Modern Intentions in Lesia Ukrainka’s Drama Cassandra

In her drama Cassandra (1903–1907) Lesia Ukrainka pays considerable attention to language and demonstrates its two defi ning forms and functional paradigms. One of them is language that appeals to the essential components of being. It is language that refl ects human existence in all its acuity and fullness of appearance. This language is complex and diffi cult to understand, but is the only real language of the age of modernism. Another language is superfi cial, appealing not to the depths of life and universal categories, but to temporary human needs and aspirations. Its task is to identify the ways and means of achieving a desired goal. Such language is manipulative, because its speakers tend to hide their personal interests under claims of the common good. Also, in the drama, Lesia Ukrainka innovatively raises a number of questions related to the internal laws of world development, the processes of human cognition, the functioning of language, and the understanding and interpretation of the word. The formulation and presentation of these issues demonstrate the clear modern attitude that the writer professed and embodied in her drama.

“Oh, My Thoughts, My Thoughts…”: Olena Pchilka’s and Lesia Ukrainka’s Contributions to Epigraphic Embroidery

The article focuses on the role of Olena Pchilka1 and Lesia Ukrainka in epigraphic embroidery development. Undoubtedly, Olena Pchilka was an ardent proponent of folk art purity. Following from this, there is a tendency to think that she was against all novelty in Ukrainian embroidery. Many researchers and antiquity enthusiasts refer to her authority when arguing against inscriptions on textile as a phenomenon resulting largely from printed cross-stitch on paper. However, not all embroidered verbal texts have been of print origin. Most of them were folkloric (or folklorized) texts. What is more, Olena Pchilka to some extent provided her own comment on epigraphic embroidery in approving Lesia Ukrainka’s rushnyk (embroidered runner) containing the inscription “Oh, my thoughts, my thoughts, woe is with you! Love one another, brethren, love Ukraine” (devoted to Taras Shevchenko). In modern embroidery, embroideresses reproduce the citation with new connotations of these words, thereby continuing the epigraphic embroidery tradition. The author illustrates the folklorization of oft-cited lines from Taras Shevchenko’s poetry with examples of epigraphic embroidery from her own Interactive Index of Folklore Formulas (Epigraphic Embroidery).

Psychoanalytic and Existentialist Versions of Don Juanism: Lesia Ukrainka’s The Stone Host

The article substantiates the necessity of psychoanalytical and existential methodology in interpreting Lesia Ukrainka’s drama Kaminnyi hospodar (1912; The Stone Host), including the works of José Ortega y Gasset and Miguel de Unamuno on Don Quixote, Albert Camus on absurd characters (The Myth of Sisyphus. Essay on the Absurd), and Jacques Lacan’s The Mirror Stage. Biographical data testify to the critical attitude of the writer to world treatments of the legend. Her challenge to tradition was bold and conscious. It is regarded that the main point of Lesia Ukrainka’s polemics with tradition concerns Don Juan apologetics, introduced by romantics and developed by modernists. Exploring Don Juan’s psychological makeup provides the opportunity to show that all participants of the legend have become victims of Don Juan apologetics (that distinguish the tragic fi nale of the story). The Don Juan myth has played an integral role in the image of the Person (social mask) being accepted by characters as a trustful image of the Self. Interpretation of the Mirror Image in The Stone Host and its crucial role in the final scene allows for justifying that the mirror serves the narcissistic characters’ admiration of themselves and shows them not only an attractive appearance but an ideal version of the Self, created by myth.

Lesia Ukrainka’s Crimean Cycles: A Poetic Dialogue with Adam Mickiewicz

This paper examines Lesia Ukrainka’s two lyrical cycles about Crimea, Krymski spohady and Krymski vidhuky, as examples of a poetic dialogue with Adam Mickiewicz’s Sonety krymskie. I begin my analysis by highlighting the diff erent sensibilities of Mickiewicz’s Sonety krymskie and Lesia Ukrainka’s Krymski spohady, and underscore their formal and thematic peculiarities. The paper continues with an examination of Lesia Ukrainka’s second cycle, Krymski vidhuky, as an experiment in drama – a genre that is absent from her fi rst cycle – before situating a dramatic scene, “Ifi heniia v Tavridi,” this cycle’s only text about Crimea’s Hellenic history, within the cultural contexts of Lesia Ukrainka’s oeuvre. In doing so, I argue that Iphigenia’s lament echoes the voice of an exiled poet from Mickiewicz’s sonnets and conclude my analysis by probing reasons behind Lesia Ukrainka’s choice of a Greek (not Tatar) heroine.

Lesia Ukrainka and Qiu Jin: The Confluence of Their Poetic Worlds via Translation

This article deals with the poetry of two prominent writers: Ukrainian poetess Lesia Ukrainka (1871–1913) and Chinese poetess Qiu Jin (1875–1907). The diversity of wide fields of self-expression of both poetesses created the grounds for a broad and comprehensive comparison in terms of poetic, thematic, and literary similarities. The article provides a background to the translations of Lesia Ukrainka in China and accounts for the perception of Lesia Ukrainka’s poetry in China in the light of the poetic world of Qiu Jin. The main aspects of the poetic discourses of Lesia Ukrainka and Qiu Jin are outlined and studied within the core concept of the national heroine in China, formed by Qiu Jin, consisting of key elements important for the perception of Lesia Ukrainka’s works – revolution, nationalism, and feminism.