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August 24
August 24

When I am dead, bury me
In my beloved Ukraine,
My tomb upon a grave mound high
Amid the spreading plain,
So that the fields, the boundless steppes,
The Dnieper's plunging shore
My eyes could see, my ears could hear
The mighty river roar.

When from Ukraine the Dnieper bears
into the deep blue sea
The blood of foes ... then will I leave
These hills and fertile fields
I'll leave them all and fly away
To the abode of God,
And then I'll pray .... But till that day
I know nothing of God.

Oh bury me, then rise ye up
And break your heavy chains
And water with the tyrants' blood
The freedom you have gained.
And in the great new family,
The family of the free,
With softly spoken, kindly word
Remember also me.

Taras Shevchenko - 1845

Shevchenko The face of Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine's greatest poet, shows the price paid for desiring Ukrainian independence from the Russian empire. The portrait was taken after his return from a 10 year sentence in Siberia by the order of Czar Nicholas 1. Taras was released in 1857. He died four years later in 1861. Taras was born on March 9, 1814.
Ukrainian Holocaust In 1932-33 over seven million Ukrainians perished in a forced famine by the Kremlin. It was meant to force collectivization and destroy any independent national consciousness. It turned Ukraine into a mass graveyard. Before Ukraine declared independence this crime against humanity was never officially recognized. The genocide was denied, its perpetrators never punished.
WW2 During the Nazi occupation Ukraine suffered a population loss between 7 and 10 million people. This was the highest in Europe. Also, over two million were sent to Germany to work as slave labor. When the Nazis had been defeated the victors met in Yalta. Ukraine however still remained under a dictatorship from Moscow.
Chornobyl The Chornobyl explosion occurred during the rule of Mikhail Gorbachev. Through Perestroika and Glasnost he attempted to keep the crumpling empire intact and ruled from the Kremlin.  The Chornobyl explosion could have in a few seconds done what many had tried for centuries. Eliminate Ukraine.   Instead the catastrophe was a catalyst for the declaration of independence by Ukraine on August 24, 1991.