Lesya Ukrainka: A Poet and A Political Activist

It would not be unfair to call Lesya Ukrainka a fantastic poet. She was born on 25 February 1871 and is one of the Ukrainian literature writers and is best known for her plays and poets. She was also an active civil, political and feminist activist. Some of the well-known works of Lesya are the collection of poems including On the wings of songs, Thoughts, and Dreams, Echos, epic poem Ancient fairy tale, One word, plays Princess, Cassandra, In the Catacombs, and Forest Song. She died on 1 August 1913 in Georgia.

Lesya Had Gift of Languages

In 1871, Ukrainka was born in the town of Novohrad-Volynskyi of Ukraine. She was born to and Ukrainian publisher and writer, Olha Drahomanova-Kosach. In her literary field, she was better known as Olena Pchilka. Ukrainka was the second child of her. Lesya’s dad was the head of the district assembly of conciliators. She highly inherited features from her father, like eyes and height. She was also very highly principled like her father, and both of them held the individual’s dignity in high regard. Despite the many similarities they both possessed, Ukrainka and her father were different on one ground. Her father had no gift for languages but for mathematics; on the other hand, Lesya had no mathematics skills. Still, she knew German, Italian, French, English, Greek, Russian, Bulgarian, Latin, Polish, and her native language Ukrainian.

Lesya pursued Bible

When she was eight years old, she wrote her first poem, ‘Hope.’ This was composed in reaction to the arrest and exile. This incident happened when aunt took part in a political movement that was against the tsarist autocracy. Her entire family moved to Lutsk in 1879. Lesya’s father started building houses for the family that same year in the nearby village of Kolodiazhne. This was when her uncle encouraged her a lot to study Ukrainian folk stories, folk songs, and history and to pursue the Bible as well for its eternal themes and inspired poetry. She got influenced by Ukrainian dramatist and poet Mykhailo Starytsky and a well-known composer Mykola Lysenko.

Lesya Ukrainka: Amazing poet

At the age of 13, Lily of the Valley, her first published poem, appeared in the magazine Zorya. It was also the first time she used her pseudonym as publications in the Ukrainian language were forbidden in the Russian Empire. Also, she was on her way to become a pianist, but because of the bone’s tuberculosis, she wasn’t able to attend any educational establishment, and therefore writing was the main focus of her life.

It was now necessary for her to travel the places where the climate was dry. The reason being her illness. She spent her time in Austria, Germany, Italy, Egypt, Bulgaria, Crimea, and the Caucasus. She loved to experience other cultures, which was evident in many of their works, such as the Ancient History of Oriental Peoples.
Prose dramas, epic poems, literary criticism articles, and sociopolitical essays were also written by Ukrainka. She is best known for her plays like Lisova and Boyarynya.

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