Autocrat Versus Poet
Tens of thousands of copies of the New Testament and the Psalter were burned by his orders. He said such books were for the priests, not for the common people. Incidentally it may be remarked that the priests had to teach what he wanted or lose their jobs.
To speak against his government, or even to criticize czars who reigned hundreds of years before him was a crime.
The little band of dreamers who formed the Society of Cyril and Methodius actually hoped to convert this autocrat, and secure his assistance in freeing the people. They had visions of a free Confederation of Slavonic states, after the pattern of the United States of America, but with the czar as head. But they sadly misjudged their man.
Shechenko had actually spoken impertinently of the Autocrat in his poems. He refused to retract.
The government really wished to be lenient, if he would only be good and confess that he had done wrong. But Shevchenko was not of those who are willing to admit that black is white.
The gloomy autocracy now pronounces his doom—a sort of living death in Siberian barracks. The czar added to the sentence, with his own hand, the proviso that he should not be allowed either to write or to paint.