Taras Shevchenko is not just a poet in Ukraine. He is the poet — the man who proved the Ukrainian language could carry a national literature. And he began life as someone else's property.
Born a serf
Shevchenko was born a serf in 1814. His talent as a painter was spotted, and in 1838 his freedom was bought — famously funded by selling a portrait in a lottery. He used that freedom to write in Ukrainian at a time when the language was dismissed as a peasant dialect. In 1847 he was arrested and exiled for a decade, forbidden by the Tsar himself "to write or to paint."
A testament, written while ill
Zapovit — "Testament" — was written in 1845 as Shevchenko lay sick, and reads as his last wishes: bury me in the steppe, he asks, and only then will he rise and pray. It was later set to music and is now sung at gatherings across Ukraine, an unofficial anthem carried in people's chests rather than their statute books.
Wear it
Our Zapovit tee carries the poem in Ukrainian and English with a stylised tryzub. It's part of our Poems for Ukraine line — NZ$5 from every shirt is donated, with receipts posted here.