Larger book

"Larger book" – a manuscript collection of poems, copied by Taras Shevchenko in 1858 – 1860 years. Compared with "Little book" (size 6.7 × 9.8 cm) this manuscript format 13 × 20.3 cm really looks larger. The name "Larger book" given by researchers and entrenched in the literature; Shevchenko himself on the title page wrote: "Poetry by Taras Shevchenko."

February 21, 1858 Shevchenko, while in Nizhny Novgorod, began to rewrite his poetry of 1846 – 1850 years from the "Little books", bringing with it substantial corrections. Some of the poetry of the "Little book" he did not copied to the new collection.

Further, until the end of 1860, Shevchenko wrote here his new works, and "Larger book" has become an almost complete collection of his poems so far (out of a book known only 3 poetry). Some of the works rewrote to the "Larger books" after Shevchenko’s drafts by his friends (Ivan and Alexander Lazarevsky, Vasily Belozersky), not always successful.

Latest poetry inscribed to book December 5, 1860. Sometime after Shevchenko gave the manuscript to the editor of the magazine "Osnova (Basis)" for publication. But he wanted to continue writing in a book, and this made the title page "1861". Death stopped this job…

In the life of Shevchenko could not print any work from "Larger books" – the first publication of the works was carried out in "Basis" in 1861 – 1862 years.

"Larger book" is an important source of Shevchenko text. Today it is stored at the Shevchenko Institute of Literature (Department of manuscripts, Fund 1 (Shevchenko), number 67). In 1963, 1989 and 2013 it was published phototypic way.

M. Zh, 19 June 2016

Additionally

Photocopy "Larger book"