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IN THE HOMELAND OF T. SHEVCHENKO

IN THE HOMELAND OF T. SHEVCHENKO

Bus, car route:

Kaniv - Bobritsa - Buchak - Mezhyrich - Khmil'na – Pekari - Prokhorivka - Keleberda - Kaniv.

 Departure from the foot of Tarasova mountain

 - Poetic language of  T.G. Shevchenko about Kaniv Mountains is expressed in the works  'And Dead and Alive ...' (1845):  'From the Holy Mountains,'  'Dream' (1847): 'Best in the World'.  T.G. Shevchenko  wrote the poems while the poet was visiting  the villages  Zarubyntsi and Trakhtemirov in  1842.

 

 Mezhyrich

 ...In our great family,

In blossoming gardens of spring

He shall live, fair-faced,

Our immortal contemporary.

M. Rylsky

                       MEZHIRICH

 A village in Kaniv District. T. Shevchenko sojour­ned it in 1859

 The village stands between the small rivers Ros and Rosava and this gave the settlement its name. Documents of the XVIII cen­tury carry this name for the first time. Research has unearthed relics of the late palaeolith epoch, remains of dwellings belonging to the Tripolsk Culture, tumuli of settlers of the Scythian period, settlements of Zarubinetsk and Chernyakhivsk cultures, two sites of ancient towns and a tumulus of the period of Kievan Rus.

It is not difficult to guess why ever since years immemorial people settled here. They were attracted by good soil, riverlets full of fish, forests, and rich meadows — all these were at hand in this picturesque locality. The same wish to find a refuge for a peaceful life brought the sick poet here too.

T. Shevchenko came to Mezhirich several times in July 1859 to buy a piece of land between Kaniv and Pekari. There on the 5th of July, he drew a picture «In Mezhirich in Indian ink». From here on the 10th of July he wrote a letter to M. Lazarevsky, and on the 13th of July to V. G. Shevchenko. Mezhirich is mentioned with a detailed report of the events that happened there in Shevchenko's «Ехрlаnаtions to the official of Special Commission M. O. Andriyevsky».

  On the meadow near the village you will see a monument «Glory to Labour» erected by the villagers on the occasion of cutting a new riverbed for the Ross and the drainage of the meadows in 1914. All the work was done by hand, that's why this first simple monument of collective work is so impressive.

The Ukrainian artist G. M. Pustoviit was born in Mezhirich. That's how the history of the graphic arts which had begun once with a picture by Shevchenko continued in the village.

 The route distance are: Mezhirich—Kaniv — 22 kms, Mezhirich— Cherkassi — 62 kms.

 Khmil'na – Pekari

Khmil'na – Pekari

 Determined to buy a plot of land for the homestead near village Pekari, in July 1859 Shevchenko  went through  Khmil'na into Mezhyrich to N. Parchevskiy.

 PEKARI

 A village in Kaniv District. Shevchenko was here in 1859. Shevchenko came to this village several times in July 1859. As he wrote in his «Explanations to the Official of Special Commission

M. S. Andriyevsky he had intended» to buy a small piece of land where 1 could settle permanently... I found such a place between Kaniv and the village Pekari in the estate of Parchevsky». The first time on the 5th of July 1859 he came to Pekari to examine the piece of land and on the 10th he came with a surveyer. During the work in measuring the plot a hot argument took place between Shevchenko and the land-surveyor's relative A. Kozlovsky. The poet was accused of blasphemy. In a few days Shevchenko in Pekari crossed the Dnieper and went to Mikhailov Hill, but close at the village of Prokhorivka he was arrested. Pekari is mentioned in his letters to V. G. Shev­chenko.

Many legends and tales were born in the village about the Kobzar's sojourn here. A Ukrainian archeologist, ethnographer and art critic academician of the  Academy of Sciences M. F. Bilyasheysky collected these tales and published them in his book «Stories by the peasants of the village of Pekari about Shev­chenko». Up till the Great Patriotic War the house in which Shevchen­ko had stayed was still standing. The fascists burnt it down, now only a picture of the house can be seen in the Shevchenko Museum in Kaniv and there is also one depicting the events in 1861 when the coffin with the poet's body was brought to Kaniv and buried on Chernichy Hill, the peasants of Pekari took part in making the high mound on his grave.

Pekari of today is a beautiful village.  Handicraft wares made of red willow branches, the traditional artcraft of the local  farmers.

In the common grave, on which stands a monument, 500 soldiers who liberated the village from the hitlerites were buried.

The route distances are: Pekari—Kaniv — 7 kms.

PROKHORIVKA, MIKHAILOVA GORA

A village in Kaniv District. Shevchenko was here in 1859. In June 1859 the poet spent more than a week visiting M. O. Maximovich at the farmstead on Mikhailova Gora (Hill). The poet went down to the village, painted, talked with the villagers. When in July he again was on his way to Mikhailova Gora, beside Maximovich's garden near Prokhorivka he was arrested. Recollections of this village can be found in Shevchenko's letters. The farmstead on   Michailova Gora where Maximovich's house stood was later joined to Prokhorivka. It was here that T. Shevchenko had pointed the portraits of his friends, the hospitable married couple — Maria Vassilyevna and Mikhailo Alexandrovich.

In his letter to V. G. Shevchenko on November 2, 1859 the poet wrote that M. O. Maximovich had proposed him to settle down near Mikhailova Gora, but the poet refused because «the Dnieper can be seen, but only from a distance, and I want it by my threshold». Under an ancient oak-tree, called by the people «Shevchenko's tree», a memorial plaque has been put up in his honour.

 The route distances are: Prokhorivka—Kaniv—10 kms, Mikhailo­va Gora—Prokhorivka — 0,5 kms.

 Keleberda

On the outskirts of  village Keleberda there is a place where in summer of 1859 Taras Shevchenko draw the famous sketch 'Near Kaniv’.On the  19 of May 2007

a memorial plaque was opened there. The memorial sign was erected in front of Tarasova mountain, where the poet rests.

 


Date: 2011.02.23

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