Taras Shevchenko - Ukrainian poet, writer (playwright, novelist), artist (painter and engraver), social and political activist, folklorist, ethnographer. This person is a child suffered a lot of grief. First mother died , after her death, his father married again. When Taras was 12 his father died. Then his life began horror. The whole picture of his childhood he showed in his poem :

My thirteenth birthday soon would come.

I herded lambkins on the lea.

Was it the magic of the sun,

Oh what was it affected me?

I felt with joy all overcome

As though in heaven…

The time for lunch had long passed by,

And still among the weeds I lay

And prayed to God… 

Taras Shevchenko was a serf. But our happiness Mr. Shiryaev(  his master)like to have your own artist and sent him to study. In the spring of 1838 Art Masterpieces and Vasily Zhukovsky intention to redeem a young poet from serfdom. He agreed to release a serf for big money - 2500 rubles [56]. At the time, this amount was equivalent to 45 kilograms of pure silver. [57] To get the money, Art Masterpieces painted a portrait of Vasily Zhukovsky - tutor of the heir to the throne, and the portrait played the lottery, which was attended by the royal family. [58] Lottery held April 22 (May 4) in 1838 [59], and on April 25 (May 7) published the selling Shevchenko [56]. We acknowledge the fact that Shevchenko was not to quiet life until his last days , until the last breath. We know that more than ten years he spent in exile , enduring the daily drill in the soldier's barracks , suffering from serious illnesses. But, oddly enough, do not pay attention to a telling fact that it seems on the surface. I mean the appearance of our poet. We childhood accustomed to dark portraits grandfather in a fur hat and bushy mustache. From childhood we know that you - " Grandpa Shevchenko". And if someone thought : How many years ago my grandfather ? Taras Shevchenko died at 47 years, therefore, on the famous portraits of his age 44-46 ( is not that important to establish the exact date of the writing of the portrait , because we are talking about something else ). So why are people in the prime of their strength looks like an old grandpa ? The answer, of course, are simply blame all those years of serfdom, links, military service , wine disease. And despite all this , Shevchenko primarily concerned about your unfortunate persecuted people for their misfortune Ukraine . He believed and hoped that Ukraine will become independent. And even these words, he devoted his work

My Testament

Translated by E.L.Voinich

(Dec.25, 1845. Pereiaslav)

Dig my grave and raise my barrow

By the Dnieper-side

In Ukraine, my old land,

A fair land and wide.

I will lie and watch the cornfields,

Listen through the years

To the river voices roaring,

Roaring in my ears.

When I hear the call

Of the racing flood,

I will leave them all,

Fields and hills; and force my way

Right up to the Throne

Where God sits alone;

Clasp his feet and pray…

But till that day

What is God to me?

Bury me; be done with me,

Raise and break your chain,

Water your new liberty

With blood for rain.

Then in the mighty family

Of all men that are free,

May be, sometimes, very softly

You will speak of me?