He was sent to school but was not allowed to finish the gymnasium because of the prejudices of his father. Despite this he succeeded in entering the University of Kiev and paid his way by acting for months at a time as tutor on various estates. It was from this period that he first became interested in peasant poetry and folksongs and some of his stories based on folk motifs were published in the collection _Kievlyanin_, edited by Prof. Maksimovich in 1840. In 1843 he published a collection of poems, _Ukraina_, based largely upon folksongs with some additions of his own, and he dreamed of combining them to form a Ukrainian _Iliad_ but he did not have the opportunity or the poetical ability to undertake it. He was not a natural poet like Shevchenko and seemed to avoid direct comparison with him. On the other hand the historical novel always interested him. While he was in the university, he had become acquainted with the works of Sir Walter Scott and he instinctively realized that the exploits of the Kozaks lent themselves to the same kind of treatment. Yet even then some impulse kept him from achieving in that line the perfection which he might have had. At Kiev he became friendly with Kostomariv and Shevchenko and was with them in the Society of Saints Cyril and Methodius. He very soon was called to St. Petersburg by Pletnev to teach in the University there and also to conduct classes in Russian for foreigners. He married the sister of Bilozersky, another of the members of the Society, and had just received a stipend to study abroad, when the blow fell upon the Society. Kulish was arrested in Warsaw, as he was preparing to leave the country, and was brought back to St. Petersburg for the trial. He fared better than most of the others and was only sentenced to two months in prison, perhaps through the intercession of Pletnev who warmly recommended him as a young man of high mind and religious principles. He was then exiled to Tula with the prohibition of writing but the supervision over him was not so strict as that over Shevchenko and he was able to continue his literary work by publishing under various pen names. On his return to St. Petersburg in 1850 he was able to resume anonymous writing and he published the first of his studies on Gogol, the money for which was furnished by the distinguished Slavophile Sergey Aksakov. For a while he held a small job in the government service and then his friends bought for him 120 desyatins of land in Ukraine and he and his wife went there in an effort to earn his living by agriculture. After the accession of Alexander II, he was granted an amnesty and the permission to publish under his own name. He rapidly brought out his _Memoirs on South Russia_ (1856), prepared the first edition of his _Grammar_ and in 1857 he published in both Ukrainian and Russian his main historical novel, the _Black Council_.