09 March 2011, 09:29
In the program on Channel 5, Mykola Tomenko sent his greetings on the occasion of Taras Shevchenko´s birthday and stated, "The acting authorities seem to be afraid of Taras Shevchenko."
M. Tomenko declared, "If our nation wants to respect itself and have a state one is proud of, we shall celebrate the national holiday on March 9." "The International Women's Day on March 8 should be accompanied by the social-political events to protect women´s rights and prevent sexism of authorities, while the holiday of national spirit shall be celebrated today, on March 9, when we celebrate the birthday of T. Shevchenko", M. Tomenko emphasized.
M. Tomenko stressed that life of T. Shevchenko is both heroic and tragic. The Deputy Chairman also reminded that in the year 2011 we commemorate the 150th anniversary of his death and reinterment. However, according to him, there have been no sitting of the governmental organizational committee and there is no system or logics regarding anniversary celebrations this year.
Asked about the measures taken to commemorate our national prominent figure, M. Tomenko stressed, "There should definitely be no new monuments." Instead, the Deputy Chairman of the Parliament deems necessary to promote creativity, ideas, and outlook of T. Shevchenko. "We shall show Shevchenko as an artist, get his works across with their melody with the help of music language and finally shoot the modern film, as we are living in XXI century", M. Tomenko explained.
The Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine admitted that knowledge of T. Shevchenko´s creativity among numerous representatives of modern political elite seem to be limited to "Zapovit" (Testament) that had been compulsory in Soviet school, "though they have no desire to learn his principal works that can be regarded as specific political and national testimonies." "This unwillingness is probably devolved from the Russian Empire, and later the Soviet Union, as the ruling power has always been afraid of real works of poets", M. Tomenko stated.