Chapter II: Introduction

Nearly twenty years ago the translator of these poems was sent by the Presbyterian church as a medical missionary to a newly settled district in Manitoba. A very large proportion of the incoming settlers in this district were Ukrainians, indeed it was largely owing to the interest taken in these newcomers that the writer was sent there.

It was Mr. John Bodrug who first, introduced him to the study of the poems of Shevchenko and with his help translations of three or four of the poems were made a dozen years ago. Press of other work prevented the following up of this study till last summer when with the help of Mr. Sigmund Bychinsky translations were made of the other poems here given, and considerable time spent in arriving at an understanding of the spirit of the poems and the nature of the situations described. Then the more formidable task was approached of trying to carry over not only the thought but something of the style, spirit and music of the original into the English tongue.

The spirit of Shevchenko was too independent to suffer him to be much bound by narrow rules of metre and rhyme. The translator has found the same attitude convenient, for when the versification may be varied as desired it is much easier to preserve the original thoughts intact.

The writer’s thanks are due for help and advice to Messrs. Arsenych, Woicenko, Rudachek, Ferley, Sluzar and Stechyshyn and especially to Mrs. Bychinsky and for help with the manuscript to Miss Sara Livingstone.

A. J. H.

WHO WAS TARAS SHEVCHENKO?

How many English-speaking people have heard of Taras Shevchenko?

What “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” did for the negroes of the United States of America the poems of Shevchenko did for the serfs of Russia. They aroused the conscience of the Russian people, and the persecutions suffered by the poet at the hands of the autocracy awakened their sympathy.

It was two days after the death of Shevchenko that the czar’s ukase appeared granting freedom to the serfs. Possibly the dying poet knew it was coming and died the happier on that account.

But in still another way does this man’s figure stand out. In the country called the Ukraine is a nation of between thirty and forty millions of people, having a language of their own—the language in which these poems were composed.

This has been, as it were, a nation lost, buried alive one might say, beneath the power of surrounding empires.

They have a terrible history of oppression, alternating with desperate revolts against Polish and Muscovite tyranny.

In these poems speaks the struggling soul of a downtrodden people. To our western folk, reared in happier surroundings there is a bitter tang about some of them, somewhat like the taste of olives, to which one must grow accustomed. The Slavonic temperament, too, is given to melancholy and seems to dwell congenially in an atmosphere misty with tears. But he gravely misreads their literature who fails to perceive the grim resolve beneath the sorrow.

In the struggle of the Ukrainians for freedom the spirit of this poet, who was born a serf, remains ever their guiding star.

THE MONK

It happened sometimes, when a cossack warrior found his energies failing and his joints growing stiff from much campaigning, he would bethink him of his sins and deeds of blood.

These things weighing on his mind, he would decide to spend the remainder of his life in a monastery, but before taking this irrevocable step, he would hold a time of high revel with his old comrades. This poem pictures such an event.

At Kiev, in the low countrie,
Things happened once that you’ll never see.
For evermore, ’twas done;
Nevermore, ’twill come.
Yet I, my brother,
Will with hope foregather,
That this again I’ll see,
Though grief it brings to me.

To Kiev in the low countrie
Came our brotherhood so free.
Nor slave nor lord have they,
But all in noble garb so gay
Came splashing forth in mood full glad
With velvet coats the streets are clad.
They swagger in silken garments pride
And they for no one turn aside.

In Kiev, in the low countrie,
All the cossacks dance in glee,
Just like water in pails and tubs
Wine pours out ’mid great hubbubs.
Wine cellars and bars
with all the barmaids
The cossacks have bought
with their wines and meads.
With their heels they stamp
And dancing tramp,
While the music roars
And joyously soars.

The people gaze
with gladsome eyes,
While scholars of the cloister schools
All in silence bred by rules,
Look on with wondering surprise.
Unhappy scholars! Were they free,
They would cossacks dancing be.
Who is this by musicians surrounded
To whom the people give fame unbounded?
In trousers of velvet red,
With a coat that sweeps the road
A cossack comes. Let’s weep o’er his years
For what they’ve done is cause for tears.
But there’s life in the old man yet I trust,
For with dancing kicks
he spurns the dust.
In his short time left with men to mingle
The cossack sings,
this tipsy jingle.

“On the road is a crab, crab, crab.
Let us catch it grab, grab, grab.
Girls are sewing jab, jab, jab.
Let’s dance on trouble,
Dance on it double
Then on we’ll bubble
Already this trouble
We’ve danced on double
So let’s dance on trouble.
Dance on it double,
Then on we’ll bubble.”

To the Cloister of our Saviour
Old gray-hair dancing goes.
After him his joyous crowd
And all the folk of Kiev so proud.
Dances he up to the doors—
“Hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo!” he roars.
Ye holy monks give greeting
A comrade from the prairie meeting.

Opens the sacred door,
The Cossack enters in.
Again the portal closes
To open no more for him.
What a man was there
this old gray-hair,
Who said to the world farewell?
’Twas Semon Palee,
a cossack free
Whom trouble could not quell.

Oh in the East the sun climbs high
And sets again in the western sky.
In narrow cell in monkish gown
Tramps an old man up and down,
Then climbs the highest turret there
To feast his eyes on Kiev so fair.
And sitting on the parapet
He yields a while to fond regret.
Anon he goes to the woodland spring,
The belfry near, where sweet bells ring.
The cooling draught to his mind recalls
How hard was life without the walls.
Again the monk his cell floor paces
’Mid the silent walls his life retraces.
The sacred book he holds in hand
And loudly reads,
The old man’s mind to Cossack land
Swiftly speeds.
Now holy words do fade away,
The monkish cell turns Cossack den,
The glorious brotherhood lives again.
The gray old captain, like an owl
Peers beneath the monkish cowl.
Music, dances, the city’s calls,
Rattling fetters, Moscow’s walls,
O’er woods and snows
his eyes can see
The banks of distant Yenisee.
Upon his soul deep gloom has crept
And thus the monk in sadness wept.

Down, Down! Bow thy head;
On thy fleshly cravings tread.
In the sacred writings read
Read, read, to the bell give heed,
Thy heart too long has ruled thee,
All thy life it’s fooled thee.
Thy heart to exile led thee,
Now let it silent be.
As all things pass away,
So thou shalt pass away.
Thus may’st thou know thy lot,
Mankind remembers not.

Though groans the old man’s sadness tell.
Upon his book he quickly fell,
And tramped and tramped about his cell.
He sits again in mood forlorn
Wonders why he e’er was born.
One thing alone he fain would tell.
He loves his Ukraina well.
For Matins now
the great bell booms.
The aged monk
his cowl resumes.
For Ukraina now to pray
My good old Palee limps away.

THE COSSACKS

Back somewhere in the middle distance of European history—when the Ukraine was under Polish rule, though ever harrassed by the devastating raids of Turks and Tartars—there developed bands of guerilla fighters in the wild border-land beyond the rapids of the Dnieper.

Sometimes fighting against the Tartars, sometimes in alliance with them, they became known by the name ‘Kazak,’ a word of uncertain origin.

Fierce banditti they were, many of them serfs who had run away from their Polish masters. But they often developed great military power. At times the Poles succeeded in securing numbers of them as fighters in their army, but when the tyranny of the Polish landlords became intolerable the so-called “Registered Cossacks” would sometimes join with the “Free Cossacks” of the “border land”—which is the meaning of the word “Ukraine,” and exact terrible vengeance on the Poles.

The story of these warlike deeds of the Cossacks has the same significance to the Ukrainian people that the tales of Wallace and Bruce have for Scotchmen.

HAMALEIA

Hamaleia is an historical romance. The poet represents one of the excursions of the Zaparoggian Cossacks under the leadership of Hamaleia on Skutari, the Turkish city on the Bosphorus. The Cossacks saved western Europe from the Tartar and Turkish invasions, by fighting the invaders in the land of the barbarian. The poem describes one of these excursions where the Cossacks animated by the desire of revenging themselves on the Turks and freeing their brothers who were lying as captives in Turkish prisons, undertake a perilous trip in small wooden boats over the stormy Black Sea to Skutari, open the prisons, burn the city, and return home with rich spoils and their freed brethren.

“Oh breeze there is none,
Nor do the waters run
From our Ukraina’s land.
Perhaps, in council there they stand,
To march against the Turk demand.
We hear not in this foreign land.
Blow winds, blow across the sea,
Bring tidings of our land so free,
Come from Dnieper’s Delta low,
Dry our tears and chase away our woe.

Roar in play thou sea so blue.
In yon boats are Cossacks true,
Their caps above are dimly seen.
Rescue for us this may mean.
Once more we’ll hear Ukraina’s story.
Once more the ancient Cossack glory
We’ll hear before we die.”

So in Skutari the Cossacks sang,
Their tears rolled down, their wailing rang
Bosphorus groaned at the Cossack cry.
And then he raised his waves on high.
And shivering like a great grey bull,
His waters roaring far and full
Into the Black Sea’s ribs were hurled.
The sea sent on great Bosphorus’ cry,
To where the sands of the Delta lie,
And then the waters of Dnieper pale
In turn took up the mournful tale.

The father Dnieper rears his crest,
Shakes the foam from off his breast.
With laughter now aloud he calls
To spirits of the forest walls.
“Hortessa sister river, deep,
Time it is to wake from sleep.
Brother forest, sister river,
Come our children to deliver.”
And now the Dnieper is clad with boats,
The Cossack song o’er the water floats.

“In Turkey over there,
Are wealth and riches rare.
Hey, hey, blue sea play.
Then roar upon the shore,
Bringing with you guests so gay.

“This Turkey has in her pockets
Dollars and ducats.
We don’t come pockets to pick,
Fire and sword will do the trick.
We mean to free our brothers.

“There the janissary crouches,
There are pashas on soft couches.
Hey-ho, foemen ware,
For nothing do we care,
Ours are liberty and glory.”

On they sail a-singing
The sea to the wind gives heed,
In foremost boat the helm a-guiding,
Brave Hamaleia takes the lead.

“Oh, Hamaleia, our hearts are fainting,
Behold the sea in madness raving.”
“Don’t fear,” he says, “these spurting fountains,
We’ll hide behind the water mountains.”

All slumber in the harem,
Byzantium’s paradise.
Skutari sleeps, but Bosphorus
In madness shouts, “Arise!
Awake Byzantium!” it roars and groans.
“Awake them not, Oh Bosphorus.”
Replies the sea in thunder tones.
“If thou dost I’ll fill thy ribs with sand,
Bury thee in mud, change thee to solid land.
Perhaps thou knowest not the guest
I bring to break the sultan’s rest.”

So the sea insisted,
For he loved the brave Slavonic band;
And Bosphorus desisted,
While in slumber lay the Turkish land.
The lazy Sultan in his harem slept,
But only in Skutari the weary pris’ners wept.
For something are they waiting,
To God from dungeon praying,
While the waves go roaring by.

“Oh, loved God of Ukraine’s land,
To us in prison stretch thy hand;
Slaves are we a Cossack band.
Shame it is now in truth to say,
Shame it will be at judgment day
For us from foreign tomb to rise,
And at thy court, to the world’s surprise
Show Cossack hands in chains.”
“Strike and kill,
Now the infidels will get their fill
Death to the unbelievers all.”
How they scream beyond the wall!

They’ve heard of Hamaleia’s fame,
Skutari maddens at his name.

“Strike on,” he shouts, “kill and slay
To the castle break your way.”
All the guns of Skutari roar
The foes in frenzy onward pour,
The cossacks rush with panting breath
The janissaries fall in death.

Hamaleia in Skutari
Dances through the flames in glee.
To the jail his way he makes,
Through the prison doors he breaks.
Off the feet the fetters takes.

“Fly away my birds so gray,
In the town to share the prey.”
But the falcons trembled
Nor their fears dessembled
So long they had not heard
A single christian word.

Night herself was frightened.
No flames her darkness lightened.
The old mother could not see
How the Cossacks pay their fee.

“Fear not! Look ahead,
To the Cossack banquet spread.
Dark over all, like a common day,
And this no little holiday.”

“No sneak thieves with Hamaleia,
To eat their bacon silently
Without a frying pan.”

“Let’s have a light,”
Now burning bright
To heaven flames Skutari,
With all its ruined navy.

Byzantium awakes, its eyes it opens wide
With grinding teeth hastes to its
comrade’s side,
Byzantium roars and rages,
With hands to the shore it reaches,
From waters gasping strives to rise,
And then with sword in heart it dies.

With fires of hell Skutari’s burning,
Bazaars with streams of blood are churning
Broad Bosphorus pours in its waves.
Like blackbirds in a bush
The Cossacks fiercely rush.
No living soul escapes.
Untouched by fire,
They the walls down tear,
Silver and gold in their caps they bear,
And load their boats with riches rare.

Burns Skutari, ends the fray,
The warriors gather and come away,
Their pipes with burning cinders light,
And row their boats through waves flame
bright.

KOBZARS

These are the wandering minstrels of the Ukraine.

They play on an instrument called the Kobza which somewhat resembles a mandolin. Often in former days they were old prisoners of war—too old to work—so their Turkish captors first blinded them and then set them at liberty.

Wandering among the villages, guided by some little boy, they earned their bread by singing folk-songs and hero-tales to the accompaniment of the Kobza.

Shevchenko published his book of poems with the title “Kobzar.”

THE NIGHT OF TARAS

By the road the Kobzar sat
And on his kobza played.
Around him youths and maidens
Like poppy flowers arrayed.

So the Kobzar played and sang
Of many an old old story;
Of wars with Russian, Pole and Tartar
And the ancient Cossack glory.

He sang of the wars of Taras brave,
Of battle fought in the morning early,
Of the fallen Cossack’s grass-grown grave
Till smiles and tears did mingle fairly.

“Once on a time the Hetmans ruled,
It comes not back again;
In olden days we masters were
This never comes again.
These glories of old Cossack lore
Shall be forgotten nevermore.

Ukraine, Ukraine!
Mother mine. Mother mine!
When I remember thee
How mournful should I be.

What has come of our Cossacks bold
With coats of velvet red?
What of freedom by fate foretold,
And banners the Hetmans led?

Whither is it gone?
In flames it went:
O’er hills and tombs,
The floods were sent.
The hills are wrapt
in silence grim,
On boundless sea
waves ever play;
The tombs gleam forth
with sadness dim;
O’er all the land
the foe holds sway.

Play on, oh sea,
Hills silent be:
Dance, mighty wind,
O’er all the land.
Weep, Cossack youth,
Your fate withstand.

Now who shall our adviser be?
Then out spake Naleweiko,
A Cossack bold was he,
After him Paulioha
Like falcon swift did flee.

Out spake Taras Traselo
With bitter words and true,
“That they trampled on Ukraina
For sure the Poles shall rue.”
Out spake Taras Traselo,
Out spake the eagle grey.
Rescue for the faith he wrought,
Well indeed the Poles he taught.
“Let’s make an end of our woe.
An end come now to your woe,
Arise, my gentle comrades, all
Upon the Poles with blows we’ll fall.”

Three days of war
did the land deliver.
From the Delta’s shore
to Trubail’s river.
The fields are covered
with dead, in course,
But weary now
is the Cossack force.

Now the dirty Polish ruler
Was feeling very jolly,
Gathered all his lords together,
For a time of feast and folly.
Taras did his Cossacks gather
To have a little talk together.

“Captains and comrades,
My children and brothers,
What are we now to do?
Our hated foes are feasting,
I want advice from you.”

“Let them feast away,
It’s fine for their health.

When the sun descends,
Old night her counsel lends;
The Cossacks’ll catch them,
and all of their wealth.”

The sun reclined beyond the hill
The stars shone out in silence still,
Around the Poles the Cossack host
Was gathering like a cloud;
So soon the moon stood in the sky
When roared the cannon loud.

Woke up the Polish lordlings,
To run they found no place.
Woke up the Polish lordlings,
The foe they could not face.
The sun beheld the Polish lordlings,
In heaps all o’er the place.
With red serpent on the water,
River Alta brings the word—
That black vultures after slaughter
May feast on many a Polish lord.

And now the vultures hasten
The mighty dead to waken.
Together the Cossacks gather
Praise to God to offer.

While black vultures scream,
O’er the corpses fight.
Then the Cossacks sing
A hymn to the night;
That night of famous story
Full of blood and glory.
That night that put the Poles to sleep
The while on them their foes did creep.

Beyond the stream
in open field
A burial mound
gleams darkly:
Where the Cossack blood was shed
There grows the grass full greenly.

On the tomb a raven sits:
With hunger sore he’s screaming.
Waiting near a Cossack weeps:
Of days of old he’s dreaming.”

The Kobzar ceased in sadness
His hands would no longer play:
Around him youths and maidens
Were wiping the tears away.
By the path the Kobzar makes his way,
To get rid of his grief he starts to play.
And now the youngsters are dancing gay,
And then he opes his lips to say:

“Skip off, my children,
To some nice warm corner,
Of griefs enough;
I’ll no longer be mourner.

To the bar I’ll go
and find my good wife
And there we’ll have
the time of our life.
For so we’ll drink away our woes
And make no end of fun of our foes.”

THE FORMING OF A LIFE

The little Taras was born a serf. His first memories are of a mother’s love, of the kindness of an elder sister, and like a musical undertone to all his life—the consciousness of the wonderful beauty of Nature.

But soon another power of hideous aspect laid its grasp on the childish soul. It was the knowledge of slavery, a grim and horrible thing that was slowly but surely grinding out the lives of his parents, and that would surely, later, reach out for his own.

Yet even the system of serfdom may allow a little happiness to a child, still too young to work.

The little boy had been told that beyond the distant hills were iron pillars holding up the sky. At five years of age he set out to find these pillars. Some teamsters found him wandering on the steppe and brought him back to his home. But this incident marked the character of the boy as an idealist and a dreamer.

Then there was Grandfather John, the brave old man who, half a century before, had fought in the ranks of the Haidemaki who so nearly broke the Polish power. On a Sunday the wondering family would listen to the mighty voice ringing out in the little home—telling of ancient battles for freedom.

When Taras was seven years of age he lost his mother. His father was left with six children, and thought to improve matters by marrying a widow with three. Thereafter the miseries increased for little Taras who was hated by his stepmother.

The father lived a few years longer, and to him Taras owed the knowledge of reading, for though they were serfs and lived in a wretched hovel, the Shevchenko’s prided themselves on having retained some elements of culture.

Our little hero, however, had a strange passion for drawing and painting and also for singing, and found some employment among the drunken painters, and church-singers of the village.

Later his master tried to make him work, but found the lad hopeless for anything but his beloved painting. Finally, he reached Petrograd in the suite of his master’s son, where he was apprenticed to a decorator.

A famous man came upon a ragged boy sitting on a pail, in the Royal Gardens, in the moonlight, drawing a picture of a statue there. This was the beginning of a period of good fortune. The lad was introduced to some of the great men of the capital. His genius was recognized. A famous painter painted a picture that was raffled off for sufficient money to purchase the boy’s freedom, and he was entered as a student in the Academy.

NAIMECHKA OR THE SERVANT

Prologue.

On a Sunday, very early,
When fields were clad with mist
A woman’s form was bending
’Mid graves by cloud wreaths kissed.
Something to her heart she pressed,
In accents low the clouds addressed.

“Oh, you mist and raindrops fine,
Pity this ragged luck of mine.
Hide me here in grassy meadows,
Bury me beneath thy shadows.
Why must I ’mid sorrows stray?
Pray take them with my life away.
In gloomy death would be relief,
Where none might know or see my grief.
Yet not alone my life was spent,
A father and mother my sin lament.
Nor yet alone is my course to run
For in my arms is my little son.
Shall I, then, give to him christian name,
To poverty bind, with his mother’s shame?
This, brother mist, I shall not do.
I alone my fault must rue.
Thee, sweet son, shall strangers christen,
Thy mother’s eyes with teardrops glisten.
Thy very name I may not know
As on through life I lonely go.
I, by my sin, rich fortune lost,
With thee, my son, to ill fate, was tossed.
Yet curse me not,
for evils past.
My prayers to heaven
shall reach at last.
The skies above
to my tears shall bend,
Another fortune to thee I’ll send.”
Through the fields she sobbing went.
The gentle mist
its shelter lent.
Her tears were falling
the path along,
As she softly sang
the widows song:

“Oh, in the field there is a grave
Where the shining grasses wave;
There the widow walked apart,
Bitter sorrow in her heart.
Poison herbs in vain she sought,
Whereby evil spells are wrought.
Two little sons
in arms she bore
Wrapped around in
dress she wore;
Her children to the river carried,
In converse with the water tarried;
‘Oh, river Dunai, gentle river,
I my sons to thee deliver,
Thou’lt swaddle them
and wrap them,
Thy little waves
will lap them,
Thy yellow sands
will cherish them,
Thy flowing waters
nourish them.’