After a while a new Caesar came to the throne, a man who was thought to
have liberal tendencies.
Shevchenko’s friends at once busied themselves with efforts for his
release. Finally amnesty was granted. Count Tolstoi, on receiving the
news late at night, hastened to waken his household and there was a
family jubilation.
But the new autocrat, though somewhat benevolently inclined, was also a
little bit suspicious. The banished poet was a pretty dangerous
character. He had even disturbed the conscience of autocracy itself,
hence he was only allowed to approach his home country by degrees.
Finally he was allowed to reside in Petrograd and later even in
Ukraine, welcomed everywhere by loving and pitying friends.
His wish for his old age was to inhabit a little cottage on the
Dnieper’s banks. For this purpose he purchased a piece of land on one
of those hills so often referred to in his poems.
Death came too soon, however, but the property served as the site of
his last resting place. He died at Petrograd but in the spring his
remains were carried the long distance to his old home. A mourning
people lined the way.
Only a couple of days after the poet’s death, appeared the ukase of the
czar proclaiming the abolition of serfdom. To the common people it
seemed that their peasant poet, by his songs and his sufferings, had
been the prime cause of their new freedom.
No speeches were allowed at the interment on the hill above the Dnieper
but there were many people and many wreaths of flowers.
One wreath, deposited by a lady, expressed more than anything else the
common feeling. That wreath was a crown of thorns.