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OLENA PCHILKA — STAR OF UKRAINIAN REBIRTH (Continuation) Children of Olena Pchilka A woman once said this to Olha Petrivna: “ In the spring one day I walked past your house and I didn’t know your children at that time, but I saw a boy and a girl in the garden dressed in Ukrainian folk dress — in the style from the Volyn’ region. I was surprised. I heard the children talk and I stopped to listen. The girl said to the boy in Ukrainian, “Do you hear the rooster crowing?” “What is this,” continued the woman, “They are not only dressed like peasants, they speak like them too.” The boy and the girl were the older children of Olha Petrivna — Mykhailo and Lesia — and the fact that they wore Ukrainian folk dress was a sign of their mother’s enchantment with ethnography In her autobiography Olha Petrivna wrote: “ My most important task was to give a proper up bringing to Lesia and Mykhailo since they did not attend any schools. At that time it seemed to me that a school would destroy my attempts to raise my children speak ing the Ukrainian language. But I feared for naught, because later I realized that when children are well versed in the Ukrainian language, then school has no effect on that.” The children made friends with Ukrainian children in the neighborhood. They read the works of Panteley- mon Kulish with great enthusiasm, the stories of Marko Vovchok, and “Pan Tvardovsky” by Hulak Artymovsky. Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tales, as well as Serbian fairly tales in translation by Mykhailo Starytsky, were very popular with the youngsters. Olha Petrivna, trans lating many stories for children, published them in a col lection Ukrainskym Ditiam (For Ukrainian Children). Like their mother, Lesia and Mykhailo had a flair for writing and translating; the sister wrote poetry, the brother, prose. There was gossip about Olha Petrivna. Some said she would deny her children sweets unless they wrote a poem. To the contrary, her youngsters always remem bered that their mother liked to say “ Don’t stifle he children’s spirit.” Olha Petrivna was very attentive to her offspring, reciting poems and reading stories to them, which she made up herself. She didn’t like Russian children’s magazines because she said they baby the young read ers. For her son and daughter she subscribed to period icals on the teenage level, such as Po Могіи і Sushe (On sea and land) and Mir Prykluchenyi (The world of ad venture). She also introduced them to western litera ture. Little Lesia grew up to become Ukraine’s greatest poetess, Lesia Ukrainka, who always credited her mother for the early awakening of her brilliant talent. The birth of another daughter, Olha, in 1877 did not hinder the literary interests of Olha Petrivna. She pre pared a collection of Gogol’s works in translation for apublication. In her foreword to the book she stated her views concerning Ukrainian literary language. Olha Petrivna was an innovator, boldly inventing words which the literary language lacked. She and Starytsky were called smiths because they forged new expressions. In 1882 daughter Oksana was born, then in 1884 son Mykola. 1888 saw the birth of the youngest child, Izydora, whom her mother called “ my beauty” and with whom she spent the last years of her life. Olha Petriv- na’s oldest two children died young; Mykhailo who became a physicist and at the age of 34 a professor, died in 1903, Lesia in 1913. Following the revolution, two of her children lived abroad. In 1949, a hundred years since the birth of Olha Petrivna, her fifteen descendants lived scattered in Ger many, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Russia and Canada. She had seven great-grandchildren, the youngest Hanusia and Robert were one year old. Yuriy Kosach, the grand son of Olha Petrivna, continued the family’s literary talent. The homeland of Lisova Pisnia (Lisova Pisnia, the famous work of Lesia Ukrainka is set in the lush forests, marshes and meadows of Volyn’) In 1880 the Kosach family moved to the Kolodi- azhne estate where they stayed until 1900. Only a few winters were spent in Kiev and they visited the city now and then, to keep in touch with its cultural life. It was some four miles to the town of Kovel. Here the real Volyn’ was the thick forest, peaceful dark green, almost black lakes, bright green marshes. It was always damp there, the plant life was voluminous, succulent and very green. Polissia Marshlands. The family rode a carriage for some three miles to reach a quiet lake where they swam. The older daughter, teenage Lesia will one day speak of these quiet lakes and the Kolodiazhne forest in her immortal work “ Lisova Pisnia” (The Forest Song). She will immortalize the gentle and peaceful woodsmen of Volyn’ among whom the Kosach family lived, in the characters of Lukash and uncle Lev. A forest of birches, oaks and maples invaded the space around the Kosach house. Olha Petrivna loved horticulture and planted trees, flowers and bushes. The children always helped. Mykhailo was very inventive when it came to the arrangement of trees. Olha was in
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