THE CHILDHOOD OF TARAS SHEVCHENKO

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In 1829, at the age of fifteen, Taras travelled in his master's entourage. first to Kiev, and then to Vilnius in Lithuania, the Engelhardt ancestral homeland. It was in Vilnius that Taras ceased to be a boy and began entering his adult life.

One evening (in his autobiography Shevchenko gives the date as December 6, 1829), the master and his wife went out to a ball. In their absence, Taras pulled out his materials and began sketching by candle light. He was so engrossed in this that he didn't hear the Engelhardts' return. What ensued Shevchenko described in the following words:

The master savagely pulled him by the ears and slapped his face, on the pretext that not only the house, but the whole city could have burned down. The next day the master ordered the coachman Sidorko to give him a good whipping, which was properly administered.

Although this incident remained with him throughout his life, Shevchenko continued to draw surreptitiously. Finally, aware of his servant's behaviour, Paul Engelhardt relented and agreed to allow Taras to study with a professional artist, Jan Rustem, at Vilno University. It was here that Shevchenko's boyhood ends. It seemed that fate had finally smiled on the talented, but abused peasant boy. A new world opened up in front of Taras, but despite his elation at the time, it was but an opening into a world of further hardship and distress.

When I was Thirteen By TARAS SHEVCHENKO

My thirteenth birthday soon would come. I herded lambkins on the lea. Was it the magic of the sun, Or 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 . I know not why It was so pleasant then to pray For me, an orphan peasant boy, Or why such bliss so filled me there? The sky seemed bright, the village fair, The very lambs seemed to rejoice! The sun's rays warmed but did not sear! But not for long the sun stayed kind, Not long in bliss I prayed . It turned into a ball of fire And set the world ablaze. As though just wakened up, I gaze: The hamlet's drab and poor, And God's blue heavens - even they Are glorious no more. I look upon the lambs I tend - Those lambs are not my own! I eye the hut wherein I dwell - I do not have a home! God gave me nothing, naught at all! . I bowed my head and wept, Such bitter tears . And then a lass Who had been sorting hemp Not far from there, down by the path, Heard my lament and came Across the field to comfort me; She spoke a soothing phrase And gently kissed my tear-wet face . It was as though the sun had smiled, As though all things on earth were mine, My own . The orchards, fields and groves! . And, laughing merrily the while, The master's lambs to drink we drove. How nauseating! . Yet, when I Recall those days, my heart is sore That there my brief life's span the Lord Did not grant me to live and die. There, plowing, I'd have passed away, With ignorance my life-long lot, I'd not an outcast be today, I'd not be cursing Man and God! .

Orsk Fortress, 1847. Translated by Jobn Weir.