Shevchenko has never been known for clarity, as Anna Reid convincingly shows in her "Borderland".

Shevchenko’s poems are an odd mixture of pastoralism, xenophobia and self-hatred punctuated by hysterical shout-outs against the treachery of Ukrainians who were quite satisfied to be the slaves of Moscow and the riff-raff of Warsaw. Shevchenko over and over cast scorn on the slavish habit of his countrymen to give way to pressure without raising much ado. As the shameful Ukrainian proverb says, “My hut is far from the fray, I don’t know anything”.

= "Моя хата з краю, ничого не знаю"