Shevchenko National Preserve

Shevchenko National Preserve (Шевченківський національний заповідник; Shevchenkivskyi natsionlnyi zapovidnyk). A park containing the grave of Ukraine's greatest poet and national figure, Taras Shevchenko, and a museum dedicated to his memory, located near the city of Kaniv on Tarasova (formerly Chernecha) Hill. A monument by Kalenyk Tereshchenko was first erected on Shevchenko's grave in 1923. The park was created in 1925 by government decree. In 1939 a new, bronze monument to the poet by the sculptor Matvei Manizer was erected, and the museum, designed by the architects Vasyl H. Krychevsky and Petro Kostyrko, was opened. Destroyed during the Second World War by the German army, the museum and the monument were rebuilt. In 1989 the preserve was granted national status and assumed its present name. In 1991 the cottage Tarasova svitlytsia (Taras’s Room), originally built on this location in 1884, was reconstructed and made part of the museum complex. Both the monument and the museum are major tourist attractions.

[This article was updated in 2011.]