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, civil activist. Sister of Mykhailo Drahomanov. Mother of Lesya Ukrainka, Olga Kosach-Kryvyniuk, Mykhajlo Kosach, Oxana Kosach-Shymanovska, Mykola Kosach, Izydora Kosach-Borysova, Yurij Kosach.

Early years

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

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".

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.