On 22 March 1845, the Council of the Academy of Arts granted Shevchenko the title of a non-classed artist. He again travelled to Ukraine where he met with historian Nikolay Kostomarov and other members of the Brotherhood of Saints Cyril and Methodius, a clandestine society also known as "Ukrainian-Slavic society" and dedicated to the political liberalization of the Empire and its transformation into a federation-like polity of Slavic nations. Upon the society's suppression by the authorities, Shevchenko's wrote a poem "Dream", that was confiscated from the society's members and became one of the major issues of the scandal.