Life and Works of the Kobzar Trivia Quiz

Answer: Cherkasy

Moryntsi is located in Zvenyhorodka Raion, a sub-division of Cherkasy Oblast. The Oblast is located in central Ukraine.

In the era of Shevchenko, the recent (until the end of the 18th century) era of the Cossack Hetmanate was a strong part of the local traditions in the Cherkasy area. A fascination with the Cossacks, their love of liberty and their separate traditions and mores from both Poles and Russians pervades the poet's whole work.

Answer: Pavlo Engelgardt

Engelgardt belonged to the class of Baltic Germans, who, at the time, were very wealthy and influential in the Russian Empire and had assimilated very much in it, speaking Russian and practicing Orthodoxy.

Engelhardt became the master of Shevchenko and the whole area including the poet's village after his father died. A year after the Baltic German had become the Ukrainian serf's master, Taras was caught sketching a Cossack hero, Matvii Platov. His master was appalled and ordered him whipped and his ears boxed. For the next couple of years, Shevhcenko continued to paint, sometimes clandestinely, works by artists from the area of Suzdal.

Answer: Karl Bryullov

Bryullov was a painter himself, who specialized in painting scenes from history, including a painting on the destroyed Roman city of Pompeii. He also painted country scenes from 19th-century Italy, as well as portraits of famous men and women of the Tsarist court.

The reason compelling Bryullov to purchase Shevchenko's freedom was the former's respect for the latter's artistic talent and his opposition to the inhumane conditions of the enserfed population.

Answer: A blind bard

The book was first published in Saint Petersburg, as customary, in 1840. Although the skill and dexterity of Shevchenko were universally acknowledged, the fact that he wrote in his native Ukrainian and not Russian resulted in much negative reaction from the regime and the censorship officials.

In Ukrainian folklore, a kobzar is an old and blind bard playing the kobza, a local musical organ, mostly resembling a lute. Kobzars were itinerant, going from place to place and singing their songs. The tradition of those bards developed during the era of the Cossack Hetmanate and was alive until Soviet times.

Answer: Ivan Pidkova

Pidkova had been hetman of the Cossacks in the late 16th century. He is remembered positively not only in Ukraine, but also in Romania and Moldova, which, at the time, were buffer principalities between the Ottoman Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Shevchenko's poem celebrates Pidkova and his achievements on the battlefield. The poet's inspiration from traditional ballads is evident, as is his reverence for the ideal of the freedom fighter.

Answer: Haidamaky

Haidamaky is a term meaning, in general, "Ukrainian insurgent". The specific uprising that Shevchenko immortalized was directed against both the Russian Empire and the Polish nobility (szlachta), that was infringing on the rights of the Ukrainians in the Commonwealth.

The poem was released as a separate book in 1841. It's divided in 11 sections, its plot line interweaving the broad struggle for liberation and emancipation both from foreign rule and harsh living conditions with the personal dramas and sacrifices of those involved, high and low, mighty and meek.

Later, "Haidmaky" was included in reprints of the "Kobzar".

Answer: Mykola Kostomarov

Kostomarov's name is usually given in its Russian rendition "Nikolai Kostomarov", but the author's Ukrainian leanings and his matrilineal descent give ample reasons for the use of the Ukrainian form.

Kostomarov was a leading intellectual of his day and age, authoring important scholarly tomes like "Some thoughts on the Problem of Federalism in Old Rus'" and "Time of Troubles in the History of the Tsardom of Moscow". Eventually, his activities and publications resulted in his arrest, which occurred as he was on his way to get married.

His personal acquaintance and common interests with Shevchenko had the impact of the poet being arrested in the same spree of arrests that happened simultaneously with Kostomarov's detention.

Answer: Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius

The Bortherhood took its name from the two Medieval Greek (Byzantine) saints Cyril and Methodius, developers of the Glagolitic alphabet and codifiers of Old Church Slavonic, the mother language of many languages spoken all over Eastern Europe.

Mykola Kostomarov, who was Shevchenko's acquaintance, was the leader of the Brotherhood, which predated the so-called Spring of Nations of 1848. As per Mykhailo Hrushevsky, the goals of the Brotherhood included the abolition of serfdom, access to education for people of all social strata, abolition of censorship, freedom of religion and autonomy for all nations under the sway of the Russian Empire.

The society was shut down, its members exiled, others forcibly conscripted and others sentenced to hard labor.

Answer: Aral Sea

It was in Central Asia, and specifically in the Aral Sea, where the Russian army was active enough in finishing the subjugation of the locals, that Shevchenko was sent. For all the exhaustion and constant physical strain placed on him, he even managed to compose new works while imprisoned, as well as produce paintings of the landscapes he saw.

In more recent times, author Zinaida Tulub has penned the novel 'The Exile", about Shevchenko's stay in Central Asia.

Answer: 1861

More precisely, it was March 10, 1861. The poet was ultimately buried, as per his own wishes, in his native Cherkasy region, near the village of Kaniv, in a short distance from the Dnipro (Dnieper) river. The site of his grave is known as Taras Hill today.

In one of the ironies that make up history, the year of his death was the same year that emancipation of the serfs was first carried out in the Russian Empire.