- I if ¿? "X Український Щоденник : Ukrainian Daily Ц ft» РІК LL Ч. 158. -t ; VOL. LL No. 158. ·і І ¢¾e Шкгатїап . v Dedicated to tbe needs and interest of young Americans of Ukrainian descent No. 32 JESRSEY¾TY¦¯¯N. J., SATURDAY, AUGUST 14, 1943. VOL. XI ».:K·; two provinces in Canada where the U·N·A. Branch Formed U.N.A. has members. Ontario has 1,- A Remarkable Woman In Winnipeg 411 U.NA. members and Quebec 251 | (June 30th figures). ! The newly formed U.N.A. branch A LMOST every year in the past at about this time we have commented ! The recently inaugurated mem­ in Winnipeg has over fifty members. editorially on the unusually inspiring qualities of the life and works bership campaign of the Ukrainian t Its officers are Michael Kowal, presi­ of Lesya Ukrainka, that remarkable woman who was not only the greatest National Association in the Manitoba |dent; Gregory Tarasiuk, vice-presi­ . writer of her sex that Ukraine has produced thus far, but who because of province of Canada got off t * a good dent; Leo Wovk, financial secretary; her courage in the face start on July 27 with the formation |Peter Kuzyk, recording secretary; *%f adversity evoked of a branch of the association in Win­ Dr. John Gulay, treasurer; and Gre­ from Ivan Franko — nipeg, No. 445. himself a great and ¦ Manitoba is the third of the Can­ gory Mateychuk, Theodore Tarasiuk courageous writer and adian provinces to furnish members and Nicholas Shyndak, members of patriot — the admiring for the Ukrainian National Associa­ the Auditing Committee. comment that she was tion, a fraternal benefit order, founded The organization meeting was Г, **after Shevchenko the |in 1894, with headquarters in Jersey opened and conducted by Walter first real man." City, N. J. and a total membership Hirniak, U.N.A. organizer in Canada; A week ago yes­ approaching 42,000 and assets over meeting secretary was Leo Wovk. terday, August sixth, ¡ $7,000,000. The meeting was held at the Ukrain­ marked the 30th an¯ j Ontario and Quebec are the other ian National Home, 197 Нін·і id·. Д\·е. ; ni versa ry of that sad day when through the in the tyrannic oppressor, the tsarist government. In her day-dreams \ heat-laden streets of about knighthood she had somehow never sympathized with the arrogant Kiev a funeral cortege ¦Conqueror, who having downed his adversary, yelled, "Surrender!" In the wended its somber way, |arrogant knight she saw only her own conqueror, her sickness, and all bearing in its midst ¦her sympathy had gone to the prone, conquered but not defeated hero, the still form of a ·who, with the point of the conqueror's sword on his throat, still called ¿ middle-aged woman |out to the conqueror, ·*Kill, but I won't surrender!" She became in- 4 who ¯had goae the way j spired with a sense of her mission, and she entered upon feverish activities if of all flesh, butj whose in various Ukrainian societes, and the same time she kept on with her ' indomitable spirit ami |writing. But her stubborn sickness returned to put limitations upon her courage had remained' |activities. Concerts, exhibitions, meetings, proved burdensome to her weak : to kindle the hearts : health. As her poem "To be or not be," attests, the young woman finds and minds of future ¡herself confronted by a dilemma: should she beat her lyre into a plow generations, including and plow the fields, or should she cut the roads with an axe through un- us, Americans of Uk- .trodden forests? No, she feels she has neither time nor strength f&r LESYA I KRALNKA—The Woman Who Wrote · rainian descent. either the functions of a worker, or those of a pioneer. She is a poet and in the Shadow of Death On this 30th an­ |as a poet she can be useful to society. By her poetry she can make niversary of Lesya people realize better the vital life values and thus make their life better. Ukrainka's death it is worth' to review once more the story of this cour­ 1 The tsarist governmnt was quick to put its suppressing hand upon ageous woman who lived and wrote inspiringly—in the shadow of death. ¦ her literary activities. Her works had to be printed outside of that section For this purpose we print below what to our mind is one of the best short of Ukraine which was under the tsars,—in the adjoining Austrian province accounts of the life of Lesya Ukrainka. It is taken from that excellent book, of Galicia, where the Ukrainian language enjoyed comparative freedom. '*Spirit of Ukraine," copies of which are still available at our Svoboda Her work had to be smuggled into Russia. >Bookstore: - Her sickness developed further, making it necessary for her to seek LESYA UKRAINKA warmer climates. Compelled to travel abroad, she was uprooted from her Lesya Kosach, better known under her pen-name of Lesya Ukrainka, native soil, from which her literary activities drew all their nourishment was the most prominent Ukrainian woman of the last century. Like Marie She had to go to Italy, Caucasus, E¿gypt. Instead of living with real people Bashkirtseff, she was condemned, in her early childhood, to die of disease. of her native land, she was forced to live the life of watering places and She,, too, was born of a well-to-do family. Tutored privately, she sought, sanitariums. But even there, she kept her roots in the native soil. Learn­ in her loneliness, the companionship of the village children. She must have ing foreign languages, reading foreign literature, observing the life of acquired the typical peasant stolidity, which stood her in good stead, when foreign peoples, she forever was on the alert to seek a subject which at the age of 11, she was discovered to be afflicted. with consumption. might help the Ukrainian people to relive, and make them realize, ex­ Confined to her bed, she bore her suffering patiently and silently. The periences important for their life. sickness affected her left hand and cut her off from seeking consolation Her small inheritance soon dwindled, and· the sick woman was in piano. Forced to renounce the games and play of the children of her thrown upon her literary work as a means of subsistence. This quickly own age, she soon fell upon expressing her thoughts and feelings through proved insufficient to keep body and soul together. The sick woman had poetry. Under the professional guidance of her mother she perfected, with to take to tutoring and teaching foreign languages in the motley crowds precocious rapidity, the technique of her literary expression. of watering places. She kept on writing. At first, her solitude and isolation drove her to seek consolation in From the various foreign races she drew the plans for her works, introspective ruminations. The long hours of solitude, however, awakened which, in a dramatic manner thundered upon the Ukrainian people the need in her not only moods and feelings, but deep thoughts as well. She soon of activity, of struggle. Act, and work, and strive, and struggle—she came to take the critical attitude towards her own tendency of complaining called to them. And never give up hope! chronically. To be sure, the poetry of groans may ease her mental suf­ The magazines which published her works, were not as a popular as ferings, but what about her readers? The writer may «nd solace in such she might have desired. Even those who received them did not always poetry, but the normal reader finds only oppressive melancholy. show that they understood them. Still the little woman, now broken by Reading voraciously, while confined to her bed, she liked to transport her long sickness, refused to grow discouraged. In July 1913, she arrived herself into the ages of knighthood, the ages of action, of heroic deeds. at a watering place -beyond the Caucasus. Lying on her death-bed, she Thus she felt still more poignantly how weak was her old path of re- wrote her last work, which was her answer to the question which tortured . minding the people of her sufferings, how out of tune it was with the im­ her soul: if those who lived in her times, have failed to understand her, mensity and grandeur of historic events. Tears and silence seemed proper will at least ·the generations to follow appreciate her work? Could it be only for those incapable of anything else. that her life has been lived in vain? For a time there was a hope of recovery. She rose from her bed and She imagined herself, in her last poem, in the role of Argo, the Greek .; rushed to prepare herself for her knightly role. And here the knight philosopher, in the first ages of victorious Christianity, when the newly - comes upon 4he side of a glass mountain. As she appro*ached her Russian triumphant creed captured the imagination of the crowds and set them companions, she felt their animosity. She observed their sneering glances to persecute-as heretics all those who differed with them. As the crowd , toward ber. Her father's sister was exiled to Siberia by the tsarist gov­ surges, anxious to bum all Greek manuscripts, the Greek philosopher and ernment. She observed closer the life around her. and saw that soul· his children steal out of the city, at night, to bury the manuscripts in the ' less revenge is called ad*ministration of justice, that ^despotic self-will deep sands of the deserts. There, on their knees, the family pray to і parades as law, that those who are arrogant enjoy honor and glory, Helios, the God of ¯·Sun, to preserve the vestiges of ancient wisdom till while ·the humble receive but contempt.