Taras Shevchenko, a bard of freedom and a Ukrainian poet and artist, was born a serf and orphaned early, and he passed a wretched childhood in the service of a brutal sexton. He was apprenticed to icon and mural painters until a group of intellectuals who recognized his talent bought and freed him in 1838. Shevchenko became a prominent Realist painter. While his Ukrainian ballads were being published, he joined a Ukrainian nationalist society and wrote bitterly against serfdom and Russian autocracy. His poetry inspired the Ukrainian movement for independence in 1917 and encouraged forces within the Soviet Union to continue their struggle for freedom. Banished to an appalling military existence in Central Asia for his Liberal ideas, he wrote exquisite lyric poetry and numerous novels in exile from 1847 to 1857. Dogged by terrible misfortune in life, he died seven days before the emancipation of serfs was announced.