Great Russian critics sneered at it, saying it was in the language of the swineherds. But the whole Ukraine recognized it as the voice of their suppressed nation. The down-trodden masses of all Russia knew that they had found a spokesman.
Shevchenko was now famous but he had chosen, without knowing it, ‘The Way of the Cross.’
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A Dream
This poem was written in 1847 in Siberia. Taken away suddenly from Ukraine, Shevchenko could not forget his mother land. His beloved Ukraine was very far from him, and he longed for her even in his dreams. He describes in the poem a dream which he had about the beauties of the Ukraine, which he had just left and which he never hoped to see again. The old man of whom he speaks represents the poet himself, who knew the miseries of his native land and who desired to spend the last hours of his life there.
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