Lesya Ukrainka (, ; born Larysa Petrivna Kosach, ; – ) was one of Ukrainian literature's foremost writers, best known for her poems and plays. She was also an active political, civil, and women's rights activist.Krys Svitlana, A Comparative Feminist Reading of Lesia Ukrainka’s and Henrik Ibsen’s Dramas. Canadian Review of Comparative Literature 34.4 (December 2007 [September 2008]): 389–409
Among her best-known works are the collections of poems On the Wings of Songs (1893), Thoughts and Dreams (1899), Echos (1902), the epic poem Ancient Fairy Tale (1893), One Word (1903), and the plays Princess (1913), Cassandra (1903–1907), In the Catacombs (1905), and Forest Song (1911).
Biography Family and education
Lesya Ukrainka was born in 1871 in the town of Novohrad-Volynskyi (now Zviahel) in Ukraine. She was the second child of Ukrainian writer and publisher Olha Drahomanova-Kosach, of Greek descent, better known under her pen-name Olena Pchilka. Ukrainka's father was Petro Kosach (from the , who in turn are believed to be related to the Kosača noble family), head of the district assembly of conciliators, who came from the northern part of Chernihiv province.
After completing high school in Chernihiv Gymnasium, Ukrainka's father Kosach studied mathematics at the University of Petersburg. Two years later he moved to Saint Vladimir Imperial University of Kiev (now Kyiv University) and graduated with a law degree. In 1868 Kosach married Olha Drahomanova, the sister of his friend Mykhailo Drahomanov, a well-known Ukrainian scientist, historian, philosopher, folklorist, and public figure. Her father was devoted to the advancement of Ukrainian culture and financially supported Ukrainian publishing ventures. Lesya Ukrainka had three younger sisters, Olha, Oksana, and Isydora, and a younger brother, Mykola. Ukrainka was very close with her uncle Drahomanov, her spiritual mentor and teacher, as well as her elder brother Mykhailo, known under the pen name Mykhailo Obachny, whom she called "Mysholosie" after their parents' joint nickname for both of them.
Lesya inherited her father's physical features, eyes, height, and build. Like her father, she was highly principled, and they both held the dignity of the individual in high regard. Despite their many similarities, Lesya and her father were different in that her father had a gift for mathematics, but no gift for languages; conversely, Lesya had no gift for mathematics, but she knew English, German, French, Italian, Greek, Latin, Polish, Russian, Bulgarian, and her native Ukrainian.
Lesya's mother wrote poetry and short stories for children in Ukrainian. She was also active in the women's movement and published a feminist almanac.:uk:Леся Українка Ukrainka's mother played a significant role in her upbringing. The Ukrainian language was the only language used in the household, and to enforce this practice, the children were educated by Ukrainian tutors at home to avoid schools that taught Russian as the primary language. Ukrainka learned how to read at the age of four, and she and her brother Mykhailo could read foreign languages well enough to read literature in the original.Wedel, Erwin. Toward a modern Ukrainian drama: innovative concepts and devices in Lesia Ukrainka’s dramatic art, in Slavic Drama, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada 1991, p 116.
Literary career Early poetry By the time she was eight, Ukrainka wrote her first poem, "Hope," which was composed in reaction to the arrest and exile of her aunt, Olena Kosach, for taking part in a political movement against the tsarist autocracy. In 1879, her entire family moved to Lutsk. That same year her father started building houses for the family in the nearby village of Kolodiazhne. It was at this time that her uncle, Mykhailo Drahomanov, encouraged her to study Ukrainian folk songs, folk stories, and history, as well to peruse the Bible for its inspired poetry and eternal themes. She also was influenced by the well-known composer Mykola Lysenko, as well as the famous Ukrainian dramatist and poet Mykhailo Starytsky.Bohachevsky-Chomiak, Martha. Feminists Despite Themselves: Women in Ukrainian Community Life, 1884–1939. Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton, 1988.
At age thirteen her first published poem, "Lily of the Valley," appeared in the magazine Zorya in Lviv. It was here that she first used her pseudonym, which was suggested by her mother because in the Russian Empire publications in the Ukrainian language were forbidden. Ukrainka's first collection of poetry had to be published secretly in western Ukraine and secretly brought into Kyiv under her pseudonym. At this time Ukrainka was well on her way of becoming a pianist, but due to tuberculosis of the bone, she did not attend any outside educational establishment. Writing was to be the main focus of her life.
Height of literary career
Since the beginning of the 1890s, Ukrainka had been travelling to Poltava region: from the summer of 1893 to the middle of 1906, she would spend almost every summer in Hadiach and nearby Green Grove, where she composed many works, including the legend Robert Bruce, King of Scotland. It was here that Ukrainka befriended the teacher A. S. Makarova, with whom she later corresponded, and the latter left memories of the poet.
The poems and plays of Ukrainka are associated with her belief in her country's freedom and independence. Between 1895 and 1897 she became a member of the Literary and Artistic Society in Kyiv, which was banned in 1905 because of its relations with revolutionary activists. In 1888, when Ukrainka was seventeen, she and her brother organized a literary circle called Pleyada (The Pleiades), which they founded to promote the development of Ukrainian literature and translation of foreign classics into Ukrainian. The organization was based on the French school of poesy, the Pleiade. Their gatherings took place in different homes and were joined by Mykola Lysenko, Petro Kosach, Kostiantyn Mykhalchuk, Mykhailo Starytsky, and others. One of the works they translated was Nikolai Gogol's Evenings on a Farm Near Dykanka.
Taras Shevchenko and Ivan Franko were the main inspiration of her early poetry, which was associated with Ukrainka's loneliness, social isolation, and longing for the Ukrainian nation's freedom. Her first collection of poetry, Na krylakh pisen''' (On the Wings of Songs), was published in 1893. Since Ukrainian publications were banned by the Russian Empire, this book was published in Western Ukraine, which was part of Austria-Hungary at the time, and smuggled into Kyiv.
Later career
Ukrainka's illness made it necessary for her to travel to places where the climate was dry, and, as a result, she spent extended periods of time in Germany, Austria, Italy, Bulgaria, Crimea, the Caucasus, and Egypt. She loved experiencing other cultures which was evident in many of her literary works, such as The Ancient History of Oriental Peoples, originally written for her younger siblings. The book was published in Lviv, and Ivan Franko was involved in its publication. It included her early poems, such as "Seven Strings," "The Starry Sky," "Tears-Pearls," "The Journey to the Sea," "Crimean Memories," and "In the Children's Circle."
Ukrainka also wrote epic poems, prose dramas, prose, several articles of literary criticism, and several sociopolitical essays. She was best known for her plays Boyarynya (1914; The Noblewoman), a psychological tragedy centred on the Ukrainian family in the 17th century and which refers directly to Ukrainian history, and Lisova pisnya (1912; The Forest Song), the characters of which include mythological beings from Ukrainian folklore.
From 1901 to 1903, she resided at Villa Adriana (Natalia) in Sanremo, Italy, located at Corso Felice Cavallotti, 112. On May 28, 1998, a memorial plaque was unveiled on the wall of the house. The initiative was carried out by Italian researcher Marina Moretti in cooperation with members of the Ukrainian community. The plaque bears an inscription in Italian and Ukrainian stating that Lesya Ukrainka lived in the villa during the years 1901–1903. The Italian text reads:
Lesya Ukrainka actively opposed Russian tsarism and was a member of Ukrainian Marxist organizations. In 1901, she gave the Austro-Marxist Mykola Hankevich a Ukrainian translation of The Communist Manifesto made by "her comrades from Kyiv". She was briefly arrested in 1907 by tsarist police and remained under surveillance thereafter.
Personal life Sexuality
Lesya Ukrainka's sexuality has been described as "spark[ing] debate among literary scholars for decades" by author Maryna Kulakova, particularly her relationship with Olha Kobylianska. The two began corresponding through writing in 1891, and after a 1901 meeting in Chernivtsi, began writing intimate passages to one another. Lesya Ukrainka grew closer to Kobylianska after Miaržynski's death, while Kobylianska was dealing with a rejection by Osyp Makovei, who was uninterested in marriage.
The correspondence between Lesya Ukrainka and Olha Kobylianska led the two to develop a gender-neutral language, referring to one another as "someone" () in order to express feelings of love. This language has been compared to Anne Lister's diaries by professor Anna Dżabagina. Dżabagina additionally notes that the usage of this coded language was for political reasons; Lesya Ukrainka, who lived in the Russian Empire, was less likely to overtly express her sexuality than Kobylianska, who lived in Austro-Hungarian Empire. The former's letters were nonetheless explicit in noting her desire for physical contact, and she wrote on one occasion that she
The relationship between Kobylianska and Lesya Ukrainka has been referred to as a "lesbian phantasy" by literary scholar Solomiya Pavlychko. Increased attention to the relationship between the two women has sparked homophobic backlash from certain sectors of Ukrainian academia, as well as what Dżabagina refers to as "straightwashing". Oksana Zabuzhko, for example, has claimed that the correspondence was simply the literary conventions of the time, and that any intimate character is a result of reinterpretation by modern, "unprepared" readers.
Partnerships and marriage
Lesya's first romantic interest was Maksym Slavinsky, who first visited the Kosach family house in 1886 on the invitation of Dmytro Pylchykov and her brother Mykhailo. In 1891 Slavinsky aided Lesya in revising her translations from Heinrich Heine. One of her poems published in 1893 is dedicated to Slavinsky.
Ukrainian linguist Ahatanhel Krymsky was claimed to have courted Lesya while a student in Kyiv, but their romance turned to be one-sided.
In 1897, while being treated in Yalta, Lesya met , an official from Minsk who was also receiving treatment for tuberculosis. The two fell in love, and her feelings for Miaržynski were responsible for showing a different side of herself. Examples include "Your Letters Always Smell of Withered Roses," "To Leave Everything and Fly to You," and "I'd Like to Wind around You Like Ivy," which went unpublished in her lifetime. Miaržynski died with Ukrainka at his bedside on 3 March 1901. She wrote the entire dramatic poem "Oderzhyma" ("The Possessed") in one night on his deathbed.