Did Shevchenko paint a portrait of Maria Kozachkovska? The problem of reliability of her grandson’s memoirs

Abstract

In this article the author focuses on the important problem of reliability of Maria Kozachkovska’s memoirs as recorded by her grandson Andrii Kozachkovskyi Jr. Therefore, the subject of the proposed study is the correspondence of memories with verified facts. The goal was to find out the degree of such correspondence. The goal was achieved by application of the traditional methodology of biographical studies, in particular, cross-checking of the presented information based on reliable sources (documentary, memoir, epistolary, etc.). As a result of the study, it was proved that the publication by Andrii Kozachkovsky Jr. contains unreliable statements. Based on his memoirs, the list of Shevchenko's unaccounted-for artworks in the latest Complete Works included false information. As it turned out, Shevchenko could not have painted the wife of Andrii Kozachkovskyi Senior in Pereiaslav in 1845 because they only got married in 1847. The poet did not write the poem “Marusia” dedicated to her. Some other details reported by the memoirist are the result of fictionalizing of vague recollections of his grandmother's stories, supplemented by the information he knew about Shevchenko's stay in Pereiaslav. Andrii Kozachkovskyi Jr. was hardly able to remember and accurately reproduce his grandmother's stories because of his young age: he was 12–13 years old at the time of her death. M. Kozachkovska’s recollections should not be used when writing a new scholarly biography of the poet. Kozachkovskyi Jr.’s recollections of seeing the first edition of Kobzar with Shevchenko’s letters pasted in it at his uncle Ivan’s house, as well as his later story about his 1860 copy of Kobzar with the author's inscription being stolen, do not seem to be reliable. These testimonies would not have any scholarly significance even if they were completely accurate. In the future, the entire corpus of Shevchenko’s unaccounted-for works should be carefully and meticulously reviewed to discard unreliable or dubious information, clearing the artistic heritage of fictional drawings. This should be one of the important tasks of the next academic edition.