Olena Pchilka

Olha Petrivna Kosach (29 June 1849 – 4 October 1930), better known by her pen name Olena Pchilka (Ukrainian: Олена Пчілка), was a Ukrainian publisher, writer, ethnographer, interpreter, and civil activist. She was the sister of Mykhailo Drahomanov and the mother of Lesya Ukrainka, Olga Kosach-Kryvyniuk, Mykhajlo Kosach, Oxana Kosach-Shymanovska, Mykola Kosach, Izydora Kosach-Borysova and Yurij Kosach.[1]

Olha Petrivna Kosach
Ольга Петрівна Косач
Born(1849-06-29)June 29, 1849
Hadiach, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire
DiedOctober 4, 1930(1930-10-04) (aged 81)
Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Pen nameOlena Pchilka
Occupationwriter, civil activist
LanguageUkrainian
CitizenshipRussian Empire
Soviet Union
Alma materExemplary Boarding School of Noble Maidens (Kiev)
SpousePetro Antonovych Kosach
ChildrenLesia Ukrainka

Early years

Pchilka was born in Hadiach, into the family of a local landowner Petro Yakymovych Drahomanov. She received a basic education at home and completed her education at the Exemplary Boarding School of Noble Maidens (Kiev) in 1866. She married Petro Antonovych Kosach sometime in 1868 and soon moved to Novohrad-Volynsky, where he worked. Her daughters Lesya Ukrainka was born there. Pchilka is, perhaps, the most well-known Ukrainian female poet. She died in Kiev, aged 81.[2]

Pchilka recorded folk songs, folk customs and rites, and collected folk embroidery in Volhynia, later publishing her research.

She published numerous works, and was active in the feminist movement, particularly in cooperation with Natalia Kobrynska with whom she published an almanac in Lemberg "Pershyi Vinok".

Olena Pchilka with Lesya Ukrainka

Interpreter

Pchilka also was an interpreter and translated into the Ukrainian language many famous works, such as those of Nikolai Gogol, Adam Mickiewicz, Aleksandr Pushkin and others.

Works

Among the most prominent of her works are the following:

  • "Tovaryshky" (Comradesses, 1887),
  • "Svitlo dobra i lyubovi"(The light of goodness and love, 1888),
  • "Soloviovyi spiv" (Nightingale singing, 1889),
  • "Za pravdoyu" (For a truth, 1889),
  • "Artyshok" (Artichoke, 1907),
  • "Pivtora oseledsya" (One and a half herring, 1908),
  • a play "Suzhena ne ohuzhena" (1881),
  • a play "Svitova rich" (World thing, 1908) and others.

References
  1. Olga, Kosach-Kryvyniuk (1970). Леся Українка: Хронологія життя і творчості. New-York.
  2. Aleksandr Mikhaĭlovich Prokhorov (1982). Great Soviet encyclopedia. Macmillan. p. 185.
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