The eight poems included in the _Kobzar_ were selected by Shevchenko
himself for publication in a single volume of poems and are the only
group which appeared during his lifetime and under his editorship as a
collected whole. They date from his early residence in St. Petersburg
before his visit to Ukraine in 1843 and reflect the thoughts and
interests of the poet in his first phase, when he was still under the
influence of Romanticism. They consist of ballads, supernatural and
historical, written under the influence direct or indirect of the
Western Romantic writers. They emphasize Shevchenko’s feelings that he
was a stranger in a strange land in St. Petersburg, and that however
much he was enjoying his work in the Academy of Arts, his heart was
back in Ukraine and he was dreaming of the old free life there, of the
heroic deeds of the past as contrasted with the sadness of the present.
The ideas of the later Shevchenko are all here. Ukraine, bereft of her
Hetmans and the Sich, is tacitly compared to an orphan girl or a poor
widow. The opposition to the Poles is clearly expressed but his dislike
of Russian domination is more than hinted and it is certain, as General
Dubelt, the Commander of the Gendarmes, thought at the time of the
poet’s arrest that there is a connection in thought between the poems
which serve to illustrate the various aspects of the sad condition of
Ukraine.
The Kobzars were the old bards who travelled through the country,
singing tales of the past and of the supernatural. Shevchenko pretends
to pitch his poems on the key struck by these wandering singers of
the people but only a superficial observer does not see that the poet
is far more than a singer of folksongs, that he has a real literary
knowledge and skill far transcending the traditional bards and is
familiar with modern literature.
The first poem which serves as an introduction really enumerates all
the themes that are treated and it is small wonder that the censor in
allowing the collection to be published eliminated lines 28-100 which
express the poet’s feeling of exile in the north and glorify the past
of Ukraine.
The collection well shows the versatility of Shevchenko’s genius and
the way in which he succeeds in grouping a number of poems on varied
subjects around the central theme, the sufferings of Ukraine. It was
received most favorably by his fellow countrymen and made him famous
almost at once and respected by all who were interested in Ukrainian
rights and liberties.
+Dedication+
Songs of mine, O songs of mine,
You’re a worry to me.
Why do you stand out on paper
In sad rows before me?...
Why did not the wind remove you
To the steppe as dust?
Why did fate not overlay you
Like a mortal child?
For misfortune brought you to this world to mock you,
Tears have flowed.... Why did they not drown you,
Wash you to the sea, or lose you in the field?
If so, people would not ask me of my pain,
Would not ask me why I curse my evil fate,
What I seek on earth?... “No, there is naught to do.”
There would be no mocking....
Oh, my flowers, children,
Why did I so love you, why did I caress you?
Is there one heart weeping so throughout the whole, wide world,
As I have wept for you?... Perhaps I should have felt it....
Mayhap somewhere is a maiden
With a heart and coal black eyes,
Who will weep above these songs--
I can wish no more--
Just one tear from those black eyes
Lord of lords will make me.
Songs of mine, O songs of mine!
You’re a worry to me.
* * * * *
For those loving coal black eyes,
For the dear black brows,
My poor heart has worked, has laughed,
And has poured out verses,
Poured them out the best it could,
For the darksome nights,
For the cherry orchard green,
For a maiden’s love,
For the spacious steppes and tombs
That are in Ukraina,[1]
My poor heart was sad and would not
Sing in foreign land,
Would not ’mid the snow and forest
Summon to a council
All the forces of the Kozaks
With their mace and banners!
Let the spirits of the Kozaks
Dwell in Ukraina.
There it’s broad and there it’s cheerful
Everywhere you wander.
Like the freedom which has vanished
Is the sea-like Dniper.
The broad steppe, the roaring rapids,
And the tombs like mountains;
There was born and there was nurtured
All the Kozak freedom.
With the szlachta and the Tatars
It sowed all the meadows,
Sowed the meadows with the corpses,
Till it wearied sowing.
Then it lay to rest, and straightway
Rose the lofty tomb,
And above it a black Eagle
Flies just as a sent’nel.
And about it to good people
Do the Kobzars sing,
And they sing just how it happened,
Beggars blind and poor,
For they know the way but I, I
Only know to weep.
I have only tears for Ukraine,
Since I lack for words,
And all evil--be it far!
Who has failed to know it!
And the man who looks unfeeling
At the souls of people,
May he suffer here in this world
And in that....
From sorrow
I will never curse my fortune,
Since I do not have it.
Let the evil live for three days,
I will keep them hidden,
Keep the great ferocious serpent
Right around my heart,
That my foes may never notice
How the evil smileth.
Let the song fly as a raven,
All around and call,
And my heart, a nightingale,
Warble on and weep
Quietly; men will not notice
And they will not mock it.
Do not wipe away my tears--
Let them flow in torrents
And besprinkle day and night
Foreign fields I know not
Till--until my eyes they cover
With a foreign dust.
So it may be!--What will follow?
Sorrow will not help me.
He who envies a poor orphan,
Punish him, O God!
* * * * *
Songs of mine, O songs of mine,
O my flowers, children,
I have reared you, have caressed you,
Whither shall I send you?
Go to Ukraina, children,
To our Ukraina,
Quietly, as little orphans,
Here--I’m doomed to perish.
There you’ll find a loving heart
And a pleasant greeting,
There you’ll find a purer truth
And perhaps some glory....
Welcome, O my darling mother,
Oh, my Ukraina,
Welcome my unthinking children
As your own dear child.
[1] Shevchenko constantly varies between treating Ukraina as a word of
three syllables, U-krai-na and one of four, U-kra-i-na.
+Perebendya+
_Perebendya_ is a picture of the last of the old Kobzars. To earn a
scanty living he is forced to sing to the people all the songs of the
peasant village but he does not fail to include in them the story of
Ukrainian vengeance on their enemies as Chaly who was killed in 1741
for betraying the Haydamaki and the final story of the downfall of the
Sich.
Yet he is more than this and when he retires to the tombs to commune
with nature, he is really the voice of Ukraine past, present, and
future, the embodiment of the national spirit and the spirit welcomes
him for his unbending allegiance to the cause of his nation.
Some scholars have tried to see in him a representation of Shevchenko
himself. Others have sought to find literary sources for the conception
in the poems of Mickiewicz and in Pushkin’s _Prophet_. Much scholarship
has been expended to little purpose upon the subject. _Perebendya_
remains one of the great poems of Shevchenko and the picture of the
old bard, whatever its source, throws light upon the poet’s feelings
for his country and its present fate. It forms a poetic introduction
to the rest of the work, not so personal as is the first poem in which
Shevchenko speaks for himself, but more fully national and in a more
spiritual and eternal key.
+Perebendya+
Blind and aged Perebendya--
Who has failed to know him?
Everywhere he wanders slowly
On his kobza[1] playing.
By his songs the people know him
And sincerely thank him,
For he drives away their sorrows
Though he too is burdened.
’Neath the hedgerows as an orphan
Days and nights he bideth;
Nowhere does he have a cabin;
Poverty ne’er stops her jesting
O’er his helpless person.
But he never pays attention.
By himself he sits a-singing,
“Do not rustle, meadow!”
He sings on in simple measures
That he is an orphan,
That he’s grieving and he’s weeping,
Sitting ’neath the hedgerows.
Such a man is Perebendya,
Aged, and so moody;
Now of Chaly bold he’s singing,[2]
Turns unto Horlitsa;
With the maidens in the pastures,
Hritsya and Vesnyanka,
With the fellows in the tavern,
Serbin and Shinkarka;
Feasting with the newly married
(Where one mother’s bitter)
Of the poplar and misfortune
And then “In the forest.”
On the square, he sings of Lazar,--
But, that all may know it,
Tells with dignity and feeling
How the Sich was ruined.
Such a man is Perebendya,
Aged, and so moody,
And he sings, but while he’s smiling,
Brings tears to his hearers.
Wings may blow and keep on blowing
O’er the fields a-straying;
On a tomb the bard is sitting,
On his kobza playing.
Round him spreads the steppes unbounded
Like a deep blue ocean.
Tombs and tombs in rows extending
Far as eye can follow.
See, the wind his hoary mustache
And his hair is tossing,
As it comes and softly listens
How the bard is singing.
With a smile in his heart, while his blind eyes are weeping.
It listens, then blows on....
The old man is hidden
’Mid tombs on the steppe, where no eye may behold him,
The wind can sweep off his sweet words as they fall,
No ear to give heed,--’tis the message of God.
His heart can converse with the Lord without fear
As it warbles unceasing the glory of God.
And his thoughts, rising up, wander free ’mid the clouds,
Like a grey winged eagle, which soars ever higher,
Until it is lost in the blue of the sky;
It rests in the sun and it asks of the orb,
Where it spends the night? How it wakes at the dawn?
It harks to the sea and the words which it speaks,
And it asks the black mountain why it is so mute,
And again to the sky, for there’s sorrow on earth,
And in all its expanse there is not e’en a corner
For him who knows all and who hears every sound,
Both what the sea says and where sleepeth the sun--
No one on the earth has a place for that man,
He is lonely among them, as is the great sun,
The people know him, for the earth bears him ever,
But if they should hear how, alone in his sorrow,
He will sing to the tomb and will talk with the sea,
They would all of them mock at the word of the Lord,
They would call him a fool and would drive him away,
And would say, “Let him wander above the wide sea.”
Thou art noble, aged poet,
Father, you act wisely,
That to sing and to hold converse,
You the tombs do visit.
Wander on, my noble spirit,
Till your heart grows silent
And sing on your choicest songs
Where men will not hear you.
And that men may not avoid you,
Fit their whims, my brother!
Leap, just as the lord gives order;
That is why he’s wealthy.
Such a man is Perebendya,
Aged, and so moody;
Singing songs of joy and gladness
And to sadness turning.
[1] The kobza is a stringed instrument of the type of the violin, and
was the favorite instrument of the wandering bards of Ukraine.
[2] The poet lists folk songs of various types, each of which was sung
at the appropriate occasion. They range from historical ballads of the
deeds of the old Kozaks to spring songs, drinking songs, and songs of
domestic unhappiness and tragedy.
+The Poplar+
_The Poplar_ is a good example of Shevchenko’s union of Ukrainian folk
motifs and the literary usages of the Romantic poets. The supernatural
was dear to Romanticism, the transformation of maidens into trees
is a theme that can be traced back to the classical authors and yet
it received a new interpretation in the early nineteenth century.
Shevchenko gives us a purely Ukrainian scene, he describes the tragedy
that often happened in the days of the wandering Kozaks, he feels the
horror of the enforced marriage arranged between the parents and the
bridegroom without the willing consent of the bride, and he unites all
these motifs in a work which is in the highest degree both national and
literary.
+The Poplar+
Through the oaks the wind is blowing,
O’er the field it revels,
Near the road it bends the poplar
Till the ground it touches.
Tall its form, its leaves are spreading,
Why so green it’s growing?
Round about the field is spreading
Wide as sea of azure.
Here the carter comes and marvels
And his head bows downward.
And the shepherd sits a-playing
On the tomb so sadly,
For he looks--his heart is grieving.
There’s but grass around him,
And it dies just like an orphan
In a foreign country.
Who has reared her slender, pliant,
In the steppe to perish?
Hearken to me, I will tell you.
Listen to me, maidens!
Once a happy black-haired maiden
Loved a Kozak hero,
Loved him--and she did not heed it;
And he went and perished.
Had she known that he would leave her,
She would not have loved him;
Had she known that he would perish,
She would have detained him;
Had she known, she had ne’er wandered
Late at night for water,
Had not stood until the midnight
With him ’neath the willow;
Had she known!...
Oh, that’s the trouble--
In advance to reckon
What to us will later happen ...
You know not, O maidens!
Do not ask about your fortune!
But your heart will tell you
Whom to love. Let it now perish,
While they it will bury!
For not long, you black haired maidens,
With black eyes a-sparkling,
And your white face deeply blushing,
’Tis not long, O maidens!
By the noonday it will wither
And your brows grow paler ...
Love and take your fill of loving,
While your heart will bid it.
Now the nightingale is warbling
On the little bushes,
And a Kozak young is singing
In the little valley.
He sings on, until a maiden
Comes from out her cabin,
Then he turns and asks the question--
“Does your mother know it?”
So they stand embracing closely,
While the bird is singing;
So they listen, then they’re parting,--
Both are very happy ...
No one notices the meeting,
No one asks the question--
“Where were you, what were you doing?”
She knows what she wishes.
She was happy, she was loving,
And her heart was singing.
For a little while she heard it,
Could not make a murmur,
Not a word--she stayed and waited.
Day and night she’s cooing
Like a dove without its darling,
And no one doth notice.
Now the nightingale sings never
There above the water,
Never sings the black haired maiden
Underneath the willow;
She sings not--but like an orphan,
Shuns the burning daylight;
He is gone--her father, mother
Seem like unknown people;
He is gone--and now the sunshine
Seems like hateful leering;
He is gone--the tomb surrounds her
While her heart still’s beating!
One year passed and then another--
There is still no Kozak;
She dries up as doth a flower.
No one ever asks her.
“Why are you thus pining, daughter?”
Mother does not ask her,
But unto an old, rich master
Secretly she joined her.
“So, my daughter”, says the mother,
“Do not dally always;
He is rich, and he is lonely,
You will be a lady!”
“I don’t want to be a lady,
I won’t marry, mother!
With the towels I have woven,
Let me now be buried!
Let the priest sing o’er my coffin,
Let my friends bewail me;
I would rather now be buried
Than be living with him.”
Mother paid her no attention,
Carried out her project.
But the black-haired maiden noticed,
Pined away in silence.
To a witch she went in darkness,
To consult her fortune,
Whether she could live here longer,
Live without her lover.
“Mistress, Oh, my trusted teacher,
O my heart and guider!
Tell me now the truth though bitter;
Where is my beloved?
Is he well? Does he still love me?
Or has he forgotten?
Tell me now where is my lover!
I will fly unto him!
Mistress, Oh my trusted teacher,
Tell me, if you know it!
For my mother soon will wed me
To an aged husband.
I would go, drown in the river ...
Suicide is evil ...
If my lover is not living,
Grant to me, my angel,
That I never reach my cabin,
It is bitter to me--
There’s the old man with his wooers,--
Tell me all my fortune.”
“Fine, my daughter! Rest a little,
Do as I now bid you.
If you have remained a virgin,
I can know the trouble;
It is past and I have learned it.
I give help to people.
Your whole fortune, O my daughter,
Last year I have noticed.
Last year all the herbs I gathered
For this very purpose.”
Then she went and brought a vessel
Hidden ’neath her clothing.
“This is made to tell your fortune!
Go unto the fountain;
And before the songs they’ve finished,
Wash in the cool water,
Drink a little of this potion.
It will cure the evil.
Drink and run and do not tarry;
If you hear some shouting,
Look not back until you’re standing
Where from him you parted.
Rest right there. And when there rises
The bright moon in heaven,
Drink again; if he’s still absent,
Drink again the third time.
At the first, you’ll be as handsome
As you were before him;
At the second, you will notice
That his horse is stamping.
If your Kozak still is living,
He will dash to meet you ...
At the third, my darling daughter,
Ask not what will happen!
Make no cross, remember surely--
It will spoil the water.
Go, my darling, and recover
All your former beauty.”
Then she took the herbs and answered,
“Thank you, mistress teacher!”
Left the cabin: “Come what happens,
I shall never wed him!”
So she went and washed and drank it,
Seemed to change her person,
Then a second and a third time,
Sang as if a-sleeping:
“Swim, O swim, my swan beloved,
Here across the blue sea!
Grow, O grow, O little poplar,
Higher and yet higher!
Grow so tall and yet so slender
To the clouds of heaven,
Ask of God, if I shall find him
Or not wait this marriage!
Grow and grow and look around you
Far across the blue sea!
On that side is my good fortune,
On this, only sorrow.
There my black-haired love is going
O’er the meadow happy.
And I weep, my years I’m wasting,
And I seek to find him.
Tell him, O my heart so loving,
I am mocked by people;
Tell him that I soon will perish,
If he does not hurry!
For my mother now is seeking
In the earth to lay me ...
Who then will her needs provide for,
Guard and care, protect her?
Who will care for her and cheer her,
Help her, when she’s older?
O my mother, O my fortune!
God, O God most gracious!
Rise and look, O little poplar!
If he’s gone--weep sorely
Till the sunrise in the morning,
That no one may notice.
Grow apace, O little poplar,
Higher and yet higher!
Swim, O swim, my swan beloved,
Here across the blue sea!”
Thus sang on the black-haired maiden
On the steppe a-lying,
Then the herb produced a marvel--
She became a poplar.
Through the oaks the wind is blowing,
O’er the field it revels,
Near the road it bends the poplar,
Till the ground it touches.
+Dumka+
This is a lament of an orphan girl and can be read exactly as it is
written. It naturally follows the Poplar as a simple expression of
disappointed love. On the other hand, the reader cannot overlook the
fact that already the poet has compared Ukraine to a weeping mother and
himself to an orphan. To the Gendarme General Dubelt, the poem seemed
an introduction to the following poem to Osnovyanenko.
+Dumka+
What do my black hairs avail me,
Or my black eyes, sparkling,
What do youthful years avail me,
Cheerful and a maiden’s?
All my youthful years are passing,
Passing to no purpose,
And my eyes are weeping; meanwhile
Winds turn pale my tresses.
My heart sinks, it shuns the daylight,
As imprisoned birdlet.
What avails me all my beauty,
If I’ve no good fortune?
It is hard for me, an orphan,
To live on hereafter;
All my people are as strangers--
I have none to talk with;
I have no one to ask questions
Why my eyes are weeping.
I have no one to tell freely
What my heart is wishing,
Why my heart, just as a dovelet,
Day and night is mourning.
No one wishes to ask of it,
Knows it not nor hears it.
Strangers will not ask me of it--
Why should it concern them?
Let the orphan go on weeping,
Let her waste her hours!
Weep, my heart! My eyes, keep weeping,
Till you close forever,
Cry aloud, complain unceasing,
For the winds to listen,
And take all my lamentations
Far across the blue sea,
To the false and black-haired lover,
To his bitter sorrow!
+To Osnovyanenko+
Hrihori Kvitka-Osnovyanenko (1778-1843) was the leading Ukrainian prose
writer between Kotlyarevsky and Shevchenko. He was an aristocrat and a
conservative but in his prose tales, he expressed well the Ukrainian
village and the difference between the people and the Moskals. He had
published a story on Antin Holovaty some time before and Shevchenko now
appeals to him to write more of the same type of story.
Antin Holovaty after the destruction of the Sich and the flight of many
of the Zaporozhians to Turkey secured permission for the establishment
of the Black Sea Army from Catherine the Great. This was really the
beginning of the Kuban Kozaks. Shevchenko rightly or wrongly valued
Holovaty highly for he saw in this new foundation an attempt to replace
the vanished Sich, even if it was not on the same territory.
Later after his return from the army, Kulish persuaded Shevchenko
to omit the reference to Holovaty. Growing disagreement between
Osnovyanenko and the poet over the conservatism of the former led
Shevchenko to dedicate the poem in the edition of 1860 merely to
a Ukrainian writer. The poem forms a transition to the definitely
historical ballads that follow it. At the same time it very definitely
emphasizes the sad present of Ukraine in comparison with its past.
+To Osnovyanenko+
Rapids roar. The moon is setting,
As in former ages.
There’s no Sich, and he is perished,
He, the famous leader.
There’s no Sich. The rushes murmur
By Dnipro’s swift waters:
“What has happened to our children?
Where do they now revel?”
And the gull cries, flying over,
Weeping for the children;
Warm’s the sun, the wind is blowing
Where the Kozaks wandered.
On the steppe the tombs are scattered
And they mourn in sadness,
Asking of the stormy breezes,
“Where are our men ruling?
Where are they now ruling, feasting?
Where have you been staying?
Come on back! And look around you;
All the grain is leveled,
Where your horses used to pasture,
Where the grasses rustled,
Where the blood of Poles and Tatars
Reddened all the water!
Come on back!”
“No, nevermore!”--
The blue sea repeated.
Then it added: “Nevermore!
They are lost forever!”
True it is, ’tis true, O blue sea;
Such is their misfortune!
Those you seek are gone forever,
Gone the ancient freedom,
Gone are all the Zaporozhtsy,
Gone are all the hetmans.
Their red tunics nevermore
Will protect Ukraina,--
Like a torn and ragged orphan,
She weeps o’er the Dniper;
It is bitter for the orphan
And no one will notice,
But the foe is smiling brightly.
Smile, O foeman evil,
Not for long, for all will perish--
Glory will not perish,
Will not perish but will tell men
What the world has witnessed,
Whose the right and whose the evil,
And whose children we are.[1]
Without gold and without jewels,
Without clever phrasing,
But as clear and always truthful
As the Lord’s own utterance.
Is that so, my master, father?
Am I singing truly?
Yes, I am!... And I must say it,
But I have no talent.
And in Muscovy I’m staying,
Strangers are around me.
“Do not notice”--you may tell me,
But what will come of it?
They will laugh at the sad message,
That I fashion, weeping.
They will laugh. ’Tis hard, my father,
To live with the foemen!
Still perhaps I would be struggling,
If I had the power,
Would be singing, had I knowledge
And the gift of verses.
That is why it is so bitter,
O my dearest father!
For I wander in the snowdrifts;
“Do not murmur, meadow!”
I can do no more, but, father,
Sing to them, my dearest master,
Of the Sich, the barrows,
How they heaped the earth upon them,
How they buried heroes;
Of past ages and the marvels
That have been and ended ...
You know, father! Let the wide world,
Learn against its wishes,
What was done in Ukraina,
Why it now has perished,
Why the former Kozak glory
Through the world is famous.
You know, father, noble eagle!
Let me keep on weeping,
Let my eyes again be gladdened
By my Ukraina;
Let me once again soon listen
How the sea is playing,
How the maiden ’neath the willows
Sings of Hrits’s wooing.
Let my heart once more be smiling
In a foreign country,
Till a foreign land receive it
In the grave of strangers.
[1] In the first edition follows here this reference to Holovaty:
Our unyielding Holovaty
Will not die or perish;
There, O people, is our glory
And Ukraina’s glory.
+Ivan Pidkova+
In _Ivan Pidkova_ we have the first of the two historical ballads,
showing the Zaporozhians at the height of their power and discipline.
During the early part of the seventeenth century, they were strong
enough to make several raids upon Constantinople and the neighboring
region. The real Ivan Pidkova aimed to be ruler of Moldavia and was
executed by the Poles at the inspiration of the Turkish Sultan in 1578
but Shevchenko found certain sources that identified Pidkova with one
of the Kozak atamans who stormed Constantinople and so developed his
theme. His apparent object was to represent the type of discipline that
was enforced in a free community during the raids when military order
and control were indispensable.
+Ivan Pidkova+
_To V. I. Sternberg_
I
At one time in Ukraina
Cannons roared like thunder;
At one time the Zaporozhtsy
Knew the path to power.
So they ruled and they acquired
Glory, yes, and freedom;
That is past--they’ve left behind them
Tombs upon the meadows.
And those tombs are high and lofty,
Where they laid to slumber
The white body of a Kozak
Wrapped in cloth of crimson.
And those tombs are high and lofty,
Black as gloomy mountains.
In the field they speak of freedom
Softly to the breezes.
And they speak to passing breezes
Of the past and serfdom.
And the grandson reaps the harvest,
Singing songs they fashioned.
At one time in Ukraina
There was evil dancing.
Sorrow vanished with the drinking
In the jolly circle.
At one time in Ukraina
Life was good and merry.
Let us tell it! Our hearts, maybe,
Can thus find some solace.