Lesya Ukrainka’s Georgia Connection

Birthdate - February 25, 1871

Ukraine’s best-known poetess, a writer, and political, civil, and female activist, was Larysa Petrivna Kosach-Kvitka. Better known under her literary pseudonym as Lesya Ukrainka, she became a symbol of the historical relations between Georgia and Ukraine, and will always be the basis of the friendship between these two nations. Lesya Ukrainka’s life and creative path is continuously connected to Georgia, where periodically, she lived and worked for 10 years. In Batumi, Tbilisi, Telavi, and Khoni she created mostly prose and dramatic works - “The Tale of the Forest”, “Mr. Stone”, “Rupini and Pristsila”.

Lesya Ukrainka first visited Georgia in 1903. She spent the autumn and winter in Tbilisi, returned the next year and again in 1907 when she wrote her drama the “Autumn Tale”. 

In 1905, while living in Georgia, Lesya witnessed revolutionary speeches, which were often referred to in letters sent to her mother. Lesya Ukrainka wrote to her family from Georgia: “Georgia has such an interesting, surprising side [to this land!] It is impossible to live in such a beautiful place and not be a poet. I see a lot of similarities between my country and Georgia, when I look at the Alazani Valley, it reminds me of the shores along the Dnipro”.

Lesya spent the last years of her short life in Georgia, where, despite her serious illness, she completed and published three books of her works. In her youth, Lesya wrote a text-book “The Ancient History of Oriental Peoples” to her young sister, which described in the detail the Caucasus and Georgia. Lesya taught the Georgian alphabet and wrote that if she were not Ukrainian, she would be Georgian.

Lesya and her family friend Klyment Kvitka, an ethnographer and musicologist, were introduced to composer Zakaria Phaliashvili, who is regarded as a founder of Georgian classical music. Zakaria and Klyment travelled together to Svaneti. In 1904, Phaliashvili directed the opera “Boris Gudonove” in which Kvitka played the piano part.

Lesya spent the last years of her life in Georgia with Klyment, now her husband. In Telavi they lived in Susan Iarova’s home and then moved to Niko Amunashvili’s apartment. In 1911, she lived in Kutaisi, where she wrote “Mr. Stone”. There, she was introduced to the well-known public figure Silovan Khundadze who taught her the Georgian language. From Kutaisi, Lesya was taken to Surami when at that time she was seriously ill. In Surami, she settled in a small house on a hill where her mother and two sisters took care of her. On August 1, 1913, Lesya died at a health resort in Surami, Georgia.

The house in which Lesya Ukrainka and Klyment Kvitka together lived in Surami is now a museum maintained in her honour.  The house-museum is the former home of Georgian ethnographer Nikoloz Abazadze. Situated in the museum are collections of exhibits belonging to Lesya Ukrainka, her works, items of memorabilia, manuscripts, correspondences, photos etc. The museum-house site also consists of a library and a monument to Lesya Ukrainka created by the Georgian sculptress Tamar Abakelia.

In 2011, the exhibition Lesya Ukrainka in Georgia was opened at the National Archives of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia. The exhibition was dedicated to mark the 140th Anniversary of the Birth of Lesya Ukrainka. Organized by the Embassy of Ukraine in Georgia and the National Archives, the exhibition displayed photos, letters and other written documents describing the life of Lesya Ukrainka – materials which were collected and preserved at the Ukrainian Embassy and the National Archives.

The Georgian National Archives with the support of the Ukrainian Embassy is planning to shoot a documentary film about the life and creative work of Lesya Ukrainka. Work on the film will start in the near future.

 Baia Korbesashvili