On February 25, Ukraine celebrates the 153rd anniversary of the birth of the poetess and writer Lesya Ukrainka. Doctor of Philological Sciences, professor of the Central Ukrainian State Pedagogical University Serhii Mykhida told about little-known facts about her and what connects her with Kirovohrad Oblast on the air of Ukrainian Radio Kropyvnytskyi.
How did the view of Lesya Ukrainka change in independent Ukraine, in contrast to how her work was interpreted by the Soviet authorities?
I want to talk more about Larisa Kosach, because she was not Lesya Ukrainka on our, then Yelysavetgrad lands. Together with her sister Olga Kosach-Kryvyniuk, she visited them as a person who was not indifferent to social issues that took place in the development of communities at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when peasant artillery was organized. Larisa Kosach, as a citizen, as a Ukrainian, became interested in the artillery movement, which contributed to the development of agriculture and spread on the territory of the then Russian Empire, but on Ukrainian lands.
In 1898, her way from Odesa to Lutsk lay through Yelisavetgrad region. Here she met Mykola Levytsky, who took her to Adjamka (a village in the Kropyvnytskyi district – ed.), where the agricultural artillery union operated, to see for herself how it works. This was new in agriculture. It was not a literary voyage, but rather a civic one. That is why we are talking about Larisa Kosach, not Lesya Ukrainka.
My point of view is to talk about Larisa Kosach as a person, as a person who was interested in all social issues: women’s and social movements, what was important for Ukrainians – and that is the land. It has always been the main philosophy of life for Ukrainians.
Each government tried to make Lesya Ukrainka convenient for itself. The Soviet authorities banned certain of her works, which she never mentioned and were unknown to a wide range of readers. One of them is the drama “The Boyarinya”, which was written in 1910. Later, during the time of Independent Ukraine, this play was included in the school curriculum. What is the importance of this work?
During the time of independence, “Boyarynia” appeared in school programs and then disappeared. This is another consequence of Ukraine’s movement away from Europe and the world during Yanukovych’s presidency.
What is the uniqueness of this dramatic poem for Ukrainians in the 21st century? This is another confirmation of the difference of Ukrainianness compared to Russianness, and this was presented by Lesya Ukrainka in her work. Its most important content is the presentation of two worlds – Moscow and Ukrainian. One is bright, the world of freedom is presented in the image of Oksana. And the world of unfreedom in the images of Stepan, her fiancé, and his sister Annushka, who has ceased to be Hanna.
An elementary example from the drama is a house and a “terjem”, which are simply uniquely different. The house is bright, painted, with snow-white whitewashed walls. Near her is a small meadow of flowers in a flower bed. There is no fence, instead of it there is an overpass. And “Terem”, which is surrounded by a large fence in Moscow. That is, free access and obstacle only for animals that do not cross this border. And the affirmation of private property as a value.
And here are two girls – Oksana and Anna. One feels free in this world, while Annushka is limited. Only a gap in the large fence allows her to see the world.
In this drama, Lesya Ukrainets managed to reveal the aspects of personal freedom. In this work, she describes not only national values, but also the mental freedom that Ukrainians have always possessed. By the way, Oksana dies in this drama.
You are talking about universal human values, about what Lesya Ukrainka wrote about. But there was a time when you were actually killed for being Ukrainian, Oksana Zabuzhko said. And an example of this is the story of Lesya Ukrainka’s family. After 1920, this Soviet flywheel went through almost everything. Due to the fact that her mother, Olena Pchilka, defended Ukrainianness, the Soviet authorities included her in the circle of bourgeois-nationalist intelligentsia. Tell about her further fate.
Each of the Kosachi family – from parents to sisters and brother – was passed by a Soviet car. In 1930, the repressions affected her 80-year-old mother, the famous Ukrainian activist Olena Pchilka, who maintained her nationalist activities and was a danger to the Soviet system until her last breath. Not respecting her age and achievements, the women tried to arrest her.
This did not affect Oksana – Lesya’s sister, who got married before the Soviet machine appeared. But it affected Isidora, who was arrested and sentenced to prison for her mythical relationship with the organization of Ukrainian nationalists. Despite this, she is one of those who managed to live a long and happy life abroad.
Olga Kosach-Kryvyniuk suffered from arrests in the Russian Empire, who preserved Lesya Ukrainka’s archive with all her strength and abilities. And during the years of occupation during the Second World War, when Kyiv was liberated, she took him abroad. As a result, the chronicle of the life and work of Lesya Ukrainka was published on almost a thousand pages, which became an excellent material for understanding her truth, and not the singer of experienced fires.
Those members of Lesya Ukrainka’s family who survived the occupation and the Second World War were able to preserve their memory only because they left Kyiv, which was already liberated by the Bolshevik army. And thus, decades later, we have primary sources that were preserved not in Ukraine, but abroad. For example, the fate of manuscripts, which are now available thanks to digitization, can be good food for thought. The chronicle of the life and work of Lesya Ukrainka is available for a page-by-page, perverse reading by professors and teaching staff and scientists.