FEBRUARY 25, THE 145TH ANNIVERSARY SINCE BIRTHDAY OF lESYA UKRAINKA

On this day in 1871 in Zvyagel city (now Novohrad-Volynskyi) was born outstanding Ukrainian poetess Lesya Ukrainka (real name Larysa Kosach-Kvitka). During a life way she made a huge contribution to Ukrainian culture. Her poems inspired many Ukrainians to take up arms in numerous battles for the freedom of our land.

Lesia Ukrainka spent her childhood in Volhynia in the towns of Zviahel, Lutsk, and Kolodiazhne and then moved to Kyiv. Her views were particularly influenced by her mother's brother, Mykhailo Drahomanov. Lesia Ukrainka achieved a broad education by self-tuition. She knew all of the major Western European languages as well as Greek and Latin and the Slavic languages (Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, and others). She was equally familiar with world history and at 19 wrote a textbook for her sisters, published in 1918 as Starodavnia istoriia skhidnykh narodiv (Ancient History of the Eastern Peoples). Lesia Ukrainka translated a great deal (eg, Nikolai Gogol, Adam Mickiewicz, Heinrich Heine, Victor Hugo, Homer). Suffering from tuberculosis, she traveled to Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Egypt, and, several times, the Caucasia in search of a cure. Travel exposed her to new enriching experiences and broadened her horizons. Lesia Ukrainka began writing poetry at a very early age. At the age of nine she wrote the poem ‘Nadiia’ (Hope), and her first published poems, ‘Konvaliia’ (Lily of the Valley) and ‘Safo’ (Sappho), appeared in the journal Zoria (Lviv) in 1884. 1885 saw the appearance of her collection of translations of Gogol, which she prepared together with her brother, Mykhailo Kosach. 

Lesia Ukrainka reached her literary heights in her poetic dramas. Ukrainka's first drama was Blakytna troianda (The Azure Rose, 1896), which describes the life of the Ukrainian intelligentsia. In further dramatic works she developed a new genre, that of the ‘dramatic poem.’ The first such work was Oderzhyma (A Woman Possessed, 1901). Particularly important among her works are the dramatic poems on the subject of prisoners in Babylon, which were meant to serve as symbols of the imprisonment of Ukrainians within the Russian Empire; among them are Na ruïnakh (Upon the Ruins, 1903), Vavylons’kyi polon (The Babylonian Captivity, 1903), and V domu roboty—v kraïni nevoli (In the House of Labor, In the Land of Slavery, 1906). In the dramatic poem Kassandra (1907) she portrayed the fate of Ukraine through the tragic history of long-lost Troy, and using Cassandra as her spokesperson, she challenged the Ukrainian people to shake off their apathy and inertia. In the dramatic poem U katakombakh (In the Catacombs, 1905) she also castigated the Ukrainian community for its compromises and passivity. In the drama Rufin i Pristsilla (Rufinus and Priscilla, 1908) the shining image of the Christian woman is contrasted with the brutal strength of Imperial Rome. The dramatic poem Boiarynia (The Boyar Woman, 1910) illustrates most clearly Ukrainka's hostility to Russian imperialism; it maintains that only armed struggle can free the Ukrainian people from their Muscovite prison. The theme of the poem Orhiia (The Orgy, 1912–13) concerns the poet's role in that ceaseless battle. In the dramatic poem Kaminnyi hospodar (The Stone Host, 1912) Lesia Ukrainka employs the Don Juan theme in an original presentation of the conflict between social conformity and personal freedom and responsibility. Her neoromantic work, the drama Lisova pisnia (The Forest Song, 1911), treats the conflict between lofty idealism and the prosaic details of everyday life. Lesia Ukrainka also wrote prose works. Her literary legacy is enormous, despite the fact that for most of her life she was ill and often was bedridden for months. The last few years of her life were spent convalescing in Egypt and the Caucasia. The works of Lesia Ukrainka have been published many times. The most notable editions, however, have been those of Knyhospilka (7 vols, 1923–5 and 12 vols, 1927–30), which include scholarly introductions by Mykola Zerov, Borys Yakubsky, Mykhailo Drai-Khmara, Petro Rulin, Yevhen Nenadkevych, Oleksander Biletsky, and others. Olha Kosach-Kryvyniuk's Lesia Ukraïnka: Khronolohiia zhyttia i tvorchosty (Lesia Ukrainka: A Chronology of Her Life and Works, New York 1970) is valuable for its biographical and epistolary material.