Abstract
The aim of this research is to characterize T. Shevchenko’s history as a reader during the period of 1837–1843, which corresponds to his early literary activity in Petersburg, where he initially resided as a nobleman’s servant and later as a student at the Academy of Arts. The scholarly analysis of reading experiences acquired during each distinct period of T. Shevchenko’s creative development contributes to the expansion and specification of this fundamental topic. To achieve this aim, an extensive source base has been studied from the relevant perspective (primarily epistolary materials, memoirs, the poet’s autobiographical prose, scholarly literature in Shevchenko studies, including the viewpoints of authors who questioned Shevchenko’s erudition). The primary research methods employed were biographical, cultural-historical, and receptive aesthetics approaches. The conclusions can be summarized as follows. During 1837–1843, Shevchenko moved within a unique multicultural and educational-intellectual environment of Petersburg, created in part through his own efforts, while simultaneously establishing connections with like-minded Ukrainian writers and socio-cultural figures beyond the capital who shared his love for books. His emancipation from serfdom in 1838 also meant gaining the right to read; from then on, Shevchenko’s relationship with printed texts acquired true fullness, and his reading and development within the colonial context essentially became a form of resistance against the empire. This recipient’s motives and stimuli for reading were determined by both non-utilitarian, internal self-assignments and purposeful creative and even scholarly interests. Thus, according to R. Escarpit’s classification, Shevchenko during his early period emerged as a reader of two types simultaneously, corresponding to objective and literary types of human behavior. The study examines the circumstances (details) of some of Shevchenko’s encounters with books, his reaction to what he read, and notes the significant quantity and diversity of literature he encountered then, including its broad literary-artistic, scholarly, and popular science specifics. While works of literature and art criticism dominated, there were also studies concerning world history, religion, philosophy, and aesthetics. Certain impressions Shevchenko gained from his readings during this time can be interpreted as prototexts of his literary and artistic expressions. At the turn of the 1830s–1840s, the author of “Kobzar” essentially fully discovered for himself his native literature and related spheres of national historical science, folklore studies, etc., formed his own judgments about them, which shaped his ideological and aesthetic priorities. He thoroughly familiarized himself with a significant body of literature created by Muscovites, perceiving it quite critically (such as Pushkin’s works). However, he absorbed an even greater volume of world literature in translation, and Polish-language literature in the original. All this, considering all segments of the literature mastered thus far, contributed to Shevchenko’s multifaceted educational, professional, and general cultural development, not to mention that it proved to be one of the forms of communication with the world and himself, and a means of overcoming nostalgia.