Kobzar

Taras Shevchenko's first poetic collection, published in 1840, which changed the standing of the Ukrainian language in literature. The edition contained eight works, among them "My Thoughts", "Perebendia", "Kateryna" and "Taras's Night". The title "Kobzar" later came to denote Shevchenko's entire poetic output, and it is in that sense that the book is reprinted to this day. The poetry combines a folkloric foundation with an authorial voice entirely new for its time: personal utterance, anger, irony and tenderness sound side by side. "Kobzar" became the book through which several generations of readers first saw Ukrainian as a language of high literature rather than of daily life. Editions of the book from different eras have themselves become objects of study as monuments of book publishing. The book exists in dozens of editions — from miniature to gift formats — each with its own tradition of illustration.