Larysa Petrivna Kosach, known to the world under the literary pseudonym Lesia Ukrainka, spent much of his life traveling the three continents of Europe, Asia, Africa in search of sleep. From a young age, the inquisitive girl was attracted by the “distant world”, the mysterious infinity of the sea and the meandering roads. She even admitted that she dreamed of traveling around the world. However, due to her illness the writer visited numerous cities and resorts not as a “tourist” but as a “patient.” Lesia Ukrainka justified her love for travel as part of her nature inherited from her distant ancestors, according to the legends of her relatives, she referred to the ancestors as “the backwaters of the Greek family.” It is not without reason that from the height of a century the writer began to be called a “distant princess”, mysterious and unattainable. In search of a healing climate, most often her roads led to the Crimea, which became the second home of her talent. In Crimea she worked on many literary works, which brought her recognition as a talented masters of the word. Her poetic cycles “Crimean Memories” (1890-1891) and “Crimean Reviews” (1897) are full of travels to the peninsula. Under the Crimean sky, she completed her debut play The Blue Rose and the famous Cassandra, wrote much of the drama Rufin and Priscilla, which she considered perhaps the most important work in her work, created a dramatic dialogue “Aisha and Mohammed”, which testifies to her deep interest in the culture of the Crimean Tatar people, the story “Over the Sea”, which depicts the resort of Yalta in the late nineteenth century. New ideas were born in Crimea, many letters were written to close people, so it is not surprising that being in different parts of the world, she often returned to the Crimea in her mind, he emerged in her memories and imagination. “I saw three autumns in Yalta…,”t he writer wrote in one of the letters. In total, Lesia Ukrainka spent almost three years living in the Crimea.
In the Crimean chronicle of Lesia Ukrainka three clear periods are clearly traced, the first two belong to the last century (1890-1891 and 1897-1898), and the third falls on the beginning of the XX (1907-1908). Lesia Ukrainka first set foot on the Crimean peninsula as a nineteen-year-old girl on the advice of Kyiv doctors. In July of 1890, together with her mother, writer and ethnographer Olena Pchilka, Lesia arrived to Saki with high hopes for her climatotherapy and other exhausting procedures that awaited her. From the memoirs of Lesia’s sister Olga it is known that the poetess told her relatives, “what a hellish heat there was, what boredom, how hard it was to endure the mud baths.” In addition, Olena Pchilka fell ill with malaria in Saki and had to be cared for by her daughter. The depressive mood receded as soon as they moved to Yevpatoria, where for ten days the girl felt reenergized and enjoying bathing which was prescribed to her by the doctors. At that time it was claimed that Yevpatoria is the best resort-town for bathing, because in a shallow bay the water heats up easily. The beauty of the sea had a very positive impact on the creative state of Lesia Ukrainka, who wrote several poems here, full of admiration for the amazing environment.
One of the poems was written in the middle of the sea, on a steamboat, on which the mother and daughter were travelling to Sevastopol. This was the first tourist route in Crimea. After Sevastopol, they visited Bakhchisaray to see the historical and legendary places celebrated in literature. First of all, they planned to visit the Bakhchisaray Palace, which at that time was not marked by its former splendor. Olena Pchilka stated with sadness: “That palace was already completely ragged – there were no utensils, and no home bench in the large room of the khan, for the former meeting, there were only wooden narrow benches under the walls.” However, Lesia Ukrainka revived the palace itself, its famous cemetery, and the unique architecture of the city thanks to a subtle historical and cultural ear and imagination. Thus were born the poems “Bakhchisaray”, “Bakhchisaray Palace”, “Bakhchisaray Tomb”, with their special oriental atmosphere. Lesia Ukrainka, in particular, was fascinated by the national clothes of the locals, which is confirmed by the poem “Tatarochka”, in which a passing girl is surprisingly warmly depicted. She was also interested in the crafts of the Crimean Tatars, especially embroidered towels. Peculiarities of the works of Crimean Tatar masters were reflected in the ethnographic studies of Olena Pchilka. The poetess herself sketched ornament after ornament, continuing the collection of this ethnographic collection next summer. She later sent it to Uncle Mykhailo Drahomanov, a professor at Sofia University, emphasizing in the letter that the Tatar samples collected in the Crimea were “very good, even too similar to the Ukrainian ones.” In the letter she depicts the most commonly used figures: crosses, stars, meander, which confirms the words of Olena Pchilka: “Who will say whether the sewing and patterns came to us, or maybe the Ukrainian prisoners have left behind the tradition of such embroidery.”
After a difficult operation in Vienna in the winter of 1891, Lesia again needed a coastal climate to regain her lost strength. At the end of May, Lesia, her mother and sister Olga set off from Kolodyazhny on a long journey to the Crimea, which included stops in Kaniv and Katerynoslav. Arriving in Sevastopol, the travelers immediately went to Yevpatoria, where on June 10 in a letter to M. Pavlyk the poetess wrote: “Finally achieved a permanent home” (as she calls Michra’s house on Fontannaya Street), where she will spend almost two months out of summer. During the previous summer, Lesia Ukrainka came to the conclusion that it is not worth wandering around the Crimea, “because bathing is better than the local one,” and she was right. Soon she sincerely thanked the sea in one of her letters. From Bakhchisarai mother and daughter returned to Sevastopol. From there began another romantic journey – to the southern coast of Crimea, “horses across the kayaks to Yalta.” The crossing of the Crimean mountains rewarded the travelers of that time with a stop near the Baydar Gate, built by the architect K. Ashliman. It was from them that the sea distance became accessible to travelers, who at one time recorded even tourist guides, such as: lies below, as if in a deep abyss near the boundless sea. Picturesque Crimean places were complemented by exotic names of settlements, myths and legends, echoes of which take place in Lesia Ukrainka’s poem “Merdven”. Yalta, where the steamboat had to wait for two days, also reflected in the poetic diary of a young traveler. The city then had only four and a half thousand inhabitants, but every year it grew and became a popular resort. However, the guests of Yalta mostly evaluated it critically, and Lesia Ukrainka herself gave a good impression.
According to researchers, Volyn women stopped at the Edinburgh Hotel, and the next day they found V.K. Tsybulsky’s dacha with a swimming pool. This house in Yalta attracted fans of the popular poet S. Ya. Nadson, who spent the last months of his short life here. Lesia Ukrainka knew and loved the poems of the poet whose childhood took place in Kyiv. According to Olena Pchilka, “the dacha left a very sad impression, lonely, gloomy, so vague that I can’t imagine a more gloomy place… Dark tones of paint, a melancholy tower, withered greenery, an overgrown garden with a sprawling weeping willow in the foreground over a solitary bench that fell silent.” We also find this mood in Lesia Ukrainka’s poem “Nadson’s Home in Yalta”, which seems to foretell that the author will have to look for her “troubled homes” in this city more than once. On August 22, 1890, the Kosach mother and daughter boarded the deck of a steamboat bound for Odessa. Nevertheless, they said goodbye to Crimea only for a short while.
Lesia’s sister Olga could not bear the Crimean heat, and her mother was forced to return home with her in a few days. Instead, the younger sister was visited by her older brother Mykhailo, a student of the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the University of Dorpat, who was on vacation. Curious and thirsty for knowledge, in the summer of 1891 Mykhailo traveled on foot through Crimea. He brought new magazines to his sister, their impressions and communication were filled with various topics, which always characterized their friendly relations. Their favorite pastime was simply swimming in the sea. “I’m still good in this sun and sea air,” she shares her mood with her family. “… Here the sun and the sea with their brilliance and play give me courage and hope.” In the evenings, the brother and sister could stare at the surf for hours, sometimes they took a boat and swam into the sea. However, after her brother’s departure, loneliness depressed the poetess, and she soon contracted typhoid fever. Olena Pchilka immediately left for the Crimea and in early August, weakened, with a headscarf on her shaved head, transported her daughter to Bessarabia, where in the village of Shaba near Ackerman she was to strengthen after the illness.
Fragments of the Yevpatoria summer of 1891 can be guessed in three marine poems by Lesia Ukrainka (“Sleepless Night”, “On a Boat”, “Nehoda”), which were first published in the Lviv magazine “Zorya” (1893) with a dedication to his brother Mykhailo. The final cycle “Crimean Memories” became the pearl of Lesia Ukrainka’s first poetry collection “On the Wings of Songs”. This book also published the poem “Moon Legend”, completed in Yevpatoria, dedicated to Olena Pchilka’s mother.
Lesia Ukrainka’s second Crimean period was caused by the aggravation of the disease and the need to change the climate. On the eve of the trip, the poet notes: “This is the first time that I go to the treatment willingly.” At her own request, this time she chooses the southern coast of Crimea, enjoying the shade of greenery somewhere in the sunny “space between Yalta and Alupka.” On June 14, 1897, in the weekly supplement to the Yalta newspaper, which provided lists of visitors, we find the names of Larysa Petrivna Kosach and Olena Antonivna Teslenko-Prykhodko (Aunt) who accompanied her. Visitors first settled in the hotel “Mariino” Bentkovsky, located on the Embankment. However, tired of the stuffiness, gunpowder and restless noise of the city-holiday, Lesia and her aunt soon move to Chukurlar, closer to Livadia. It was a quiet green place with rich vineyards and cottages, which were later destroyed. MP Ogranovich, a colony of 20 houses was arranged here. Chukurlar’s advantage was his own seashore, medicinal grapes; vacationers were provided with furniture, lunches and servants.
After two weeks of rest, Lesia’s health improved significantly, only her sore leg bothered her. Gradually tanned, as she joked, became the color of “terracotta”. Swimming in the sea gave a feeling of strength and agility of the body. When her aunt Olena Antonivna Teslenko-Prykhodko left and the poetess was left alone, the period of storms began. Soon the weather changed for the better, and Lesia Ukrainka’s daily life was more diverse thanks to the guests – this time her brother Mykhailo came with his wife Shura (known in literature as the writer Hrytsko Hryhorenko) and her mother A. I. Sudovshchykova. In such company, Lesia’s emotional harmony returned, and with it the enjoyment of the environment: “It’s very beautiful and good here,” she says in a letter to her sister. It’s just a consolation, worth the Gods.” Mykhailo Kosach took dozens of photos of local landscapes. In one of the surviving photos, the poetess is photographed in a colorful Ukrainian national costume against the backdrop of Crimean nature.
It is known from Lesia Ukrainka’s letters that she seldom went outside the “colony”, mostly lying under trees or on the seashore, sometimes walking among the vineyards. Perhaps the greatest impression in that distant summer was left by a journey by horse-drawn carriage, in a wicker four-seater “basket”, to the hills of Ai-Petri. It was there that the poetess drew attention to the mountain edelweiss and suggested that the poets give it another name – lomikamin, seeing in it the amazing power of life.
In the summer of 1897, a significant event for Lesia Ukrainka took place in Yalta, where she met Serhiy Merzhynsky, who would become one of her closest friends. In a few years, his early death will be a great ordeal for the writer, a real dramatic masterpiece was created near the deathbed of his beloved – “Oderdyma”, and her best intimate lyrics were a response to the death of Serhiy Merzhynsky.
In autumn, after the departure of relatives and acquaintances, Lesia Ukrainka’s life became more monotonous. Although a young student of Moscow’s medical courses shared an apartment with her, no special friendship arose between them. Then Lesia plunges headlong into reading, in particular with the help of periodicals Yalta reading room and public library. We know that she wrote about the interests of local readers. In a letter to her mother she requested to send the works of Shevchenko to the local reading room: “to the following address: Yalta, People’s Library, Sergei Vasilyevich Stakhanov. That really needs to be done.”
After the end of the “season” Lesia, feeling the beneficial effect of the Crimea on her health, decides to continue his stay “in the Tatar region.” In autumn, the bustle of the resort in Yalta usually subsidized, and those who remained were collected in the city center. Lesia Ukrainka was also looking for a new home, she was more and more convinced that she should spend the winter near the warm sea. In September of 1897 he travelled to Yalta where she found an apartment near the sea. From her Yalta letters we learn that she was engaged in needlework, occasionally went to the theater, gave private lessons to two Yalta high school students, whom she calls “Mykosy”, because the Kosach family called her younger brother Mykola. The addressee especially mentions the grammar school student Lenya Razumov, with whose family she communicated. She regretted that no one responded to her ad, which periodically appeared in the newspaper “Yalta”: “Knows 6 languages. Looking for work in the city.”
Olena Pchilka came to Yalta for the Christmas holidays because her daughter felt extremely lonely. In memory of the holidays spent together, Lesia Ukrainka was photographed with her mother in the famous Orlova city photo studio. Another photo has been preserved, in which the two of them stand on the threshold of a new apartment, which was immediately found by Olena Pchilka, trying to comfortably arrange the sick Lesia. It was a villa with the poetic name “Iphigenia”, the decoration of Vinogradnaya Street, which was conspicuous due to the elegant balcony, columns, portico, eye-catching copies of antique sculptures, specially ordered in Greece by the owner, doctor K.R. Ovsianyy. However, the house was temporarily rented by a young doctor M.S. Derizhanov, who became Lesia Ukrainka’s personal doctor and friend.
With the onset of cold weather, Lesia Ukrainka’s physical condition deteriorated. ” … Here I came to such a state, – she admits in a letter to her sister, – that she lay down in the city parks, from attacks of dizziness.” In moments of despair, when the writer thought that she was about to fall on the road and be crushed by the cross, her constant desire to be useful to others helped her to return to active life. Correspondence sometimes brought consolation. In Yalta, Lesia Ukrainka received a telegram from the Kyiv Literary and Artistic Society, which congratulated her on being awarded the prize for the short story “Loud Strings.” Ivan Franko invited the poetess to collaborate in the new magazine “Literary-Scientific Bulletin
In a new setting, the poetess again heard the call of the muse, here she wrote her iconic work “Iphigenia in Tavrida”, for the first time mastering the genre of dramatic poem, which will be decisive for her creative heritage. Music was always played in the circle of the friendly Derizhanov family. Lesia Ukrainka willingly helps to disassemble Beethoven’s “Kreutzer’s Sonata” to Derizhanov’s wife Katyusha, introduces her to Ukrainian music. On Easter, Lesia was visited by her two sisters, Olga and Oksana, who also brought a gift for the doctor ordered by the older sister – a shirt embroidered with a Podolsk pattern, which was very much to the liking of the doctor. Almost every day, Lesia Ukrainka sends the sisters on excursions, first of all to the places she has visited before: Alupka, Gurzuf, Chukurlar, Wuchang-Su waterfall. The Kosach holiday was celebrated at Villa Iphigenia together with the Derizhanovs. Easter eggs which Lesia Ukrainka painted according to the national tradition, made a great impression on the Armenian society.
Lesia Ukrainka’s friend circle soon grew, as a Ukrainian theater troupe (entrepreneur I.M. Naida-Rudenko) came to Yalta on tour to give performances at the local theater for a month. The writer herself watched the play “Limerivna” with the participation of the famous actress Maria Zankovetska. In the evenings, together with other actors, “Queen of the Ukrainian Stage” Zankovetska and Lesia Ukrainka’s old friend Maria Starytska visited Villa Iphigenia, where lively conversations and discussions took place, and plans for staging Lesia Ukrainka’s first completed drama “Blue Rose” was born.
At the end of May 1898, the writer said goodbye to Yalta, leaving the house. Two years later, she learns of the death of the Yalta doctor Derizhanov (buried in the John Chrysostom Cemetery), whom she always remembered with deep respect. Lesia Ukrainka brings manuscripts of new works from the Crimea, which will soon be published in periodicals and on the pages of her new collection “Thoughts and Dreams”.
The third period in the Crimean chronicle of Lesia Ukrainka is caused by the illness of her friend Kliment Kvitka. Always devoted to her friends, the poetess decides to send him from cold Kyiv to the south. She had known Kliment Kvitka for almost ten years. A lawyer by profession, by vocation he was a musicologist-folklorist, and this brought young people closer. In March 1907, the two of them left for Sevastopol. They stayed at the Kista Hotel, but a local doctor advised them to settle on the South shore. It was difficult to get to Alupka, so they had to find a place in Yalta. First settled in the hotel of D. Bigun called “Yalta” located on Sadova Street, near the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. The poet rarely left the apartment, except for the post office and pharmacies. Three weeks later, Lesia Ukrainka and Kliment Kvitka moved to Rozanov’s dacha on Gorsky Avenue and resumed the usual rhythm of life, including reading a lot. Kvitka gradually takes up writing, at the same time there are thoughts about the feasibility making Crimea his permanent home for a long time. This prospect seemed quite real, as Kvitka’s request to be transfered to Yalta was granted by the Crimean court.
In the summer, Lesia Ukrainka and Klyment Kvitka got married in Kyiv and returned to the Crimean peninsula. The couple spent their honeymoon in Balaklava, near Sevastopol, which became popular due to a cozy bay. Lesia Ukrainka writes to Borys Hrinchenko about her life tribe: “If I don’t eat grapes, I write.”
In early October 1907, Lesia Ukrainka and Kliment Kvitka moved to Yalta, where they rented an apartment in the cottage of Mr. Tereshchenko on the street. Darsanivska. The work of the assistant district investigator did not bring satisfaction to Kvitka, instead he continues to record Ukrainian folk songs from his wife, a collection of which entitled “Folk Melodies from the Voice of Lesia Ukrainka” was published in Kyiv in 1917. It would seem that nothing prevented the couple from taking root in Yalta. life, growing circle of acquaintances. But soon Lesia Ukrainka learned that her disease was progressing. On the advice of Yalta doctor P. Tamburer, the couple urgently went for a consultation in Berlin, where Professor Israel advised to change the climate to a hotter one. In the Crimea, however, the couple stayed for several more months. It was decided to use Kliment Kvitka’s vacation for his recovery in Yevpatoria, in the new sanatorium “Primorsky”.
After a stay in the sanatorium, temporary stops in hotels in Sevastopol and Yalta, the last Crimean “permanent home” for Lesia Ukrainka was Khoroshavina’s apartment on Lomonosov Boulevard. In this house, preserved to this day, the poet last met with her father, who accompanied his daughter and son-in-law, hoping that with his help the young couple will buy an apartment in Yalta. But then they were forced to make new plans, primarily related to Georgia. Farewell notes are increasingly heard in Lesia Ukrainka’s letters. “Yalta still cured one of us: Klim seems to have recovered solidly, and maybe he has recovered, thank Crimea for that.” However, another case detained the couple in the Crimea. It was a project of recording Ukrainian kobzars using the technologies of that time, aimed at perpetuating the people’s genius.
While still in Yevpatoria, Lesia Ukrainka agreed to take part in the expedition of such famous folklore experts as Filaret Kolessa, Volodymyr Hnatyuk, Opanas Slastyon. She placed an ad in the magazine “Ridny Krai” hoping to find full support for the action. The poetess took on the material costs of this necessary work mainly (incognito), spending a considerable amount received from her parents as a dowry after marriage. In the summer, the expedition led by Filaret Kolessa left for Poltava region. Lesia Ukrainka herself learned that the famous kobzar of the Kharkiv school Hnat Honcharenko lived in Sevastopol. Having ordered a phonograph and wax rollers for audio recordings by mail, Lesia Ukrainka invites a bandura player and records almost his entire repertoire for three days. Satisfied with the results of the work, the poetess notes in a letter to Filaret Kolessa: “Personally, I do not regret the time or hassle put into this case… kobzar Goncharenko is an unusual, interesting person both ethnographically and even fictionally.” Lesia Ukrainka sends nineteen rollers with the collected materials to the Ethnographic Commission of the Scientific Society named after Shevchenko. She also sends the texts of the recorded thoughts in a separate parcel. When the first series of Melodies of Ukrainian Folk Dumas, edited by Filaret Kolessa, was published, Lesia Ukrainka greeted the work with the words: “Now we can truly say: ‘Our song, our thought will not die, will not perish!'” It is noteworthy that during this action Lesia Ukrainka’s melodies were recorded. Thus the voice of the great writer, preserved for posterity, can be named the last gift of Yalta. Soon she left Crimea and only bypassed the shores during her sea voyages, admiring the outlines of the peninsula.
Svitlana Kocherga Ph.D. Associate Professor of the National University “Ostroh Academy”
