Russia’s Imperial Policies in Ukraine in mid-19th century - Analysis through the Works of Taras Shevchenko

Abstract

This paper analyzes Russian imperial policies in Ukraine in the mid-19th century. It analyzes poems by Taras Shevchenko and through the analysis of the texts aims to show how the poet portrayed Russia’s policies of the time. The paper is divided into two main chapters one of which discusses what kind of policies were dominant at the time when Shevchenko lived, while the other concentrates on the text analysis itself. In the first part of this paper, I argue that slogan elaborated by the minister of education of the Russian Empire, Sergey Uvarov, 'Orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality' became an ideological foundation for imperial policies of enserfment and Russification from the third decade of the nineteenth century. I suggest that these three concepts, or they are also called, the triad are interconnected as Orthodoxy and nationality become, in Uvarov's interpretation, indispensable for autocracy to survive. I find the concept of nationality be immensely important because in the world where ideas of the French Revolution gain further more popularity, Russia tries to block these ideas with substituting European concept of nationality with the Russian one – which does not acknowledge the right for self-identification for all nations but creates a notion of 'official nationality', the Russian one. I further argue that such concept of nationality was utilized to justify the policy of Russification within the Empire. In the second part of this paper I concentrate of how imperial policies are reflected in the works of Shevchenko and show through the analysis of his texts that he used satire and ridicule to condemn such policies and urged Ukrainians to rise against the tsarism in order to build their own Ukrainian state. Ideal form of government for Shevchenko was democratic republic and he looked up to the United States as an example.