Start page

Lesja Ukrainka

Encyclopedia of the life and works

?

Encyclopedia of the life and works of Lesja Ukrainka

Lesja Ukrainka (1871 – 1913) – glorious ukrainian poetess, consistent and energetic fighter for the formation of the ukrainian people for its political consolidation in the nation. Entirety of her works – an image of the perfect country, earthly paradise called "Ukraine". This image emerged – and the whole mass of people realized that they not only philistines, but ukrainians, and this title make their obligation that they have to fight and give up their lives for the Ukraine.

As every ideal, this image can not be fully embodied in the earthly life, but it obliges us faithfully serve this high idea, called "Ukraine".

Lesja Ukrainka's Signatuge

This project is intended to give detailed information about the Lesja Ukrainka. It has a compex hierarchical structure, so you might need some time to navigate it.

Site sections

About project

The project is based on the Lesja Ukrainka's collected works in 12 volumes, published in Kiev by publishing house "Naukova dumka" in 1975 – 1979. This publication is not exhaustively complete, its authors deliberately rejected the poetess works that are not invested in the communist political concept (Lesja Ukrainka as a fighter against the "ukrainian bourgeois nationalism"). This editiond does not contain correspondence, published by figures of the ukrainian emigration overseas. Striking is the absence of mention of M.S.Grushevsky with whom Lesja Ukrainka has been well known and led correspondence.

So I without ceremonies exclude all the ideological and political commentaries of the commubist editors, using only actual data (if they were correct, because their comments contain a lot of the factual errors). But since this edition is the most complete and best editing and processed, it creates canon of Lesja Ukrainka's writings. That is, if different versions of texts are available, text from this edition appears under the name "canonical text".

In preparing the web edition used a number of other editions of Lesja Ukrainka's works, including those not included in the edition of 1975 – 1979. The degree of their editorial processing is different, as reflected in the submission text. But I think it is better to give readers these texts (though not quite perfect) than wait for someone once in some indefinite future will prepare the best body of texts (the conversations about 16-tomed publication of Lesja Ukrainka being had at least 20 years, but there is no such edition up to now…)

How to use Web publishing

Features:

Site visitors can use next features;

– take advantage of the full texts, browse photo galleries, use these materials in theis own works;

– easy navigate document tree with Ctrl+Up / Down keyboard shortcuts;

– search data you need via the search box in the upper right of the window;

– print documents you need using the "Print versoin" button;

– follow the news of our site;

– send mails to us with comments and suggestions;

– correcting spelling errors, selecting them by mouse and press Ctrl+Enter;

Styles

To facilitate the reading of texts taken following font styles:

Style Value
Style With bold highlighted that Lesja Ukrainka fit to highlight in her text, regardless of the fontware design of this selection.
Father With bold italic highlighted accents.
raison Highlighted words, which are explained. To see these explanations, one should move the mouse on the word – an explanation will appear in the hint bubble. In this way, given translations of foreign words (not to clog the main text) and rarely used synonyms of ukrainian words. To quotations I indicates the citation source.
[Note] In brackets on darker background – notes presented by Lesja Ukrainka herself to her works.
[Note] In brackets are given in gray notes by the editors 1975 – 1979's, i.e. enemies of ukrainians.
[Note] In brackets are given in green my comments.

Variants

Many Lesja Ukrainka's works exists in different text variants. The basis (canonic) variant is that express the author's final will. Others served in one of the two following ways:

Significant discrepancies are presented in separate HTML documents. Links to these documents are given only in the documents with the canonic texts.

Minor discrepancies are presented in the same HTML document as the canonic text, and transformed by using XHTML features.

Line numbers

Another unique feature of our web edition (also specially designed for it): one can see the line numbers and manipulate those numbers.

Double click this line to see its number

To do this, double click the desired line. At the end of its text a small panel will be appear that contains the row number in brackets, and links with the letters C and B. When you click the link C[opy], you copy this line URL to the clipboard and then can paste it into your document. By clicking the link with B[ookmark], you can add a bookmark at this line to your browser.

To remove all panels, added in this way simply reload the document (in most browsers – press a F5 key).

Please be aware that B links are working only in MS Internet Explorer.

Thus, each line of Lesja Ukrainka in our publication has its own URL, which allow you make accurate references to work as a whole or to its specific fragment.

Threads

Since the project consists of a large number of documents, to navigate between them developed a complex system of threads. Thread is a bidirectional list of documents. When included in the thread, each document receives a link to previous and following documents of the thread, as well as the link to the content document.

Each document is involved in at least one thread – Chronological list of writings, and as necessary – in other threads. All navigation unit is placed at the end of the document, after the notes. It is recommended to spend some time learning the system of threads to freely move between documents.

The author

The project author is Nikolai Zharkikh. So when you see the notes "I think…", this I means Nikolai Zharkikh. Because Lesja Ukrainka's works belong to our public domain, I will gladly consider any for improving this web project.

Our other sites

Myslene drevo – free reading room – ukrainian information resources for science and education
Taras Shevchenko – encyclopedia of life and creativity – encyclopedia of life and creativity
Ivan Franko – encyclopedia of life and creativity – encyclopedia of life and creativity
Mykhajlo Hrushevsky – encyclopedia of life and creativity – encyclopedia of life and creativity
Knowledge on Ukraine – ukrainian bibliography – ukrainian bibliography, links to full texts
Forefathers' glory – ukrainian sights – ukrainian sights and monuments