Shevchenko Days

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.

[1] 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,[2] while Ukrainian literary historian Yurii Boiko-Blokhin [uk] 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.

"[6] 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,[7] has been revived and remains popular.