After Shevchenko’s return from Ukraine in 1843, he had changed his
mind as to the vital needs of his country. Henceforth Poland takes a
secondary place among the oppressors and his wrath is concentrated more
on Russia and the Russian monarchy. It was difficult and dangerous to
express this opinion in St. Petersburg and almost impossible to secure
the publication of works which criticized the imperial regime. Yet
Shevchenko did not hesitate and in a series of poems, partly mystical,
partly ethical, he spoke out against the oppression of his native land.
The _Dream_ which he labels a comedy and to which he prefixes a
passage from the Gospels is one of the bitterest of these attacks. He
introduces it with a series of criticisms against various types of
selfish and unpatriotic people and contrasts himself, shedding his
own blood for his native land and weeping day and night, with these
self-satisfied and self-righteous egotists. Then he passes to what
purports to be a drunken dream for reality is so ghastly that he feels
it necessary to be in an unusual state to dare to notice it.
First he visits Ukraine, the poor and helpless widow, who has been
abandoned with her population to the mad whims of an autocratic despot
and the feudal lords. The misery of the people is overwhelming beneath
the exactions of the upper classes.
In his attempts to flee from the world he is carried to Siberia and
here he is no more happy for the sound of the fettered prisoners
working in the mines brings home to him again man’s inhumanity to man.
He probably alludes to Ukrainian exiles but it is possible that he is
citing the example of the Decembrists who suffered for their ideals and
of the Polish revolutionists of 1831.
The capitals are the next places which he visits in his imagination
and here he is completely disillusioned. He condemns the Muscovite
slavery to the Tsar, the power of the Tsar to beat the highest members
of his organization and their corresponding right to tyrannize over
their subordinates, until the lowest of the people, the common man,
is proud and happy to be beaten indirectly by the Tsar. It is another
example of Shevchenko’s belief that the Moskals were incapable of
appreciating liberty and that this sharply differentiated them from the
people of Ukraine, the worthy sons of which were ready to sacrifice
themselves for their ideals and for the truth.
Then when he sees the statue of Peter the Great erected by Catherine,
the two monarchs who had ruined Ukraine, he turns to the misery and
captivity of Polubotok and the Kozaks who were sent to St. Petersburg
to build the capital and to perform other severe labor under which they
died in great numbers between 1720 and 1725. Polubotok, the acting
Hetman, was himself arrested and died in prison in 1724.
He sees the poverty of the people, even the Russians, the girls
forced by poverty to enter upon prostitution, and he returns to the
palace where he beholds the ridiculous character of the Tsar and the
subservient manners even of the Imperial Family, who are unworthy to
acquire such power and unable to hold it.
Then he wakes up with the renewed explanation that it was all a dream.
The poem is a violent attack upon the lack of truth and righteousness
in the Russian dealings with Ukraine and the injustice which emanates
from the throne. The attack upon the Imperial Family and in particular
the Empress whom he called a dry mushroom so infuriated Alexander II
that the poet was excluded from the general amnesty on his accession
to the throne. It is the one of the series which emphasizes specially
the political side of the Russian domination and it contains some of
the most powerful denunciations of political oppression of all of
Shevchenko’s work.
+The Dream+
_A Comedy_
_The Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it
seeth him not, neither knoweth him._
--St. John, 14, 17.
Each man’s fate is special to him,
And his own broad highway;
One man builds, another ruins,
Or with eye unsated
Looks a third beyond th’ horizon
Seeking to discover
What to seize and carry with him
To his grave as booty.
This man counts as lawful victims
Kinsmen in his cabin;
This one, crouching in the corner,
Aims to kill his brother;
While another, mild and sober,
With a pious feeling,
Stealthily as any kitten,
Sees when a misfortune
Strikes you and he slyly buries
Deadly knife within you.
Ask no mercy! He will hearken
To no wife or children.
And another, rich and gen’rous,
Builds the churches richly
And he loves so well his country
That he sorrows for it,
And he therefore most sincerely
Sheds its blood like water,
And the company all silent
With their eyes wide open
Like the lambs--say, “Let him do it!
It perhaps is needed!”
It is needed! For there is not
Any Lord in heaven!
You beneath the yoke are falling,
And you’re still believing
There is paradise above you?
No, there’s not! There’s not!
Vain’s your effort! Just think sanely,
All upon this planet,--
Be they tsars or be they beggars--
All are Adam’s children.
He ... and he ... what do I matter?
Not a bit, good people;
For I feast and have a banquet
Sundays and on work days.
Are you bored? Are you complaining?
Heavens, I don’t hear it.
Do not shout!--My blood I’m drinking,
Not the blood of others!
One time returning home unsteady
From a rich banquet late at night,
I thought upon this all my journey
Until I came unto my cabin.
At me the children do not shout,
A wife’s never scolding,--
’Tis calm as in heaven.
On all is the blessing of God--
In heart as in cabin.
So I could sleep calmly;
But when a drunken man once sleeps,
E’en though the guns roared loudly,
He would not stir a hair.
A dream, a dream unprecedented
Disturbed my slumbers.
A sober man would gladly tipple,
A miser Jew would give a penny
To have a glimpse of what I saw.
Yes, devils two.
I see as if it were an owl
A-flying over fields and banks and thickets,
And o’er deeply cut ravines,
And across the steppes unbounded,
And the forests.
And I fly after her unceasing.
I fly and bid the earth farewell.
“World, farewell! Farewell, O earth,
Cruel and unkind land!
All my bitter torments cruel
I’ll hide in the cloud.
Greetings, my dear Ukraina,
Poor and helpless widow!
I will fly to you and meet you,
From the cloud will speak,
In a quietly sad meeting
Seek advice from you.
I will fall on you at midnight
Like the dew of morning.
Let us talk and let us counsel
Till the sun arises,
Till your poor and little children
Stand upon the threshold.
Then farewell, my darling mother,
Poor and helpless widow!
Help your children, truth is living
At the throne of God!”
I fly and look. The dawn is breaking
And the sky grows brighter;
Nightingales in the dark forest
Greet the rising sun;
Softly blow the morning breezes,
Steppes and fields are clearer;
’Mid ravines above the waters
Willows seem far greener;
Flowers bend beneath the dewdrops;
Poplars just as sentinels
Stand apart and separated,
Talking with the meadows.
Everything upon the landscape
Is all wreathed in beauty,
Growing green, and being freshened
By the morning dewdrops;
Nature all is being freshened
And the sun is greeting ...
Nowhere is there a beginning,
And there is no ending.
No one can perfect its beauty,
No one can it ruin, ...
It is full and fair.... My spirit!
What do you know of it?
Oh my poor and wretched spirit,
Why do you weep vainly?
Why do you complain? For the ills you don’t notice?
When you cannot hear how the people do weep?
Then look and look well! For I now shall be flying
Above, far above the swift-moving blue clouds.
No rulers are there, nor are punishments known.
The people’s loud cries and their laughs are not heard.
But see, in that paradise which you are leaving,
They strip the patched clothing from off of the beggars,
They strip with the hides--for the poor must find shoes
For youthful young princes. They pummel the widow
To pay her poll taxes; they fetter her son,
Her son, her one son, the one child which she has,
Her hope--and they send him away to the army!
’Tis but for a while--but in mud and in filth
The boy soon is bloated,--from hunger he dies,
His mother is reaping the wheat at forced labor.
Do you see him? Eyes, my poor eyes!
Why do you have vision?
Why did you not dry to blindness,
Washed out by your weeping?
Here a ruined maiden wanders,
Wanders with her bastard.
Both her parents cast her off,
Strangers will not take her!...
All the elders flee her presence,
The young lord rejects her,
With the twentieth libation
Drinks away their souls.
Does God from behind the clouds
See our tears and sorrow?
He may see it but he helps us
Like the giant mountains
Of past ages which were flowing
With the blood of humans.
Oh my sad and troubled spirit,
You are sad and wretched.
Let us drink the bitter poison,
Lie down on the ice,
Let us send our thoughts to God,
Tell them to inquire
How much longer it is fated
Hangmen rule this world!
Fly across the world, my thought, my bitter sorrow!
Gather all the sorrows and the evils too
As your ancient comrades!--You were reared to know them,
You have loved them truly; and their heavy arms
Wrapped themselves around you. Pick them up and fly
And then scatter them throughout th’ entire sky.
Let them turn it black or red,
Let them fan the flames,
Let again the serpent’s venom
Fill the earth with corpses.
And without you I shall somehow
Bury all my heart
And shall seek that selfsame moment
Paradise apart.
Again I fly above the earth,
Again I say farewell to it.
It is hard to leave the mother
In her roofless cabin,
But it is still worse to notice
Both her tears and rags.
I fly, I fly, the wind is howling;
Before me is the snowbank white;
Around me are the woods and marshes,
The fog, the fog, a boundless waste.
No human sound, there is no trace
Of any human footstep here....
Ye foes, and ye who are not foes,
Farewell! I shall not come as guest!
Go on feasting, have your banquets,
I shall yet not notice--
All alone for evermore
I’ll rest in the snowbank--
But until you know for certain
That there is a country
Not bedrenched with tears and blood,
I will rest here gladly ...
I shall rest.... But yet I’m hearing
Sounds of fetters clanking
’Neath the earth.... And I will notice.
Oh, the wretched people!
Where are you? What are you doing?
What are you now seeking
’Neath the earth? No, no, perhaps,
I cannot be hidden
In the heavens! Why this torture?
Why these woes I feel?
Who has suffered ill from me?
Whose harsh arms have fettered
My poor soul within my body,
Have inflamed my heart
And my birdlike strength--
Have disturbed my thoughts?
For what,--I know not, but I suffer,
Bitterly I suffer.
And when I repent my evil?
When will be the end?
I don’t see, don’t know.
The wilderness has roused itself,
As from its last and narrow dwelling
For that dread final judgement day
When all the dead for truth arise.
These are not the dead, the murdered,
And not asking judgement,--
They are people, living people,
Stricken down in chains,
From deep holes the gold they’re fetching
To pour down the lusty throats
Of the greedy. They are convicts.
Why? Almighty God alone
Can reply.... Perhaps He also
Has not noticed this!
Here the branded convict stumbles
With his heavy fetters;
He, a tortured ugly bandit,
Grits his teeth in anger--
Tries to kill his lucky fellow
Who has suffered less!
And among them in their torture,
Wrapped in fetters heavy,
Is th’ almighty tsar of freedom
Branded with the selfsame mark!
In the prison torture quiet,
Weeping not or groaning;
Once your heart is warmed with blessing--
It will never cool.
But where are your thoughts, O ye flowers of roses?
Admired and bold, well beloved little children?
To whom did you give them, my friend, to whose hands?
Or are they forever sunk deep in your heart?
O brother, don’t hide them! No, spread them abroad!
They’ll gather and grow and go out in the world!
What is this trial, what will it be?
It is coming, for it’s chilly,--
Frost the mind awakens.
Again I fly. The earth grows darker.
My mind’s asleep. My heart is aching.
I look--the houses o’er the roadways,
The cities with their hundred churches
And in the cities like the cranes.
The Moskals formed in solid lines;
Well fed, in splendid boots arrayed,
And laden down with heavy chains,
They are drawn up; again I look;
Down in the valley like a pit,
The city glows as in a fire;
Above it hangs a heavy fog
Black as a cloud--To it I fly ...
A city without end.
But is it Turkish?
Or is it German?
Or yet it may belong to Moscow ...
Palaces and churches
And pot-bellied lords,
But not a single peasant cabin.
It has grown dark.... The fire’s blazing
And spreading all around,--
I was afraid.... “Hurrah! Hurrah!
Hurrah!”--they all did shout.
“Well, well, you fools! Where is your mind?
Why are you glad at this?
What are you burning?”--“Hey, khokhol!
He does not know parades.
We are parading! For He deigns
Himself to sport to-day!”
“But what is this amazing toy?”
“You see the palace there ...”
I push my way; a turncoat there,
(I thank you, he confessed!)
With all his gaudy uniform;
“Where did you come from, man?”
--“From Ukraina!”--“So that you
Do not know how to speak
Like people here?”--“Oh, yes,”--I say,--
“I do know how to speak,
I do not wish to.”--“What a crank!
I know the entrance here;
I serve within, and if you wish,
I’ll try to take you in
Into the palace. Only, see,
We are enlightened, friend,--
Don’t spare your cash for what you’ll get.”
“Be gone, you fool accursed!”
Once more I made a sudden change
And was invisible,
And so I boldly walked within.
My God, my only God!
It was a heaven! Parasites
Were there, all wreathed in gold!
And then He, tall and angry too
Strode out among the crowd.
Beside him came the empress too,
On whom his love did rest.
She seemed just like a dry mushroom,
So thin and long of leg,
And constantly she nods her head
To bring both good and woe.
“Is that a goddess, there, I see?
The devil take you now!
And I, a fool, who had not seen
This game a single time,
Believed your stupid, ignorant
Verse hucksters as they are.
O what a fool! And what a price!
I dared to trust as pledge
A Moskal’s word! Go on and read,
And see the faith they have!”
Like gods, the nobles are around,
In silver and in gold,
Like well-matured and aged boars
With muzzles and with fat.
Like them they shove, like them they push
To be the nearest ones
Unto the Persons; They may give
Or deign to offer fruit.
It may be small but yet it’s fine,
E’en though but half a pear,
If They distribute it.
They stood arranged in solid rows,
All quiet,--not a word--
A bell.--The Tsar then stammers out,
Likewise Her gracious self,
Just like a heron midst the birds,
She hops and struts about.
Long time the two walked back and forth
As pompous as two owls
And they conversed in muttered voice
(Afar I could not hear)
About their country, so it seems,
About the newest ropes,
About the very last parades.
And then the empress took
Her seat upon a little stool.
I look; the Tsar goes up
Unto the oldest man and then
He hits him in the face.
He slapped him and a younger man
Upon the belly struck.
Oh, what a shout! The victim struck
His junior on the back.
He chose another lesser man
And he some one below.
And so it went, till each in turn
Beyond the palace gate
Upon the streets kept up the game
Until they pummeled well
The still unbeaten Orthodox
And they began to yell
And cry; and how they all did roar.
“Our father revels, that is sure!
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!”
I had to laugh, it was so good.
They even gave to me
The selfsame blessing. Ere the dawn
They all were sound asleep.
But here and there the Orthodox
Upon the corners groaned
And groaned and groaned and thanked the Lord
For all their father gave.
’Mid tears and laughter I set out
To look around the place.
Night was like day. And so I looked.
So many palaces
Above the quiet river stood.
Its bank was edged with stones
Throughout and so I stood and looked
Like a benighted fool.
The job was done with thoroughness
Amid the mud and slime.
It was a marvel. So much blood
Was shed of human kind--
Without a knife! And on that side
A fortress and a tower
Just like a needle overlong,--
’Twas wonderful to see,
And clocks were striking everywhere.
Then as I turn away--
A horse flies up and with its hoofs
It pounds a mighty rock.
He sits upon the unsaddled horse
In cloak of strange design,
Without a hat--his head is wreathed
As with a sort of leaf.
The horse rears up--and towards the stream
As if it would leap o’er
And he extends his lordly hand
As if he wished to seize
The whole wide world. Who is this man?
I read myself the words
That are engraven on the crag.
“The Second to the First.”
At first it seemed a title strange
But now I know the truth.
It is the first who crucified
Our own Ukraina;
The second stabbed with savage blow
The widow spent and poor.
Oh hangmen! Foes of human kind!
You both have had your fill,
You’ve stolen much! What did you take
Unto that world with you?
It was so hard, so very hard
For me when I did read
Ukraina’s sad history!
I stand and sink in heart....
And still it softly, softly sings
And yet so sadly too
That these were very monstrous deeds.
“From the ancient town of Glukhov
Have the troops departed
With their shovels in due order
And they sent me with them
As appointed hetman.
O our God of love and mercy!
O the tsar of evil!
Cursed tsar, and wicked ruler,
Viper never sated!
What have you done with the Kozaks?
You have filled the marshes
With their skeletons so noble!
You have built a city
On their dead and buried bodies!
And in loathesome prison
Me, a free man and a hetman,
You have killed with hunger
In my chains!... O tsar, O tsar!
God will never sever
You and me. It’s hard and painful
To hang o’er the Neva.
Ukraina is not near me
But it may have perished.
I would fly and look upon it
But God does not will it.
Mayhap Moscow’s burned the region
And has turned our Dnipro
To the blue sea! Has it opened
Lofty tombs, our glory?
It may be, but, Lord of mercy,
Pity us, dear Lord!”
All was still. I saw while looking
How a white cloud covers
The gray sky, and in those clouds
Like a beast that’s roaring.
It’s no cloud, a white bird settled
As a cloud descending
O’er the tsar, the cruel and evil,
And began to speak:
“We are fettered firmly with you,
Murderer and viper!
At the last great day of judgement
We will shelter God
From your always greedy eyes.
Us from Ukraina
You have driven, naked, hungry,
To the foreign snowbanks.
You have slain us and have taken
Our skins for your mantle.
You have sewed it with our sinews
And have clad your city
In new robes. Look and admire!
Palaces and churches.
Revel on, O savage hangman,
Cursed, ever cursed!”
So we flew and so we wandered.
Then the sun was risen,
And I stood and looked with horror
At the scenes occurring,
For the poor were now in motion,
Hurrying to labor,
And the Moskals at the crossroads
Were drawn up in order.
On the streets the girls were running
Homeward, not to labor.
They were sleepy, for their mothers
Sent them out to labor
All night long without a respite
And to earn a living.
And I stood, depressed and troubled,
Thinking and remarking,
How severe a task for mortals
Just to earn their living.
And the brotherhood decided
To join in the senate,
Sign its papers and to plunder
Father, yes, and brother.
And among them all the turncoats
Seek the way of fortune.
So they murder like the Moskals,
Laughing and tirading
At their fathers who neglected
To teach them as children
To speak German,[1] and at present
They exploit their sorrows.
Peacocks, peacocks! Mayhap father
Sold his last poor cow
To the Jews, before you knew well
The new Moscow language.
Ukraina! Ukraina!
These too are your children,
These are your fresh youthful flowers,
Spotted now with ink.
Deafened by the Moscow bleatings
In the German gardens.
Weep, O weep, my poor Ukraina,
As a childless widow!
Merely go and look at leisure
At the tsars, the palace.
What is done there! I am going.
The pot-bellied elders
Stand in rows; they sigh, they’re snoring,
And they all are pompous
Like a turkey, and they’re glancing
At the door askance.
Sunk in slumber, they are waiting.
Then the bear approaches
From his lair. He barely, barely
Totters on his way.
And he’s swollen, till he’s bluish,
For his cursed orgy
Bothers him. And how he bellows
At the fatted fellows.
All the bellies--no exception--
Fall to earth before him.
He has taken off his bandage
And all now are trembling,
That are left. Just as a mad man,
He strikes at his lessers,--
They fall down; the smaller people--
And they quickly perish.
He turns to the mass of servants.
They are lost and ruined.
To the Moskals--little Moskals,
There is only groaning.
To the earth they fall! A marvel
Is come to this planet.
Then I look to see what follows,
What my little bearcub
Will do now. Why, he is standing
With his head dejected
Like an orphan. Is he showing
Aught of bear’s true nature?
He’s a kitten--it is wondrous,
And I laughed about it.
Then he heard and how he thundered,
And I too was frightened.
I awoke, and then I noticed
It was a strange dream.
It was strange. For only mystics
And the race of drunkards
Have such dreams. So do not marvel,
Dearest brothers, ever,
That I told you not my story
But what I had dreamed.
[1] German. It is usually assumed that Shevchenko is using the word
German to mean foreign, i.e. Muscovite or Great Russian. There is very
probably an allusion to the hold that the German bureaucracy had over
the entire empire. Only a few years before, the famous marshal Suvorov
in answer to a request from the tsar as to what reward he desired,
answered: “Your Majesty, make me a German.” The following years had not
broken the hold of this clique upon the Russian administration. Cf. the
Epistle.