My Shevchenko

Bobyrenko Viktor

Head of the Expert Group of the Bureau of Policy Analysis. He studied at the National Academy for Public Administration. Master of Public Administration, Political Scientist, Political Technologist. Studies the…

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PLG_K2_UEF_SOCIAL_FACEBOOK
09 March 2021

I was born in Kentau, Kazakhstan. There was a lead mine.

It was a city where both Komsomol members and exiled people from all corners of the Union were gathered together.

12 families lived in the barracks where I was born. The prison of the peoples gathered there a whole international. And as a child I talked to Germans, Greeks, and Chechens. And even a Korean family lived.

Everyone spoke the same language.

But at home my mother used to tell me a few poems in Ukrainian.

I’m lying next to my mom, it’s warm and cozy. And she leans over to me and says:

Beside the house, the cherry’s flowering,

Above the trees the May bugs hum, (“Sadok vyshnevyj kolo khaty” by T. Shevchenko)

And her tear is dripping on me - the memory of a distant, unseen Ukraine.

Because of that tear, Taras Hryhorovych entered my world.

And Ukraine.

I couldn’t help but become Ukrainian.

Because Shevchenko, even in that distant Kazakhstan, was a symbol for all Ukrainians.

And we had the only Ukrainian book. Shevchenko’s Kobzar.

And then on March 9, 2001, Kuchma’s authorities cracked down on the Ukraine without Kuchma Protest.

Symbolically.

I witnessed events when students and young people at the train station in Kyiv were caught and beaten for Ukrainian flags and for the Ukrainian language. Really. You stand, sing the anthem with the flag, and for this the Berkut Group really smears you on the platform. And one of the girls covered herself with a portrait of Shevchenko from the nightsticks.

If we had given in then, we would be like Belarus now.

And the portrait of Shevchenko was the same symbol as the flag.

Then, in 2004, there was a student revolution in Sumy against the unification of Sumy universities into one.

And there was a tent camp in the Shevchenko Square. Then the students marched to Kyiv.

And Ira Merkun, one of the student leaders, spoke there.

She spoke very emotionally every time. In the role of Joan of Arc. And I told her:

- Ira, when you speak, speak as if to Shevchenko, speak to him. Here is a monument.

And it was here that the participants of the march to Kyiv were banned by the Romenskyi District Court from holding a march.

And this was just reported. And Ira speaks at the rally:

- Father Taras, do you hear? Your children are not allowed to walk in their native land.

And people really started crying. I have tears in my eyes. And I see that real students are crying, roaring. But why me?

And such a real hate to these creatures. And a veritable firestorm of emotions.

Because Ira appealed to the symbol.

And in 2014 we resisted, because Nigoyan read Taras’s poems. Because Shevchenko was invisibly present at every barricade.

Everyone who was on the Maidan knew that Father Taras was with us. And against us - strangers.

Shevchenko is a symbol and creator of the nation. He cements. Shevchenko is as a marker: our people or strangers.

However, I feel sorry for father Taras. In every regional city or district, bean counters and devils bring him flowers. Wreaths are brought to him every public holiday, because of protocol. Because money for wreaths and flowers is put in the budget.

But that’s ok. The generation born in Independent Ukraine will soon bring flowers. Without arched backs and Soviet slavery in the knees.

Rest, father. I’m always on a first-name basis with YOU. A century ahead.

A monument to Shevchenko is said to have been unveiled in Florence today.

Glory to Ukraine!

To your Ukraine!