The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1961, Blaðsíða 15

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
13
Universities of Copenhagen, Denmark,
and Uppsala, Sweden. Since that time
he has held the following positions:
secretary to the Bishop of Iceland,
secretary of the National Bank of Ice-
land, teacher at the Icelandic Teachers’
College, National Director of Educa-
tion, manager of the Icelandic Fisher-
ies Bank, member of Althing (Parli-
ament) for twenty-eight years, speaker
of Althing, Minister of Finance, mem-
ber of the Foreign Affairs Committee,
delegate to the Bretton Woods Econ-
omic and Monetary Conference, Gov-
ernor of the International Monetary
Fund, and Prime Minister (1932-4)
Truly a versatile man!
He was elected to the office of Pres-
ident of Iceland in 1952; re-elected in
1956 and again in 1960, each time for
a four-year term.
In 1917 he married Dora horhalls-
clottir, daughter of borhallur Bjarna-
son, Bishop of Iceland. They have
one son and two daughters.
Your Excellency, President of Ice-
land! Welcome to Manitoba! Yours is
a gracious gesture of good-will! Ours
the pleasure and profit! Ours the
honor! —A. Vopnfjord
TARAS SHEVCHENKO
THE TRULY INTERNATIONAL POET AND HERO OF THE UKRAINIANS
The late Dr. A. Hunter of Teulon, Man.,
translated a number of select poems of TARAS
SHEVCHENKO, which were published in
a book called The Kobzar of the Ukraine. On
the page before the Introduction, Dr. Hunter
sets out the life of the Ukrainian poet and
hero in these epic lines, written as if hewn
out of granite:
LIFE
Born 1814, February 25.
24 years a serf,
9 years a freeman,
10 years a prisoner in Siberia,
.3 1-2 years under police supervision.
Died 1861, February 26.
George W. Simpson, retired Profes-
sor of History at the University of
Saskatchewan and a student of Slavic
history and literature has said:
“Shevchenko was a national patriot
and no single factor has been more
potent in the rallying of Ukrainian
opinion around the national ideal than
his poetry. The Emancipation Decree
of 1861 was a concession to the rising
tidal wave of public opinion in the
Western World which demanded per-
sonal freedom and fuller opportun-
ities for the great mass of people liv-
ing in ignorance and poverty. Shev-
chenko was born a serf. Tie knew
intimately the sufferings and tragedies
of his people and his poetry is suffused
with a feeling of glowing sympathy
for the oppressed and deep indignation
directed against the oppressor”.
In 1914, on the centenary of the
birth of Taras Shevchenko, Ivan
Franko wrote:
“He was a peasant’s son and has
become a prince in the realm of the
spirit.
“He was a serf, and has become a
Great Power in the commonwealth of
human culture.