Larysa Petrivna Kosach (literary pseudonym Lesia Ukrainka) was a Ukrainian poet, writer, and translator.

Early Years
She was born on 25 February 1871 in the city of Novohrad-Volynskyi (now in Zhytomyr region) into an educated and cultured family. Her father, Petro Kosach, was a well-read landowner and patron of literature and the arts; her mother, Olha Drahomanova-Kosach (pen name Olena Pchilka), was a writer and an active public figure.

At the age of ten, Lesia was diagnosed with bone tuberculosis, which significantly influenced her life and education. She received an extensive home education, mastered several languages, and studied world literature, philosophy, and history. Her worldview was profoundly shaped by her uncle Mykhailo Drahomanov and the writer Ivan Franko.

Public and Literary Activity
Lesia Ukrainka was actively involved in public life: she wrote articles, delivered lectures, and participated in Kyiv’s cultural circles of the 1890s. She combined her artistic work with the struggle against national and social oppression, reflected in her poetry cycle “Songs of a Slave.”

From 1897 to 1901 she was closely connected with the revolutionary Serhii Merzhynskyi, a member of a social-democratic organization, and published articles in the St. Petersburg journal Zhizn. At the turn of the 20th century her poetry collections “Dreams and Thoughts” (1899) and “Echoes” (1902) were published. In 1906–1907 she worked for the educational society Prosvita, where she met musicologist Klyment Kvitka, who later became her husband.

Literary Masterpieces
Her impressions of Ukrainian nature and deep knowledge of folklore nourished her lyrical voice, most vividly expressed in the poetic drama “The Forest Song.”

The last decade of her life produced a series of brilliant dramatic poems: “The Possessed,” “The Babylonian Captivity,” “Cassandra,” “In the Ruins,” “Isolde the White-Handed,” “In the Catacombs,” “The Orgy,” and “The Stone Host.”

These works are known for their intellectual depth, erudition, universal themes, and poetic mastery.

Visits to Odesa
Lesia Ukrainka underwent mud therapy twice at the Khadzhybei Estuary. Her walks around the city and along the sea inspired her poetic cycle “Journey to the Sea.”

Final Years
Lesia Ukrainka died on 1 August 1913 in the resort town of Surami (present-day Georgia). She is buried at Baikove Cemetery in Kyiv.

In Odesa, a memorial plaque in her honor is installed at 27 Zhukovsky Street, and a street in the city’s Suvorovskyi district bears her name.