By the 1800s the political and military institutions of Ukraine had been dismantled by the Russian Empire. Ukrainians were labeled “Little Russians” and treated as subordinates. Ukraine was reduced to provincial status. By the late 1800s the Russian Empire was promoting a fierce anti-Ukrainian sentiment. The imperial regime under Tsar Alexander II issued a secret Ems Ukaz, which outlawed the use of the Ukrainian language in print. The Ukrainian intelligentsia was determined to publish Taras Shevchenko’s complete Kobzar in two volumes, including the parts of the text that had been censored and were virtually unknown in Ukraine. The dangerous and honorable task was delegated to Sofia Rusova and her husband, Oleksander Rusov. The couple spent time in Prague preparing the text for publication. Fedir Vovk, a renowned anthropologist and archeologist, furnished Shevchenko’s manuscripts that he had purchased from Shevchenko's brothers with money donated by well-to-do Ukrainians. At great personal risk, the couple brought the complete, published Kobzar back to Ukraine.