The Kobzar of the Ukraine

About this film

LibriVox recording of The Kobzar of the Ukraine by Taras Shevchenko. (Translated by Alexander Jardine Hunter.) Read in English by Ron Altman; Dominique van de Vorle; Alan Mapstone; Garfield Dsouza; Trax; Adrian Stephens; Phil Schempf; Larry Wilson; Brianna Chiles; Ken Masters; Stefan Von Blon; KevinS In these poems speaks the struggling soul of a downtrodden people. To our western folk, reared in happier surroundings there is a bitter tang about some of them, somewhat like the taste of olives, to which one must grow accustomed . The Slavonic temperament, too, is given to melancholy and seems to dwell congenially in an atmosphere misty with tears. But he gravely misreads their literature who fails to perceive the grim resolve beneath the sorrow. In the struggle of the Ukrainians for freedom the spirit of this poet, who was born a serf, remains ever their guiding star. The translator of these poems spent considerable time in arriving at an understanding of the spirit of the poems and the nature of the situations described. Then the more formidable task was approached of trying to carry over not only the thought but something of the style, spirit and music of the original into the Eng…

Directors & creators

Taras Shevchenko

Subjects

librivox; audiobooks;Russia; serfdom; ukraine; cossacks; siberian exile; ukrainian poetry

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