Monument to  T.SHEVCHENKO in Kharkov

Taras Shevchenko came from serf peasants and was deeply linked with the people by the ardent word of a poet, by a sharp pencil of an artist expressed their thoughts and feelings, defended their interests.

T.Shevchenko's works were loved by the people of different nationalities who inhabited our country. His main poetry collection book was titled "Kobzar". It means "the folk singer of ukrainian ballads". Very many kobzars were singing for many centuries about hard life of people of Ukraine and expressed their dreams about liberty. This book became the favourite one for all ukrainians and the poet was named Kobzar after it. Now our Kobzar has been translated into dozens of foreign languages.

The autocratic government of tsarist Russia made everything possible to erase T.Shevchenko's name from people's memory, suppressed all attempts to immortalize in sculpture the image of the poet of genius. In 1860 the tsar personally prohibited the disposing of Shevchenko's bas-relief at the monument "Russia's Millennium" to famous Russian sculptor M.O.Mikeshin. Tsarist satraps frustrated the subscription orginised through the whole of Russia to raise funds for erecting a monument to the poet in 1891. In spite of that, several first sculpture portrets of T.Shevchenko were created at the end of his life and soon after his death. Among those that we have extinct today is a sculpture portrait of Taras Grigoryevich created by M.S.Pimenov when Shevchenko was sitting to him. A classical representation of the poet - naked bust positioned on a rectangular basis - was created in 1862 by a well known Russian sculptor F.F.Kamensky. Between 60's and 70's the Ukrainian sculptor P.P.Zabila created marble and bronze busts of T.G.Shevchenko.

The first monument in the country,  the bust in marble, to the great Kobzar was set up illegally in 1899 in Kharkov. It was situated in the garden near the house of Alchevskaya, who was the famous progressive benefactress, the founder of female sunday school for adults. Its author was the kharkovian, a prominent Russian sculptor, professor of the St-Petersburg Academy of Arts V.A.Beklemishev. The students often gathered at this monument, poets-beginners recited their poetry here full of faith in the bright future of the people. In 1901 on the eve of the 40-th anniversary since T.Shevchenko's death the bust was removed by the "imperial instructions": the government was afraid of people's riot.

To the centenary since the poet's birth the progressive public of Russia organized the raising  of money for the monument to T.Shevchenko in Kiev. This event became a matter of nation-wide character. From 1909 to 1914 four competitions for the best project of a monument with participation of many well-known Russian sculptors were held. But the monument was not erected. A wave of indignation ran over the country. The more the reaction raged, the more actively the people asserted its rights to the memory of a beloved poet. Unknown craftsmen carved his portraits on the rocks, skilled hands of embroideresses adorned towels with Kobzar's images, folk singers and musicians made songs about T.Shevchenko, composed music to his verses.

After the Oktober revolution motioned by Lenin the Soviet government issued the decree about monuments. In accordance with this decree there had to be erected monuments to well known revolutionaries, scientists and people of arts, among which was the Ukrainian poet, democratic revolutionary T. G. Shevchenko.

In 1918, a monument to the Kobzar by the Latvian sculptor Y.Tilberg was set up in Petrograd. The plinth bears the inscription "To the great Ukrainian serf poet Taras Grigoryevich Shevchenko - 1814 - 1861. The Great Russian Nation - 1918". At the same time the well known Russian sculptor S. M. Volnukhin (who had been the winner of the competition for the best monument to be erected in Kiev which was forbidden by the Tsarist government) created a monument to T.G.Shevchenko in Moscow. A bust monument to the poet (by B.M.Kratko) was unveiled in 1919 in Kiev. During the next twenty years monuments to T.G.Shevchenko by F.P.Balavensky, I.P.Kavaleridze, B.M.Kratko, and other sculptors were erected in many cities of the country.

One of them - magnificent and unique - beautified the Kharkov City. Its authors are the People's Artist of the USSR, Honoured Art Worker of Ukraine, Member of the Academy of arts of the USSR sculptor M.G.Manizer (1891 - 1966) and Honoured Art Worker of Bielorussia, Doctor of Architecture I.G.Langbard (1882-1951).

Working at project, Manizer made the travelling by places associated with Shevchenko's life and poetry, created the great number of landscape and genre etudes. He studied the Shevchenko's correspondence and portraits very carefully. Autoportraits of poet, his few photographies and death mask were the most valuable for sculptor. Many times Manizer read  "Kobzar" and memorial literature. "Every day brought something new, interesting and very important, - the sculptor told, - and Taras was becoming more and more close and native. Simetimes I imagined yet the Shevchenko so vivdly - his growth, walk, expression of eyes and face, that it seemed to me I shouldn't surprise to meet him in the street!"

It was not at once that the sculptor came to the image of Shevchenko as a fighter. Only the third variation of a project (1933) satisfied him and won the first place at All-Union competition.

The author of projects of a number of largest public buildings in Byelorussia I.G.Langbard perfectly solved the architectural part of the monument having subjugated the form of pedestal to the author's lofty and artistic conseption.  

The statures of the monument were cast in mould by the best Leningrad founders. Ukrainian as well as Russian craftsman worked together at the erection of a pedestal to the Great Kobzar. Due to the efforts of many artists, sculptors, actors and builders the monument was made during one year.

A mighty figure of the Kobzar  (5,5 meters high), dominates over the monument. The statue is full of dynamics. Resoluteness, powerful inner force are seen in the whole statue: in a slightly bent head, in the energetic gesture of the right hand clenched in a fist. The brightly expressed sculpture is relief silhouetted in space  -  it may be learned easily even from the large distance. The severe, merged suit folds, laconic forms, energetic processing of surface by large generalized planes creat the might image. Author use more detailed manner only in the face modelling which helps him to achieve the portrait likeness, to reveal the inward world, to express the firmness and high spirit of poet-fighter. His stare is severe and angry. The strong-willed wrinkle between eyebrows throws the deep shadow at his eyes strengthening the emotional condension of image. Wrinkles  - the bitterness of lifegoing and thoughts - cross the high forehead of thinker :

The figures which twine round the pedestal are two times smaller than that of the stature of Shevchenko. They are seen better from a short distance. Actors of Kharkov theatre "Beresil", later People's Artists of the Soviet Union N.M.Uzhviy, A.M.Buchma, I.A.Maryanenko, A.I.Serdyuk and other outstanding masters of the Ukrainian stage helped the sculptor very much in creating the figures similar to Shevchenko's images.

November, the  1st, 1999