Section: Èñòîðèÿ / Îáùàÿ èñòîðèÿ

Harlamov Kirill

Scientific supervisor: Anisimova S.A.

Donetsk National University of economics and trade named after M.Tugan-Baranovsky, Ukraine

Outstanding People of Ukraine

In the history of humanity there have always been people whose actions and ideas produced a great impact on the lives of other people. They have made a great contribution to the science, culture, social life of this country. That’s why they are called outstanding.

The names of Taras Shevchenko, Lessya Ukrainka, Ivan Franko, Marko Vovchok and Hrygoriy Skovoroda won universal recognition. There’s hardly a country in the world which doesn’t have Taras Shevchenko’s poems translated into its language. Gentle melodies and deep emotions of Lessya Ukrainka’s verses are dear to poetrylovers throughout the world.

Ukraine has also given the world many outstanding scientists. Such names as Vernandskyi, Zabolotnyi, Bogomolets, Sklifosovskyi, Paton, Filatov are wellknown all over the world. Nowadays modern Ukrainian scientists achieved great successes in the field of mathematics, physics, biology and medicine. Great contribution to the world’s historical science was made by such prominent Ukrainian historians as Mykola Hrushevskyi, Mykhailo Dragomanov, Dmytro Yavornitskyi, Mykola Kostomarov.

The Ukrainian national composer school is connected with the name of Mykola Lysenko. M. Lysenko’s operas “Taras Bulba”, “Natalka Poltavka”, “Eneida” are still staged at the world’s operahouses. The Ukrainian fine art is represented by the names of Kostandi, Murashko, Borovikovskyi, Pymonenko. The Ukrainian culture always developed human traditions of the mankind.

Taras Shevchenko is a great Ukrainian poet. He is the founder of the modern Ukrainian literary language. Shevchenko was born in the family of a serf in the village of Moryntsy in 1814. Young Taras became an orphan very early. He was a shepherd, a labourer to a priest and, when he was fourteen, his master took him into the manor house as a boyservant — “kozachok”. In 1829 Shevchenko’s master moved to Vilno and then — to St Petersburg. He took his boyservant with him, too.

Still in his early childhood Shevchenko was very fond of drawing and his master decided to make a serf painter of him. For this purpose he sent Taras to study painting. The boy was so talented that several Russian artists decided to free him from slavery. Karl Brulov, the great Russian artist, painted a portrait of Vasiliy Zhukovsky and sold it for 2 500 roubles. With this money they bought out Shevchenko from his master. Later on the young painter continued his studies at the Petersburg Academy of Arts. Karl Brulov influenced Shevchenko greatly. Soon they became close friends.

In 1838 Shevchenko wrote his first poems in Ukrainian. In 1840 he published his first book of poems which he named “Kobzar”. His first poetical works are mainly examples of romanticism. The subject of many poems was unhappy love. He also wrote several poems about historical past of Ukraine. In these works he glorified the heroic struggle of the Ukrainian people against their oppressors and their fight for national liberation (the long poem “Gaidamaky”).

In 1843 Shevchenko returned to Ukraine. He travelled a lot about the country and learned to know the heavy life of the Ukrainian serfs. In 1846 Shevchenko joined a revolutionary organisation — Kiril and Mephodiy Society, which aimed to lib erate the serfs. He wrote several revolutionary poems directed against the tsarist despotism (“Dream”, 1844, “The Caucasus”, 1845, and his famous “Testament”). In 1847 he was arrested and exiled as a soldier to Orsk fortress in Kazakhstan. Here, being a soldier, he wrote several novels in Russian. He also painted several of his best pictures. In 1857 Shevchenko returned from the exile to St Petersburg. Here he published several of his masterpieces in which he criticised the tsarist regime and demanded liberty for serfs. In St Petersburg he made close friends with wellknown Russian writers — N. Chernyshevskyi, N. Dobrolubov, N. Nekrasov and others. In 1859, when Shevchenko went to Ukraine, he was arrested and forced to return to St Petersburg — the tsarist government was afraid of the elderly poet.

On the 10th of March, Shevchenko died. His death was a great loss for Ukrainian literature and liberation movement — A. Gertsen published a big article on Shevchenko’s death in his magazine “Kolokol” in London.

Shevchenko is the favourite author of millions of Ukrainians, a real people’s poet. His works are translated into many languages.

Roman Ivanychuk created multitude beautiful historical novels. He was born in 1929. When he was a schoolboy he wrote his first poems and plays. After the Army Service he entered the Philological Department of Lviv University. Then Roman Ivanychuk started to work as a teacher in one of the villages in the Lviv Region. He wrote many good stories. They became very popular then.

He wrote his first historical novel in 1957. Roman Ivanychuk wanted to show main events of our Ukrainian history in his novels. The most famous of his novels are “Red Wine”, “Manuscript from Ruska Street”, “Water from a Stone” and others.

I like historical novels by Roman Ivanychuk because they are not only interesting but help me to learn the history of Motherland.

Ilia Repin was born on the 5th of August in 1844 in Chuhuiv, Zmiiv County, Kharkiv gubernia and died on the 29th of September in 1930 in Kuokkala, Finland. Repin, an outstanding painter, a full member of the St Petersburg Academy of Arts from 1893, started his career under I. Kramskoi at the Drawing School of the Society for the Support of Artists (1863—1864). He studied at the Academy of Arts (1864—1871), which granted him a scholarship to study in Italy and France (1873—1876). He joined the Peredvizhniki Society in 1878 and the Mir Iskusstva group in 1890.

For many years he lived in St Petersburg and served as a professor (1894—1907) and the rector (1898— 1899) of the Academy of Arts, where his students included the Ukrainian painters M. Pymonenko, O. Murashko, F. Krasytsky, and S. Prokhorov. Since 1900 Repin lived in Kuokkala. A good part of his work consists of genre paintings. Some of the works show his attachment to Ukraine, its people, and its history. Among them there is the famous painting “The Zaporizhian Cossaks Write a Letter to the Turkish Sultan” (1880—1891), “Evening Party” (1881), “Haidamakys” (1898—1917), “Cossack in the Steppe” (1908), and “Hopak” (1926—1930, unfinished). He painted many portraits of Russian and Ukrainian cultural figures, including A. Kuindzhi (1877), M. Kostomarov (1880, 1886), I. Kramskoi (1882), T. Shevchenko (1888), and D. Bahalii (1906). He also did illustrations for editions of Gogol’s “Taras Bulba” (1872) and “Sorochinsky yarmarok” (Sorochyntsi Fair, 1882) and for his friend D. Yavornitsky’s “The Zaporizhia in the Rem nants of Antiquity and the Legends of the People”. He submitted four drawings in the competition for the design of the monument to Shevchenko in Kyiv (1910—1914). Repin sketched many Ukrainian landscapes and inhabitants.

Although Repin was a realist, his rich colours and restless lines often produce an almost expressionistic effect. Some of his paintings show the influence of impressionism and symbolism.

Ukrainians are known as a musical people with a lot of folk songs and talented performers. Groups of musicians performed during festivals and banquets at the courts of ancient princes. The first church music came from Byzantium. Nowadays Ukrainian contemporary music and folk singing enjoy growing popularity. Most modern singers and musicians include folklore motives in their works.

Mykola Lysenko was born in Poltava gubernia in 1842 and died in Kyiv in 1912. He was an outstanding Ukrainian com poser, a pianist and a teacher. He got his abilities of piano playing from his mother.

From 1860 he studied in Kharkiv and Kyiv Universities. He graduated in 1865 with the degree in natural sciences. As a member of “Gromada” in Kyiv he made a great contribution to the development of the Ukrainian music. He continued his studies of music in Leipzig. After returning to Kyiv he worked as a conductor and a teacher of music. Then he moved to St. Petersburg to study at N. RimskyKorsakov. He returned to Kyiv in 1904 and opened his own school of music and drama. At that time Lysenko was in the centre of Ukrainian cultural and musical life. He gave piano concerts about Ukraine. His musical compositions were numerous and varied. His works include “NatalkaPoltavka”, “Taras Bulba” and operas for children. Lysenko wrote many compositions for the piano and the violin. He was interested in the Ukrainian musical folklore.

Lysenko was the founder of the national movement in music. He developed the Ukrainian musical culture.

There were a lot of bright representatives of Ukrainian science who contributed to the world progress.

Yevhen Paton was born in 1870 in a French town Nizza. Paton was an outstanding constructor and a scientist. Since 1929 Paton was the member of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. He graduated from the Polytechnical Institute of Dresden in 1894 and St Petersburg Institute of Civil Engineers in 1896. In 1904—1939 Paton was the professor of Kyiv Polytechnical Institute. Heading the laboratory of testing the bridges, he formulated the main scientific principles and discovered the scientific technology of testing the bridges.

In 1896—1929 he constructed 35 bridges, among them the main bridge across the Dnieper in Kyiv. Now this bridge bears his name. In 1929 Paton organized the laboratory of electric welding, which became an Institute in 1934. Yevhen Paton died in 1953 in Kyiv.

Ukrainian made a great contribution to the science, literature, music and arts of the world. It gave mankind a lot of outstanding scientists, writers and poets, musicians and painters. In our article we transferred|enumerate| only separate from them. And|but| how many of them yet? It is even impossible to count up! Ukraine is a treasure house of talents. And we with a confidence can be proud of by it|her|.