COMMENTARY

On the 132nd anniversary of Lesia Ukrainka's birth

by Helena Lysyj Melnitchenko and Eugene Melnitchenko

The question often arises in literary circles and how much greater a writer or a poet would have become, had he or she lived longer. Had Taras Shevchenko (1814-1862) lived longer than his 47 years, would he have become even greater than he is? Ivan Franko (1856-1916) died at 60, and the sheer volume of his works was considerably greater than Shevchenko's. In Lesia Ukrainka's case (1871-1913), there is no question that, were she healthy and had not died at age 42, her contribution and influence on Ukrainian literature would have been immense.

Like Franko, she did not plow the same fields as did the lesser writers who followed Shevchenko. She had the courage to be original.

Unlike Shevchenko and Franko, whose beginnings were modest, Larysa Kosach had the advantage of the nurturing of her talent by her cultured family. Her father, Petro Kosach, was an enlightened landowner in the Polissia region of Volyn, and her mother, the sister of the great scholar and political thinker, Mykhailo Drahomanov, wrote under the nom de plume of Olena Pchilka.

Under the direction of her mother and her uncle, Lesia studied the best of what Ukrainian and European literature had to offer and was heavily influenced by Ivan Kotliarevsky and Shevchenko. She recognized her debt to Shevchenko in her homage "Na Rokovyny Shevchenka," (On Shevchenko's Anniversary). Among foreign writers, she was influenced by the work of the German poet Heinrich Heine (1797-1856).

Illness struck this promising young woman at a young age, first tuberculosis in her hands, then her legs and finally in her lungs. Like Shevchenko, who spent most of his life outside Ukraine in prisons or in exile, she could write only at irregular intervals and spent a good portion of her life seeking medical help in Berlin, Rome, the Caucasus and Egypt. Lesia had a wonderful facility for languages and read and spoke several, including German, Italian, Greek, Spanish and English. Many of her poems, like Shevchenko's, reflect her yearning for Ukraine, particularly her dreamy and storied Polissia. Her travels had a positive effect on her writing, as they exposed her to the wider world. Indeed, she can be considered the most cosmopolitan of Ukrainian writers.

She lived at a difficult time, a period of oppression and Russification. All printing in the Ukrainian language was prohibited by the tsar. From her earliest years, Lesia knew what her mission in life should be and pursued it with passion despite her illness. Her first poem, "Nadia" (Hope), was written when she was only 9.

"Ni doli, ni voli u mene nema/Ostalasya tilky nadia odna"(Neither fortune, nor freedom have I/Hope alone remains), she wrote, speaking with great empathy for her aunt, exiled for her political views.

Her mother sent her poems to Lviv, where the conditions under the Austro-Hungarian Empire were more relaxed. Lesia was only 12 and already had a pseudonym, Lesia Ukrainka, when her poems first saw the light of day in print.

The lyrical and romantic poem "Rusalka," written when she was 15 and criticized by her mother for being "old-fashioned," owes a debt to Shevchenko. The poem, a tale of love and betrayal (and perhaps feminist revenge) was inspired by the legends of water nymphs who lure a faithless lover to his death. In reviewing her first book of poems, "On Wings of Song," Franko wrote that "[Since Shevchenko] ... Ukraine has not heard such vigorous and vibrant messages as come from the lips of this fragile, invalid girl."

Lesia's poems were inspired by nature, her pensive, watery Polissia, her love for Ukraine, freedom and justice, and her scholarship. The love of her country is palpable throughout her work. Although she was delicate and sick, her poems portray power and strength. Courage and strength also defined her as a writer and a woman. Racked with pain, she continued to write. At the age of 35 she married Klyment Kvitka, an ethnomusicologist. Faced with death, she dared to live.

Always innovative, she introduced the dramatic genre of poetry to Ukrainian literature. Although in most of her dramatic poetry she drew her inspirations from the ancient world and the persecution of early Christians (The Possessed, Cassandra, Rufnus and Priscilla), her thinly veiled dramas dealt with issues facing Ukrainians at that time. Her plays were not widely staged, probably because they were too intellectual and foreign to the average reader. Some of her critics suggested that her work was laudable, but difficult to understand.

Unlike Shevchenko who was widely translated, she was not, and the translations into English lack the lyric quality and fire of her poems. Reading her both in Ukrainian and in English, we see the difficulty; the two languages and the poetic images are not compatible.

She finished what is considered her best work "Lisova Pisnia" (Forest Song) two years before her death, "in a state bordering on delirium," she wrote. In this fairy drama in three acts, she returns to her native Polissia. Her superb stage notes take the reader through spring, summer, autumn and winter.

An exquisite work, the tragic love story of the peasant Lukash and the forest nymph, Mavka, "Lisova Pisnia" explores the relationship between man and nature, between domesticity and freedom. In order to please Lukash and his mother, Mavka tries to become a hard-working peasant girl. With stunning psychological insight, the author knows that this spells the death knell of Lukash's love. Mavka tries to be something she isn't and loses both herself and Lukash. He marries the coarse Kylyna, and his household falls on hard times. The play ends with Lukash sitting alone near the ruins of his house until thick snow obliterates him.

Lesia Ukrainka, born on February 26, 1871, in Zviahel, Polissia, died in a health clinic near Tiflis in the Caucasus, on August 1, 1913 - a flame too soon extinguished. Her remains were brought to Kyiv.

We can only speculate on what places she would have gone in her poetry, what her impact on Ukrainian and world literature could have been. Although considered one of the literary triumvirate with Shevchenko and Franko, she deserves more study, more enjoyment. A child prodigy, her imagination, her erudition, her lyrical voice continued to grow throughout her life. Her plays cry out to be staged.

Helene Lysyj Melnitchenko and Eugene Melnitchenko are writers from Owings, Md., who are completing a novel about immigrants' struggle in American society.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 23, 2003, No. 8, Vol. LXXI

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