I'm David Knowles, and this is Ukraine, the latest. Welcome to the second part of our

special two-part podcast on the life and times of Tara Shoshenko.

In the last episode, we heard about the historical period in which the young Shoshenko grew up.

We heard about the boy who was born a surf and went to St. Petersburg for his education.

Liu Bov spoke about his poetry, and we ended the episode by foreshadowing his arrest

by the Tsarist powers. This is where we pick up his story.

Well, it's a very long story, but I will try to cut his short, but I don't promise you

to cut his short. When he came to Ukraine and lived here, he came in contact with the

so-called Society of St. Cyril and Misordias, or they called it the brotherhood of Cyril

and Misordias. And it was the official, the reason Shoshenko was arrested. What was the

society's ideas? Who were the members of this society? It was a secret political society.

The members of which spread the idea of a Slavic union or Confederation, Slavic Confederation.

Such as, for example, the United States of America. And the brotherhood was named after

the Slavic missionaries of the 9th century, Cyril and Misordias. And Cyrilic alphabet,

this is what we, they translated Bible from Old Greek into Old Slavic language. And

Cyrilic alphabet, named after the moon Cyril. This is what we use in Ukraine and in Russia

as well. And the brotherhood was initiated by a group of young Ukrainian intellectuals living

in Kiev. They appeared in 1846 and Trashivchenko joined this society. He was an official member of

the society, but he had a big impact on the society. And here expressed the society's ideas

of Slavic union or Slavic federation in his poetry of the period of three years. Why they

spoke about Slavic federation? Slavic people, we are the biggest group of population living in

Europe. And we also take the biggest area, the biggest territory. And in the 19th century,

...