The Poetry of Taras Shevchenko

To Ukrainians, Taras Shevchenko is more than a poet; he is the voice of a nation. This collection gathers verse from the writer whose 1840 book Kobzar helped bring the Ukrainian language into serious literature. Born a serf and later exiled by tsarist authorities, Shevchenko wrote of peasant suffering, stolen freedom, and the dream of a country able to govern itself. His lines move between folk song and prophecy, tender in their portraits of village life and fierce in their anger at injustice. Banned and confiscated in his lifetime, the poems only grew in power. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.