far from where I was Was plucking hemp And hearing that I wept Came, greeted me, And wiped my tears away and kissed me. It was as if the sun began to shine As if all in the world had become Mine ... fields, meadows, orchards! And laughingly we drove Somebody else’s lambs into the water. Such foolishness! And to this day, remembering, My heart now weeps, now aches That God did not allow me to remain A brief while longer in that heaven. I would have died plowing that field Not knowing anything on earth, Would not have been an outcast in the world Would not have learned to curse both men and (God)! 14 “НАШ Е Ж ИТТЯ”, БЕРЕЗЕН Ь 2002 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.
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