• Source: Shevchenko Days

      • The Shevchenko Days (Ukrainian: Шевченківські дні, romanized: Shevchenkivski dni, lit. 'days of Shevchenko') are an unofficial holiday in Ukraine commemorating the anniversary of poet and activist Taras Shevchenko's birth and death. Lasting from 9 March into the following day, the Shevchenko Days are typically commemorated by public readings of Shevchenko's literary works and teaching of classes on Shevchenko. The holiday first became a national holiday under the Ukrainian People's Republic, and later retained this status in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and modern-day Ukraine.


      Background



      Taras Shevchenko (1814–1861) was a Ukrainian Romantic poet, writer, artist and activist whose career flourished under the Russian Empire. Shevchenko played a significant role in the development of Ukrainian culture in the face of Russification, and since his death he has been recognised as Ukraine's national poet. Shevchenko's influence on Ukrainian culture has been described by University of Cambridge professor Rory Finnin as "perhaps only second to Shakespeare" among writers globally, while Ukrainian literary historian Yurii Boiko-Blokhin wrote in 1955 that Shevchenko, distinctly among writers, was a symbol of Ukraine's "national essence" to an extent unsurpassed in Europe except by Homer in Greece and Virgil in the Roman Empire.


      Commemoration




      = Early years

      =
      Commemoration of the Shevchenko Days as a holiday began in 1918, under the Ukrainian People's Republic. At a 6 March [O.S. 21 February] 1918 meeting of the Council of People's Ministers chaired by Prime Minister Vsevolod Holubovych it was decided that 11 March would be a state holiday honouring Shevchenko. According to the directive, all government institutions were to be closed, all schools were to hold classes only involving Shevchenko during the holiday, government institutions were to be decorated with flags, and a performance at the Kyiv Opera House was to be conducted on a yearly basis. The celebration was named the "Holiday of Shevchenko" (Ukrainian: Шевченківське свято, romanized: Shevchenkivske sviato).
      A year after the Ukrainian People's Republic proclaimed Shevchenko Day to be a holiday, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic did the same. Many provisions in the Soviet Ukrainian decree were similar to that of the Ukrainian People's Republic, including classes only involving Shevchenko. The Ukrainian SSR celebrated the holiday with a literary exhibition on the Khreshchatyk.
      Following the defeat of the Ukrainian People's Republic in the Ukrainian–Soviet War the Ukrainian diaspora continued to celebrate the Shevchenko Days, including Ukrainian soldiers interned in Poland and Czechoslovakia.


      = Under the Soviet Union

      =
      After the Ukrainian–Soviet War and the establishment of the Soviet Union the Shevchenko Days continued to be celebrated in Ukraine. From 1938 to 1964 the Soviet government participated in celebrations, with particular attention devoted to 150th anniversary of Shevchenko's birth in 1964.
      Ukrainian Soviet dissidents also frequently used the Shevchenko Days to express their support of Ukrainian culture and separateness from Russia. Viacheslav Chornovil's time as a Soviet dissident began with a speech at Kyiv Hydroelectric Power Plant during the 1964 Shevchenko Days celebrations, when he attributed to Shevchenko the belief that "every system built on the oppression of man by man, on contempt for human dignity and inalienable human rights, on the suppression of free, human thoughts, on the oppression of one nation by another nation, and in whatever new form it may hide — it is against human nature, and must be destroyed."


      = In present-day Ukraine

      =
      Since the 1989–1991 Ukrainian revolution that brought Ukraine independence from the Soviet Union, the Shevchenko Days have once received official support as a cultural holiday. The tradition of schoolchildren reciting Shevchenko's works in schools, performed under the Ukrainian People's Republic, has been revived and remains popular. Shevchenko is also recited at events and in the Verkhovna Rada (parliament of Ukraine) during the holiday.


      References

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