A Father’s Legacy
When Gregory Shevchenko—for this was the father’s name—was on his deathbed, he called his family around him and gave his parting bequests. A serf might not, indeed, sell any of his household goods without permission of his landlord, but he could give them to his relatives who, of course, were the property of the same landlord. So Gregory Shevchenko distributed his pitiful treasures to the children and to his wife,—saying finally—
“To my son, Taras, I give nothing. He will be no common man. Either he will be something very good or else a great rascal. For him the patrimony will either mean nothing, or will not help any.”
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Caucasus
To Jacques de Balmont—French friend of the Ukrainians who perished in the Circassian war.
The Czars used the Ukrainians as tools in their ambitious projects. A hundred thousand of them perished in the marshes, digging the foundations of Petrograd. As many more died in the attempt to subdue the Circassians—tribes inhabiting the Caucasus mountains—to the imperial will of the Russian autocrat.