MODERN VERSIONS OF SHEVCHENKO’S ALLEGED PATERNITY

Abstract

The creation of a new scholarly biography of Shevchenko is impossible without testing plausible assumptions and hypotheses prevalent in the mass consciousness. Most of them do not stand up to criticism and miss any detailed analysis, while others seem at first glance so convincing that they are perceived almost as a truth. Shevchenko‘s alleged paternity used to be one of the taboo issues but now it is fervently debated, attracting many — both admirers of his word and ill-wishers.
 In the media, popular editions, and even outlines of the lessons available on the Internet, the idea that the poet was the father of Hanna Zakrevska’s (1822—1857) daughter, Sofiia Platonivna, married Felen (1845—?), is being replicated. Volodymyr Syrotenko (Verbytskyi),
 Candidate of Technical Sciences, actively defends this view. Another hypothesis belongs to the writer Antonina Tsvyd who tries, in her research paper, to substantiate legendary folk stories about the alleged Shevchenko’s son Fedir whose mother was an unknown resident of Sedniv.
 The statements and assumptions made in the publications of these authors have been critically verified by comparison with dependable information, which showed that both versions do not have any real basis and contradict properly proven facts and documents. V. Syrotenko presents his conjectures as the purest truth, while A. Tsvyd, trying to find evidence for dubious legends, resorts to assumptions devoid of logic and common sense while leaving well-known circumstances without attention. Memoirs are also misinterpreted, in particular the ones of Oleksandr Chuzhbynskyi, and it once again testifies to the urgent need for a critical edition of a corpus of memoirs about Shevchenko. It is especially unfortunate that V. Syrotenko’s inventions are recklessly picked up by the community of teachers who ‘legalize’ them in publications and the educational process.