Few such scenic spots are found even in Chernihiv oblast whose environs have long attracted travelers. Sedniv is situated on the steep bank of the beautiful river Snov (the “steep hill” immortalized by Leonid Hlibov in his poem “Grief” is located here). It is mentioned in chronicles starting in 1072, when Prince Sviatoslav of Chernihiv first defeated the Polovtsians in the vicinity. This town thus has a remarkably eventful history. If we wanted to recount Sedniv’s past step by step, we would recall how the populace twice repulsed formidable Crimean Tatar raids in the 15th century (1482 and 1497) and how Sedniv became a “company town of the Chernihiv Cossack Regiment” under Khmelnytsky. But the subject of this article is the direct link between Sedniv and the life and creative work of our national prophet, Taras Shevchenko.
In this place the brilliant poet always felt special creative inspiration (he wrote The Witch here and several dozen other colorful poems) and enjoyed the harmony of the environs. Visiting Sedniv in the spring of 1847, Shevchenko marveled at the sight of the river Snov and the boundless, verdant plain; he may have subconsciously felt that these were his last days of happiness and freedom. He was immensely grateful to his friend Andriy Lyzohub, the owner of the Sedniv estate, for his hospitality. On the morning of April 3, 1847, a happy and merry Shevchenko left Sedniv for Kyiv, where Tsar Nicholas I’s blue-coated gendarmes were waiting with an arrest warrant.
During the most tortured, lonely months and years of exile at the Orsk fortress and Novopetrovsky Fort memories of Sedniv, where the brilliant poet spent only a short while (April-May 1846; March-April 1847) were like a breath of fresh air infusing Shevchenko’s soul with new life, helping him to survive. In a letter to his close friend Varvara Mykolayivna Repnina (March 7, 1850) he wrote, “I’m praying to the Lord and cherishing the hope that my misfortune will eventually end. Then I’ll go to Sedniv and paint ‘The Death of the Savior’ in the church.” During the time of his greatest ordeal Shevchenko remembered happy scenes from Sedniv: working hard and with inspiration on the introduction for a new edition of the Kobzar (it was in Sedniv that he wrote those beautiful lines filled with national and general human dignity about the Russians having “a people and the word” and that the Ukrainians, too, had “a people and the word”); the poet’s workshop in the attic over the bank of the Snov River (destroyed by fire in 1883); the charming old orchard in front of Lyzohub’s mansion (part of it is still standing).
A few words should be devoted to the history of the Lyzohubs, a family that may be called unique without any exaggeration. The following lines from Varvara Repnina’s letter to the great poet (September 1844) were probably harbingers of Shevchenko’s future meeting with Andriy Lyzohub: “I am so sad to know that you haven’t met Andriy Lyzohub. He speaks of your poems with such warm appreciation, and he is so sorry he has never met you in person.” Naturally, quite a number of pseudo-fans of Shevchenko appeared among the Ukrainian nobility in Chernihiv and Poltava gubernias in 1842-43; they lavished false praise on him to prove that they too were “Ukrainian patriots” and also “for the people.” Shevchenko, however, singled out Andriy and his relatives from among the Ukrainian noble Cossack families, probably because he knew the Lyzohub family history, recognizing their erudition, sincerity, and true democratic ways.
The Lyzohubs were an old Cossack family that had acquired property in Sedniv in the 17th century; the name is first mentioned in historical sources in the mid-17th century. A Cossack by the name of Kindrat Lyzohub, born in the vicinity of Zolotonosha, was a courageous and resourceful soldier whose two sons were appointed colonels (Ivan in Uman, in 1661, and Yakiv in Kaniv the following year). Some time later the Lyzohubs sided with Hetman Ivan Samoilovych; Yakiv Lyzohub settled in Konotop and proceeded to amass “free” and unclaimed plots of land. Before long he became a great landowner. Andriy Lyzohub (b. June 1804) and his elder brother Illia (b. 1787, an amateur musician) were direct descendants of Kindrat and Yakiv Lyzohub.
Ukrainian songs were often heard at Lyzohub’s manor in Sedniv, which was frequented by artists, actors, and poets (Lev Zhemchuzhnykov left precious recollections of the family. Unfortunately, the mansion caught fire on March 19, 1883, and a great many valuable old books, ancient deeds, memoirs, and Shevchenko’s pictures perished. People who knew Lyzohub well described him as a humane and kind-hearted landlord, who treated his peasants well and tried not to overburden them with work. He was also an amateur painter and this served to strengthen his friendship with Shevchenko. There was much in Sedniv worthy of painting: not only the excellent environs opening from the top of the steep hill over the Snov River (standing by the summerhouse in which Hlibov is said to have composed his Grief in 1859, one can see far and wide, including that “dense, verdant grove, like paradise on earth”), but also the Lyzohubs’ stone church and Shevchenko’s beloved linden (they say the tree is still there).
His friends recall that on April 3, 1847, Shevchenko was departing for Kyiv in a cheerful frame of mind. His mood was not even dampened by the sinister prophesying of Hryts, Sedniv’s well-known fortune-teller and saint (although some regarded him as a yurodyvy, God’s fool). Hryts did his best to talk Shevchenko out of his trip to Kyiv, repeating, “You’ll get in trouble! Bad trouble!” Taras just laughed.
Lyzohub should be recognized in Ukraine for being perhaps the first to begin corresponding with Shevchenko after learning the exact place of his exile. In his letters he tried to encourage him morally and financially. Shevchenko, in turn, was always grateful to his friend and shared with him the excruciating pain in his heart. In a letter dated Dec. 11, 1847, Shevchenko thanked Lyzohub for his kind and sincere words: “I haven’t heard from Ukraine since the spring. I have written to someone there. God must have prompted you to write to ease the heavy burden of my loneliness in the desert...I wouldn’t want my worst enemies to suffer the way I am! You ask if I have stopped painting. I wish I could, but I can’t and it makes me suffer even more, as I am forbidden to write and draw. And the nights, the nights! Oh God! They are terribly long, and in barracks at that! Dear Friend, please send me your box of paints and a clean album, and at least one Charion brush; I will look at them once in a while and maybe I will feel better.” Lyzohub instantly did as the imprisoned poet requested.
Shevchenko and Lyzohub’s correspondence lasted until 1850. It was cut short by very disturbing events that were generally characteristic of the last years of Nicholas I’s reign. Count Orlov, the omnipotent chief of the gendarmes corps, who was spending the summer in Chernihiv, summoned Lyzohub. On behalf of the tsar he brutally forbade him to maintain any contacts with the “political criminal” Shevchenko, adding that otherwise “there will be a place found for him, Lyzohub, where Shevchenko is now.” Andriy’s son Dmytro inherited his freethinking ways, with the most tragic consequences. In August 1879 he was court-martialed in Odesa on charges of involvement in an underground political society. His death sentence was extremely cruel, considering that Dmytro had nothing to do with terrorist acts, although he sympathized with the revolutionaries and actively helped them. He was executed on Aug. 10, 1879.
One thing is beyond doubt. Shevchenko remembered Sedniv with the utmost gratitude, as a place truly close and dear to his heart. However, there is no escaping the fact that the current condition of the Shevchenko memorial site in Sedniv (Lyzohub’s mansion, the poet’s beloved stone church in which he worked, and the gorgeous ancient garden) is, to put it mildly, not the way the poet’s devotees would want it to be. There is no modern infrastructure or roads, for which funds are required. Of course, it is much easier for our ranking officials to place flowers at the Shevchenko monument in downtown Kyiv once a year. Meanwhile, cultural monuments to the poet’s life, such as Sedniv, remain neglected. Isn’t this hypocritical of the state?
