Olha Kobylianska's Legacy: Insights from Odesa Lecture on Her Life and Work

A lecture on the life and work of Olha Kobylianska was held in Odesa. At the age of 35, Olha Kobylianska was already well known in Europe and Bukovyna, even though she lived on the edge of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Her works were published and translated into German, Czech, and Polish. She received a scholarship from Vienna for her literary work and frequently visited the capital of that time. The lecture was delivered by Iryna Nechytaliuk, PhD in Philology, Associate Professor at the I. Mechnikov National University of Kyiv, lecturer, and promoter of Ukrainian literature.

Family and father's attitude

Olha Kobylianska was born on November 27, 1963. Zachary Werner, a direct relative of Olha Kobylianska 's mother, is a German classical poet. Julian Kobyliansky is her brother, a Latinist. And Stepan Kobyliansky is an artist. Of the seven children, at least two, not counting Olha Kobylianska, became famous people. Of course, compared to her sister, she was less famous.

There will be diary entries. How did she feel about her father? "As if I were a piece of cloth that should be happy to be used to wipe the furniture from dust. My father did something for all the children, but nothing for me. Sometimes I hated my father. Yes, if I were a boy, it would be another matter. But what's a girl like me worth?" - you will agree that this is a very sad story. In fact, Olha Kobylianska constantly felt that she was definitely not like everyone else, that she had a talent, and that she was not allowed to realize it. Can you imagine, you want to study more than anything else and you are not given this opportunity?

But another story is where they were: the city of Suceava and Cimpulung. This is Romania. She spent her childhood in Kimplung, a very beautiful city. Her father was transferred there. By the way, they moved to Suceava because they needed to educate the boys-closer to the place where education was available. Olha Kobylianska loved Kampulung all her life and kept coming back here. In fact, it was here that she brought Lesya Ukrainka when she came to visit her. And finally, later they moved to Dymka. From 1891 Olha Kobylianska lived in Chernivtsi.

Almost all of these cities were very close for Olha Kobylianska, she wanted to go somewhere else, she wanted to communicate. In fact, whatever she was doing, she believed that she would definitely reach heights here. And you can see that she also thought about music, that if she didn't become a famous writer, she would definitely become a famous musician. In her diaries, she says that she also painted very well. And when her teacher came to see her, he said that she was talented. But she didn't develop her artistic skills later, and she actually played music all her life. One of her most famous texts is called "Melancholy Waltz". Her passion for music was reflected in her artistic work. The person is actually very self-confident.

Passions: horses and fashion

Horses are one of Olga Kobylianska's great passions. My parents had horses. It was unexpected for me to realize why the saddle was created for women. So that a woman could not do without a man's help. Can you imagine? For some reason, I didn't like it when men could spread their legs on a horse, but women couldn't. Because in fact, this position is very dangerous. It's much harder for a woman to keep her balance. And it is also very difficult to sit in such a saddle without help. This is where feminism begins.

She is very fragile, but she writes all the time that even when her horse throws her off, and it is easy to get thrown off here, she gets up and sits down again. She was so fearless, and she was very proud of the way she sat on the horse and said that she held herself in the saddle in a way that many men do not hold themselves so well.

Is a horse a safe animal? We think now that it has such a beautiful sweet face. But in reality, there have been many accidents. A horse is a very fearful animal. If something happens, it can be carried away, it can be thrown off. Nevertheless, it is a lifelong passion. Until one day her father caught them with a groom, and that was the end of equestrianism for Olha Kobylianska, which was a great tragedy.

She was still a fashionista. For some reason, we talk a lot about Lesya Ukrainka's favorite things, beautiful outfits. Actually, Olha Kobylianska was not far behind. In her diaries, she recalls how they ordered the saddle, how she waited, then waited for the saddle, waited until all the accessories were ready, and then they rode around the city. And, can you imagine, again, how beautiful Olha Kobylianska looked in the saddle, because she was slim, fit, and with a good posture. We'll talk more about Olga Kobylianska and her healthy lifestyle. "Only books and a horse can make me ecstatic," she wrote. By the way, this craving for bodily beauty was very powerful in her.

The writer's diaries

It is an absolute magic how the diaries came to us. Because a woman, Lydia Konstantyna Erastivna Burachynska-Rudyk, came to Olha Kobylianska on the eve of the Second World War and said that she would like to have the diaries, and we will decipher them. This is a real diary. In addition, it is in German. She took them to the United States, where she lived, to return later. And then the Second World War broke out in Europe and the diaries were preserved in this way. One can only imagine what happened to them later. John Panchuk brought them back, and in the photo he is sitting next to Kennedy. That is, the man was very influential and famous.

When you read her diaries, Olha Kobylianska addresses even an unknown reader. Apparently, she wrote with the idea that someone would read it someday. I was also very impressed by the fact that there is a lot of love there. She was really fascinated by her diaries and shared them. There were diaries that she destroyed, but this period, which is included in the ninth volume, remained.

And in fact, they were printed by the Soviet government as well. But they printed them in bills, which means they cut them out. This love and passion were essentially cut out. And Olha Kobylianska remained such a strict aunt who had never been married. Look at that passion: "The world for me is fire and flame. A flame for writing, what do I care about marriage?"

From the very first pages, we see two distinct themes. These are love and writing. She really wants to devote herself to writing and at the same time realizes that she really wants to be an ordinary, simple woman - to get married. When she was a young girl, she wrote a letter to a professor saying that she would be a very good hostess and faithful to him if he allowed her to use his library. Can you imagine the circumstances for women? That is, to marry a library. Fortunately, she did not send this letter. Olha Kobylianska loved to love. And she was in this mood all the time. I think that each of us actually had such a period. The other thing is that Olga Kobylianska's lasted quite a long time.

It's so scary when you read the diaries of a woman's situation at that time. You sit and wait. You can't do anything, you sit and wait until you are elected. And if it's a small town? How many choices do you have? Who is really supposed to choose you there?

About the women in her life

Let's take a look at the women who surrounded Olha Kobylianska, and you will see that this environment, despite the fact that it was a rather small town, was unique. Her friends were Maria and Olha Ustianovych. Actually, their father was a writer. And this is where her double life begins in the sense that they liked to hide in the closets when adult conversations were taking place and listen to what the men were saying. She had an indescribable desire for education from a very young age. All of her friends came to the pages of her books in one way or another.

Augusta Kokhanovska was a wonderful woman, an artist. And how many artists do we know from this time? And here again the question arises as to why we know nothing about her, if she graduated from the Vienna Academy of Arts and was actually the designer of books not only by Olha Kobylianska but also by Ivan Franko. There were her paintings in London. So she is a really powerful person. Do you think it was easy for her to become an artist at that time? And how many difficulties did she overcome on her way? She never married.

She had a very tender history with Olha Kobylianska. When we talk about Olga Kobylianska's certain eroticism or lesbian tendencies, one can actually think about it and make some versions of it after reading these diaries. They were really friends all their lives, they had a very warm relationship, and, in addition to that, neither of them was married. She (Olha Kobylianska - ed.) really wanted to get married, although she realized that just being a woman, shutting herself up in a house, raising children was not quite her option. In fact, she didn't quite like loving one man either.

"I have no desire for housework, because it does not give me pleasure. There is not a single ray of sunshine in my heart. My soul is covered with clouds. And I am suffering from a serious illness that can be cured by a lively spiritual life. And where can I find it here?" By the way, she reads psychological literature, diagnoses herself, and realizes that many of her problems are related to unrealized sexuality. Freud would be interested in reading Olga Kobylianska's diaries.

Марія Литянська