Lawmakers Observe Moment of Silence in Memory of Great Kobzar

May 22 marked 141 years to the day since the remains of the renowned Ukrainian poet, prose writer, artist, and thinker Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko were delivered, in accordance with his will, from St. Petersburg to Kaniv (now Cherkasy oblast). Taras Shevchenko breathed his last on March 10, 1861 (according to the Gregorian calendar) in St. Petersburg. On March 12, 1861 he was buried in the Smolensk Cemetery of the then capital of the Russian Empire. Without doubt, Taras Shevchenko was a bulwark of the Ukrainian national idea and always fought for the rights of the Ukrainian people primarily through his creative work. From 1847 through 1857 he was in exile in Orenburg, Orsk, Novopetrovsk, and only three years before his death was he relieved of penal servitude and lived under strict supervision of St. Petersburg police. The funeral of the Great Kobzar and, to a greater extent, the mournful funeral procession from St. Petersburg to Kaniv and the reburial of his remains on the Chernecha (monk) hill reflected the inextinguishable longing for freedom of the Ukrainian people. Tens of thousands of people paid tribute to the nation’s greatest genius. During the parliamentary session the deputies of Ukraine observed a moment of silence in memory of Taras Shevchenko, reports The Day ’s Serhiy MAKHUN .