The Epistle is really Shevchenko’s political and social testament. It
summarizes all that he had seen and read and thought as to the fate of
his country and it emphasizes the great gap which he saw between Russia
in all its forms and Ukraine.
From the days of Peter the Great, there had come a steady flow of
Western European (especially German) influence into Russia. Old Moscow
had given way to the modern St. Petersburg and the scholars, including
the historian Karamzin, had developed the theory of Russian history
that the Ukrainians and especially the Kozaks were a mixture of Tatar
tribes who had been more or less Russianized. The ambitious youths, the
socially aspiring nobles, all were eager to go to the capital and to
acquire there that advanced civilization which they could not find at
home.
Shevchenko, bewailing in St. Petersburg the fate of his people and
then returning to Ukraine to live, wrote this poem as an appeal to his
fellow countrymen to avoid this cheap adulteration of their ancient
culture. He urged them to be themselves, to strive for a new and human
and Christian order at home. Nobles and peasants alike have to repent
of their evils, the old order of serfdom needs to be abolished, and
men need to realize that they must live as brothers. The poem aims to
unite all classes in the country for the good of mother Ukraine who has
lost so many of her children and for the mutual good. Those who refuse
to obey will be overwhelmed in the judgement of the coming revolution
which will be directed against traitors as well as against the foreign
foe.
Shevchenko attacks all of those who seek a closer union between Ukraine
and Russia than between Ukraine and the other Slavs. As he expressed
later in the preface to the edition of the _Kobzar_ prepared in 1847,
the Ukrainians have the same rights as the Russians, Czechs, Poles,
etc. They equally deserve consideration as a part of the Slavonic world.
In the past they fought for every one but themselves. They ruined
Poland but her fall destroyed the Kozaks and Ukraine. They aided Russia
and were enslaved. To Shevchenko it is sacrilege to boast of such a
history, when there is so much good available for the future, if they
will only awake and see it and use it.
The poem is a statesmanlike and wise summary of Ukrainian history and
the Ukrainian character. There is little of the extreme in it and it
can well serve as a masterpiece of advice to a people. As such it ranks
with the great specimens of its kind in world literature.
_To my Dead and Living and Unborn Countrymen in Ukraine and not in
Ukraine_
+My Friendly Epistle.+
_If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar._
--_I John 4, 20_
Dusk descends, the light returneth,
And God’s day is passing,
Once again the wearied people
And all things are resting.
Only I, as one accursed,
Day and night am weeping
At the always crowded crossways
But no one e’er sees it,
No one sees it, no one knows it,
They are deaf and hear not,
They exchange their heavy fetters,
O’er the truth they haggle
And the Lord neglect they always,
While they harness people
Into heavy yokes. For evil
They are ploughing, sowing.
The results? Just watch and notice
What the harvest will be!
Pay attention, O hyenas,
Crazy little children!
Look upon the quiet heavens,
At your own dear country;
Love with a sincere, true heart
Such a mighty ruin!
Break your chains and live as brothers!
In a foreign country
Do not seek and do not search for
What is non-existent
E’en in heaven and not only
In a foreign country ...
In your home, you’ll find your justice
And your strength and freedom!
The world has only one Ukraina,
Dnipro cannot be found elsewhere.
But you dash to a foreign country
To find another and a better,
More sacred good! And freedom too!
A closer brotherhood! You sought,
You found and brought from countries foreign
And carried into our Ukraine
The mighty power of great slogans,
And nothing more.... So now you shout
That God has made us not for that,
That you should bow unto injustice!
You bow your heads, as formerly,
And once again you strip the hides
From brothers, blind unseeing peasants
And to discern the sun of truth,
To German lands you call not foreign,
You rush again.... If you should take
With you the misery around you
And all the goods the masters stole,
Dnipro would stay a lonely orphan
With all of its most holy mounts!
Oh, if it should happen you never returned,
That you should rest there, where you truly were reared,
No children would weep, no mother would sorrow,
No one of God’s friends would e’er notice your murmurs;
The sun would not warm, would not rot the manure
Upon the pure, broad, and the truly free land;
No person would know what brave eagles you are
And they would not nod with their heads a poor greeting.
Mark my words! Come! Act like humans,
For you will meet evil;
Swiftly will release be given
To the fettered people;
Judgment nears. Dnipro, the mountains
Will appear against you.
And the blood of your poor children
Will flow down in torrents
To the blue sea.... There’ll be no one
Who will ever help you;
Brother will deny his brother,
Mother will her children.
Smoke like clouds will cover over
The bright sun before you,
And you will be met with curses
By your children ever.
Change your minds! And do not sully
God’s bright face with foulness!
Do not try to fool your children
That they are sent hither
Only that they may rule others ...
For an eye unlearned
Looks into their very spirits
Deeply, Oh so deeply!
For the children will soon notice
What a hide you’re wearing;
They will judge you and the stupid
Will deceive the wiser.
If you had studied what is needful,
This wisdom would be yours by now;
But you thus climb the road to heaven:
“We are not we, and I’m not I.
I have seen all and well I know it,
There is no heaven, there’s no hell,
There is no God, there’s only I.
The little German self-possessed,
And nothing more!”--“It’s fine, my brother,
What are you then?”
“The German’s willing
To tell you, for we do not know!”
So you’re set to go and study
In a foreign country.
There they’ll tell you: “You are Mongols,
Mongols, Mongols, Mongols!
Tamurlane’s the golden leader,
You’re his naked children!”
They will tell you, “Slavs we count you.
Slavs, yes, Slavs, we count you!
Of your great and famous sires,
You are worthless children!”
You continue to read Kollár
With unceasing ardor,
Šafařík and Hanka also
And you strive to follow
All the Slavophiles. The language
Of the Slavic peoples--
You know everything, neglecting
What you’re heir to!--“When we
Talk as we are duly practiced,
If the German shows us,
And will tell to us, moreover,
Our own past in lessons,
Then we can begin our answer!”
You have started nobly,
When the German gave the order.
You besides are speaking
So he cannot understand you,
He’s a splendid teacher,
And not like the common people,
Then the shouting! Shrieking!
There is harmony and power,
Music, all is splendid!
History? It is the poem
Of a freeborn people!
Oh, you poor and wretched Romans!
Damn it--you’re no Brutus!
But our Brutus and our Cocles
Are well-known forever!
Freedom grew and flourished with us,
In Dnipro was washed,
Sent her rays upon our mountains,
In our steppes was hidden!
In our blood she oft was bathed,
Slept together with us
On piled corpses of free Kozaks,
Corpses which they’ve plundered....
To admire their old virtues,
Read again the story
Of that glory, read it over,
Word by word reread it;
Do not miss a single chapter,
Or a little comma--
Learn it well and you will answer
For yourselves. Who are we?
Whose sons are we? Of what fathers?
What is there that charmed you?
Read it and you soon will notice
Who’s your famous Brutus?
Yes, slaves, the “footstools,” filth of Moscow,
The noble lords of Warsaw’s garbage,
Hetmans so noble and revered,
Do you pride now yourselves on that?
Content as sons of free Ukraina
To walk contented ’neath the yoke,
And do it better than your fathers?
Boast not; from you they’ll strip the belts.
From them they tried out all the fat.
You are boasting that the brothers
Well the faith defended?
That they baked bread in Sinop,
Or in Trapezont?
True, ’tis true, they ate their fill
And you fade away,
On the Sich the clever German
Plants potatoes now;
You are glad to buy their crop
Eat it for your health,
And the Zaporozhia praise.
Whose blood in past ages
Made that land so very fertile
That potatoes grow?
You care not, so long as you
Raise a goodly crop.
You can boast that once we could
Beat the Poles in fight!
You are right, for Poland fell
But that ruined us.
And so your fathers poured their blood
For Moscow and for Warsaw too,
And handed over to their sons
Their fetters and their fame!
Ukraina struggled bravely
To her utmost limit.
Now her children crucify her
Worse than Poles e’er dreamed of;
For instead of beer--they draw out
Blood from every body;
But they claim they wish to give light
To a mother’s vision
With the fires of the present,
Guide the poor blind singer
In his ignorance and darkness
For the age and Germans.
Fine it is! Go on and lead him!
Let the aged mother
Learn the method of beholding
These her modern children!
Show your nature! ’Tis for knowledge--
Worry not; for Mother
Will pay well for all these lessons.
Eyesores vanish quickly
On the eyes of your base grabbers!
You will see the glory,
Living glory of your sires
And your evil fathers ...
Do not fool yourselves, however!
Go to learn and study
And the foreign knowledge master,
But don’t spurn your own.
God will punish every mortal
Who forgets his mother.
And his children will avoid him,
Keep him from their cabin;
Strangers too will drive him onward,
And the evil have not
In the whole wide world a refuge
Cheerful welcome giving.
I am sobbing, when I’m thinking
Of the heroic exploits
Of our sires; they were mighty!
Yes, but to forget them,
I would give up half the pleasure
I shall ever have here ...
Of such nature is our glory
And of Ukraina!...
So go on and read the story
Till awake you’re dreaming
Of the ills, and the mounds open
And reveal their secrets
Right before your eyes, and then
Ask the martyrs frankly,
How and why and for what purpose
They have been so punished?
Oh, embrace, my dearest brothers,
E’en your poorest brother--
Let your mother smile with pleasure,
She has long been weeping ...
Let her bless her faithful children
With a fervent blessing!
Let her kiss her little children
With lips now unfettered.
Then the shame will be forgotten,
All the recent epochs,
And new glory will be rising,
Ukraina’s glory!
Then the sun will shine eternal,
Quietly and sweetly ...
O, embrace, my darling brothers,
That is what I beg you!