The poem Kateryna by the Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko (also known as Kobzar) is dedicated to Vasilii Andreyevich Zhukovsky "in memory of April 22, 1838." What is this heading referring to?
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After looking into this further based on some hints in the book's footnotes, it turns out that Taras Shevchenko was a serf. He was trained as a painter for awhile, but he wanted to continue his studies under Karl Briullov, which required that he be released from serfdom. In order to secure Shevchenko's freedom (at a cost of 2500 Rubles), Brillouv painted a portrait of Vasilli Andreyevich Zhukovski (1783 - 1852), who was a Russian poet, and auctioned it off in order to raise the needed money. Shevchenko's freedom was secured on April 22, 1838.
Incidentally, Kateryna was also his mother's name, who died when Shevchenko was 9. His father subsequently became a chumak (also referred to in the poem) and he also died in 1825.
Sources: Wikipedia page on Taras Shevchenko as well as the book's footnotes.
EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine
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1@GarethRees Truthfully, I pieced it together from Wikipedia's timeline of his life and the footnotes from the text. For example, the footnotes referred to the 22nd as the date where his freedom was purchased, but I had to dig more into exactly what he needed freedom from and who had purchased that. – EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine Oct 23 '23 at 14:12