Taras Shevchenko in The Life of Ukrainians of The Voronezh Region

Abstract

Taras Shevchenko didn't visit the Slobozhansky Podonya, wich was colonized by Ukrainians in the 16^th – 17^th centuries. But the daughter of his brother Joseph Vass settled in Rossosh in the Voronezh region, where her descendants still live. T. Shevchenko  contracted a friendship with the Voronezh historian M. Kostomarov. However, it was not only family ties that connected Taras Shevchenko with the Eastern Slobozhanshchyna. After moving from St. Petersburg to Kyiv, he became friends with Mykola Kostomarov, who was born and raised in the village of Yurasivka in the Voronezh region (now Olkhovatsky district of this region). The Great Kobzar also had friendly and substantive ties with another Voronezh ethnographer, writer and publisher – O. Afanasiev (Chuzhbinsky). The article also discusses the events of the local Ukrainian community in honor of the Kobzar and the anti-Shevchenko, Ukrainophobic campaign in the region; attention is drawn to the state of activity of local Ukrainians in connection with the Russian-Ukrainian war.