September 30, 2014
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research | Sponsored by Ukrainian Jewish Encounter
Panel
What is the relationship between poetry and nationalism? Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861), who was an essential figure for Ukraine’s national revival, was also praised by Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky and Yiddish writers Sholem Aleichem and Abraham Reisen. Jabotinsky maintained that the Ukrainian people could not “deviate from their national renaissance” due to Shevchenko. On the bicentennial of Shevchenko’s birth, distinguished literary scholars Gennady Estraikh, moderator (YIVO; NYU), Peter Fedynsky (Shevchenko translator), Amelia Glaser (UC San Diego), and Myroslav Shkandrij (University of Manitoba) gather to discuss Shevchenko’s literary and political legacy, and his influence on Ukrainian national movements, Jewish intellectuals, and Ukrainian-Jewish artistic cooperation.