The Kobzar of the Ukraine/Returning Home
Returning Home
Shevchenko's friends at once busied themselves with efforts for his release. Finally amnesty was granted. Count Tolstoi, on receiving the news late at night, hastened to waken his household and there was a family jubilation.
But the new autocrat, though somewhat benevolently inclined, was also a little bit suspicious. The banished poet was a pretty dangerous character. He had even disturbed the conscience of autocracy itself, hence he was only allowed to approach his home country by degrees. Finally he was allowed to reside in Petrograd and later even in Ukraine, welcomed everywhere by loving and pitying friends.
His wish for his old age was to inhabit a little cottage on the Dnieper's banks. For this purpose he purchased a piece of land on one of those hills so often referred to in his poems.
Death came too soon, however, but the property served as the site of his last resting place. He died at Petrograd but in the spring his remains were carried the long distance to his old home. A mourning people lined the way.
Only a couple of days after the poet's death, appeared the ukase of the czar proclaiming the abolition of serfdom. To the common people it seemed that their peasant poet, by his songs and his sufferings, had been the prime cause of their new freedom.
No speeches were allowed at the interment on the hill above the Dnieper but there were many people and many wreaths of flowers.
One wreath, deposited by a lady, expressed more than anything else the common feeling. That wreath was a crown of thorns.
