WHO IS THE REAL AUTHOR OF THE POEM RECORDED IN SHEVCHENKO'S DIARY ON NOVEMBER 2, 1857?

Abstract

The identity of the author of the poem ‘Vo vremia sumerek, kogda polia i les…’ (During the twilight, when the fields and the forest…), signed by “Z. V. Tur” published in the January issue of the magazine ‘Otechestvennye Zapiski’ (Patriotic Notes) in 1857 was identified. Shevchenko liked the poetry so much that he wrote it down in his diary, considering the author to be a woman, as it can be seen from the form of the surname in the genitive case in his records. Notes to the poem from all the academic editions of Shevchenko's diary and in separate author's editions are considered in chronological order. Commentators seldom admitted their ignorance of the mysterious poet, either silently bypassing a controversial point, or providing a minimum of obvious information, or even inventing the mythical Zakhar Tur. In fact, the author of this poem is mentioned in ‘Alfavitnyi ukazatel k ‘Otechestvennym Zapiskam’ 1854, 1855, 1856, 1857 i 1858’ (Alphabetical Index to the ‘Patriotic Notes’ from 1854, 1855, 1856, 1857 and 1858), published in 1860, that is, during Shevchenko's life. Along with the name of Evgenia Tur here, in addition to the story ‘Zakoldovannyi krug’ (The Enchanted Circle) and a number of poems, the poem ‘Vo vremia sumerek, kogda polia i les…’ was mentioned. Evgenia Tur (1815–1892) (real name Elizaveta Vasilyevna Salias De Tournemire, née Sukhovo-Kobylina) is a Russian writer, critic, and hostess of a famous literary salon.

Probably, Shevchenko also got acquainted with other works of the poetess, as on September 22, 1857 he wrote in his diary that he read Mykola Kostomarov's work ‘Bohdan Khmelnytsky i vozvraschenie Uzhnoi Rusi k Rosii’ (Bohdan Khmelnytsky and the Return of Southern Rus to Russia), published in №№ 1-8 of ‘Otechestvennye Zapiski’ in 1857. Evgenia Tur's poems are published in the March and April issues of the magazine. The question remains whether Shevchenko knew for sure that the well-known novelist Evgenia Tur and the author of lyrical poems Z. Tur are one person. He seemed to identify them without noticing the different initials, and such an intuitive feeling turned out to be quite correct. In the next Complete Works of Shevchenko, as well as in the mass editions of the diary, the cryptonym should be explained in the light of the information presented in the article.

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