Artist, poet, national bard of Ukraine, Taras Shevchenko was born on 9 March, 1814 in Moryntsi, Kiev gubernia. He was born a serf. When he was a teenager he became an orphan, and grew up in poverty. When he was 14, his owner, Engelhardt took him to serve as a houseboy. And Taras travelled with him to Vilnus and to St Petersburg. In Vilnus Taras for the first time heard different languages, Lithuanian, Russian and Polish and there he saw people whom their masters made free. When Engelhardt noticed the boy’s skiils in painting he apprenticed him to the painter Shiriayev for four years.
