Book of the Week: Kobzar by Taras Shevchenko

Julia Lasica celebrates Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine’s national poet

For us Ukrainians, Shevchenko was the first poet to put into words what it meant to be Ukrainian: the continuous struggle against Russian imperialism, the pursuit of freedom and democracy which are core to our identity, and the deep links with our land.

Born into a serfdom imposed by the Russian empire in Ukraine, Shevchenko had a short lived period of freedom after being bought out of slavery by fellow poets and artists who recognised his talent. In this time, he published his most famous poetry collection, Kobzar (1840).

The collection took its name from the itinerant bards of Ukraine, the kobzari. The tradition surrounding the bards has its roots in earlier Ukrainian practices but really took hold in the 16th century Cossack-Ukrainian state. The kobzari would accompany their dumas (sung epic poems that related historical events such as the battles of the Cossacks) on either a kobza or a bandura, both Ukrainian versions of the lute.

By tradition, these bards were blind and would wander the country led by a young orphan apprentice, a povodyr (a guide). By the time Shevchenko named his poetry collection after them, creating a written testament to their practice, they occupied a central place in the national identity of Ukraine, lyricising their daily lives and their struggles against the Russian forces. The kobzari created an oral tradition which they passed from one generation of bards to the next, giving language to the Ukrainians to express what was happening to them on both a national and personal scale.

But the continual Russian imperial urge to suppress Ukrainian identity and culture resulted in the kobzari being killed off in 1932. On the orders of Stalin, they were all invited by the Soviets to a congress in Kharkiv. When they arrived, they were taken outside of the city and shot.

Taras Shevchenko’s Kobzar became wildly popular however and was even learnt off by heart by many Russian nobles, despite being written completely in Ukrainian. But Shevchenko was quickly exiled and forbidden from writing for ten years on the orders of Tsar Nicholas I for expressing the tragedy of his nation’s enslavement in “Little Russian” (the Russian way of saying Ukrainian).

Below, I have provided John Weir’s translation of Shevchenko’s most famous poem, “Zapovit” or “Testament” (you can also find Vera Rich’s translation online).

It is a resounding call across history that each and every Ukrainian fighting for their very existence today remembers – that we must defend our freedom, our country, and then reap the benefits of peace when the time for it finally returns.

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 Dnipro’s plunging shore –
My eyes could see, my ears could hear
The mighty river roar.
When from Ukraine the Dnipro 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 until that day
I know nothing 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.