The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1964, Blaðsíða 24

22
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Winter 1964
The Poetical Works of Taras Shevchenko
Translated from the Ukrainian by C. H. Andrusyshen and Watson Kirkconnell,
Taras Shevchenko
The translation of the ,poetical works
of Taras Shevchenko is truly a colos-
sal task; but it is equally a major con-
tribution to the world of letters. Trans-
lations of some of his poems have al-
ready appeared: by Dr. A. J. Hunter
and by Charles A. Manning; casual
translations by Dr. Watson Kirkcon-
nell; in 1963, about sixty pages in “The
Ukrainian Poets,” by Andrusyshen and
Kirkconnell. However, as the trans-
lators say, “The complete poetical
works of Shevchenko in Ukrainian, in
an adequate English rendering, was
sorely needed.”
A perusal of the whole of his poetical
works is needed to grasp the universal-
ity of his philosophy and to appreciate
the inspiration and awakening it has
engendered in the Ukrainian people.
The adverse conditions under which
he mostly wrote is an essential to the
Shevchenko cult. His poetry must be
read and interpreted in the light of
what years of exile and years of mili-
tary confinement must have exacted.
One of Taras Shevchenk o’s
masterpieces is “The Neophytes,” (new
converts to the Christian faith). In
that poem of only seventeen pages,
written within a week, he, in a most
remarkable way bares his inmost
thoughts and gives expression to what
he can see in the future.
The circumstances under which it
was composed must be stated. Shev-
chenko was on his way back from exile
in Siberia and was detained at Nizhni
Novgorod, (September 1857 to March
1858) pending instructions from St.
Petersburg. The poem was, according
to the translators, “a concentrated out-
burst of Shevchenko’s pent-up feelings
which the harsh exile and suppression
damped down but could not extin-
guish.”
Shevchenko dared not give direct
expression to his thoughts or depth,
of feeling. To describe Russia of his
day, paint a picture of Czar Nicholas 1,
relate the suffering of his people, and
reveal what the final outcome would
be, he had to resort to apocryphal writ-
ing and allegory. He goes back to
Rome in the days of Nero. Rome is
Russia, Nero, the Czar, and the Neo-
phytes the Ukrainian people. One can
tiptoe over some passages.
In the Prologue: