[MSN] Canada. A bronze statue of Ukrainian Taras Shevchenko, erected in an Oakville park in 1951, was chopped off at the feet by vandals and carted away.

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

The case of the missing statue
 
Taras Shevchenko
 
  
The Hamilton Spectator; With files from the Toronto Star/Spectator wire
services
(Jan 2, 2007) 
A bronze statue of Ukrainian Taras Shevchenko, erected in an Oakville park
in 1951, was chopped off at the feet by vandals and carted away.

Dana Brown

Who was Taras Shevchenko?

The massive statue of famed Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko may have been
stolen in a bid to make a quick buck by melting down the bronze.

Bill Harasym, president of the Taras H. Shevchenko Museum and Memorial Park
Foundation, which owns the park that the statue was in, said the thieves did
quite a crude job of removing the figure.

"It looks like it was pulled down and to me it smacks of crooks out to make
a dollar and melt the bronze down," Harasym speculated.

Police also said melting the statue down could have been one possible motive
for the theft, but have no evidence that's exactly what it was taken for.
The statue was taken from the Taras H. Shevchenko Memorial Park in north
Oakville sometime between Dec. 15 and Dec. 31.

If the Shevchenko statue was taken to make some quick cash by melting down
the metal, it wouldn't be the first time during the past year. Thanks to
rising commodity prices, especially for scrap copper, the main component of
bronze, there's been a rash of statue thefts around the world in the past 12
months.

1814: Taras Shevchenko was born in a serf peasant family in the central
Ukrainian village of Moryntsi.

1825: Shevchenko is orphaned.

1831: In St. Petersburg, Shevchenko becomes an apprentice to the painter
Shiryaev for four years.

1838: For 2,500 rubles raised during a painting lottery from a work which
was not his, Shevchenko's freedom is purchased.

1840: His first collection of poems is published under the title "Kobzar"
(Minstrel).

1847: Shevchenko is arrested by the czarist Russian police and sentenced to
25 years of military service and exile. He is forbidden by the czar to write
or paint.

1850: He is arrested again for writing and painting and banished.

1857: Shevchenko is released, but still not allowed to enter St. Petersburg.

1859: He is arrested again and accused of making anti-government and
blasphemous speeches. Shevchenko is barred from living in the Ukraine.

1861: Shevchenko dies.

Source: The Tara Shevchenko Museum

Thieves view bronze figures as scrap metal

* September

Two bronze lions are taken from a San Antonio law office. The pair of
felines were bolted to the ground, weighed more than 225 kilograms and
together were valued at $17,500 US.

* August

Thieves steal nearly 50 specially made bronze bears worth about $1,200 each
in Seattle. The bears were taken to be smashed and sold of in pieces as
scrap metal. Only half were recovered without damage.

* May

Two bronze statues worth more than $100,000 are taken from churches in
England; a bronze statue called The Mermaid, worth about $8,000 and weighing
50 kilograms, was taken in New Zealand.

* January

A bronze figure, worth $1.3 million, is stolen from Roehampton University in
London.The scrap metal value for the two-metre tall figure was $5,500.

* December 2005

A crane is used by thieves to steal a two-tonne statue by artist Henry Moore
in England. The figure is worth $6 million. As scrap, it's 2,100 kilograms
would have brought in about $10,000.

dbrown at thespec.com

http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/