Taras Schevchenko - Ukrainian poet

Me and Taras Schevchenko

Born 9 Match 1814, Taras Schevchenko was a Ukrainian poet, writer, artist, public and political figure, as well as folklorist and ethnographer.

Shevchenko dreamed of a Ukraine that would be free of the stifling rule and censorship of the Russian Tsarist Imperial government. Some of Shevchenko's works were also censored by the Soviet Union. Shevchenko was not only a national poet of Ukraine he was also a universal poet. He defended the rights of all peoples to freedom, of human dignity, of women, of Jews, and stressed the importance of education, tradition and heritage. In addition, the renaissance of the Ukrainian language since 1991 is a tribute to Shevchenko's role as the founder of the modern literary Ukrainian language.

Here is his statue which stands in front of the Ukraine Hotel in Moscow.