Lesia Ukrainka (pseudonym of Larysa Petrivna Kosach-Kvitka) - a writer, translator, folklorist, public and cultural activist, and a pioneer of the Ukrainian feminist movement, is one of the most internationally acknowledged figures of the national culture. The cofounder of the widely known literary society “Pleiada,” she wrote poetry, epics, novels, essays, developed the genre of poetic drama in the national literature, and belongs to the short list of the most famous women in the Ukrainian history.
Along with her literary achievements, Lesia Ukrainka explored ethnography and collected data on folk traditions, specifically, Ukrainian folk melodies. She recorded 220 of the latter, published a work on children's games, songs, fairy tales, a study “Kupala in Volyn,” (summer solstice celebration) and formed a collection "Folk Songs for Dance" (54 texts), which makes her one of the pioneers of the ethnic studies scholarly field in Ukraine amongst other accomplishments.
She was the second child out of six, born in the family of the head of the District assembly of conciliators P. Kosach. Her mother, O. Kosach, née Dragomanova, was a well- known writer (literary pseudonym Olena Pchilka), ethnographer, and publisher. Thus, being home-schooled due to her serious illness – the tuberculosis of the bone, which she called the “Thirty Years’ War” – Lesia Ukrainka still managed to become one of the most well-educated women of her time, predominantly due to her immediate surrounding: relatives and family friends, the representatives of the Ukrainian aristocracy and intellectual elite M. Dragomanov, M. Lysenko, V. Antonovych, M. Starytskyi, and others. While still in her teens, she wrote a textbook for her younger siblings “The Ancient History of the Eastern Peoples” over 250 pages long, which demonstrates the scope of her early education.
Despite her continuous pain and heavy treatment, Lesia Ukrainka led an extremely active cultural and social life – joined the Ukrainian national and feminist movements, published three poetry collections in Lviv from 1893 to 1902, wrote over a hundred poems throughout 1903-1913 during her trips abroad. Fin de siècle somewhat shifted her focus to drama, leading to the creation of more than a dozen dramatic works and the emergence of a new genre in Ukrainian literature – dramatic poems a.k.a. verse drama.
Her most famous works include dramatic poems “The Possessed”, “Cassandra”, “Rufen and Pryscylla”, “Babylonian Captivity”, “The Stone Lord”, “The Forest Song”, as well as numerous translations of the best samples of the literary discourse, written by G.G. Byron, Dante Alighieri, Homer, H. Heine, V. Hugo, W. Shakespeare, George Sand (Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin), Maurice Maeterlinck, and many others. Being fluent in 9 foreign languages, Lesia Ukrainka highly enjoyed engaging with the themes of world literature and was closely connected with numerous acknowledged authors of the time, with whom she debated over the crucial issues, such as human loneliness, tragic lack of understanding, gender equality and cultural isolation of immigrants, tolerance, love and death, and her visions of the problems still remain appreciated and modern.
February 25, 2021 marks the 150th anniversary of birth of Lesia Ukrainka. Ukraine will celebrate it throughout the year nationally and globally in association with UNESCO, whose values of peace, tolerance, gender and ethnic equality, as well as the powers of inclusion, the famous author professed throughout her life, leaving behind a vast literary heritage, which deeply affects the Ukrainian and international cultural discourse until today.
Art project “Lesia Ukrainka: 150 Names”: https://150imenlesi.org/