80. Ukrainian Poet Lesya Ukrainka’s The Forest Song

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KIM: Hi, everyone! Welcome to Lost Ladies of Lit, the podcast dedicated to dusting off forgotten women writers. I’m Kim Askew, here with my co-host and writing partner, Amy Helmes…

AMY: Hey, everyone. Today we wanted to focus on a “lost lady” of Ukrainian literature. It goes without saying that Ukraine has been on all our minds. 

KIM: Yes, It’s heartbreaking and deeply unnerving to watch and listen to the news. And it’s surreal, too. We did that episode on Virginia Cowles’ Looking for Trouble a couple months ago… and that was set in World War II, but now it feels like history is repeating itself in a sense.

AMY: Yeah. And in Cowles’s book, she writes in great detail about Germany’s invasion of Poland and the world’s reaction to it. It feels like something similar is playing out now. I mean, Ukraine has spent centuries living in the shadow of Russia’s tyranny. But you’re right, it’s still hard to believe what’s happening. I was listening to an interview on NPR recently with the director of the Ukrainian Art Center here in L.A and she was talking about how the West has long just assumed that Ukraine was “Russian,” culturally, when in fact Ukraine has always had its own language, its own identity and its own culture. But Russia and the Soviet regime has a centuries-long history of suppressing, arresting and killing Ukrainian writers and erasing Ukraine’s language, art and cultural identity. The killing of hundreds of Ukraine’s writers and artists in the 1930s under Stalin’s regime is known as the Executed Renaissance, and there’s an important anthology of that same name that was published in 1959 which single-handedly saved the work of that generation of writers. So we’ll link in our show notes to an article that details how that whole anthology came to be, because it’s kind of an interesting story.

KIM: In today’s episode, we wanted to focus on one of Ukraine’s best-known poets and playwrights, Laryssa Kosach, who wrote under the pen name Lesya Ukrainka (LESS-ya oo-CRANE-ka).

AMY: Oh, good job, Kim. You actually, I think, did a pretty good pronunciation there, um, for you. I do want to point out to listeners that we are not experts on Ukraine’s history but we’re going to do our best to talk about Ukrainka’s life and work as we understand it. So she was not part of that generation known as the Executed Renaissance which I just mentioned. She lived a few decades earlier. But a little bit about Ukrainka’s life first: She was born in 1871 in the northwestern part of Ukraine. And actually, her mother was also a writer and political activist who wrote under the pen name Olena Pchilka. Her father was a lawyer who edited a literary journal. They were both very involved in the Ukrainian nationalist movement and so consequently, Ukrainka was exposed to a lot of important Ukrainian cultural figures, even in her childhood. 

KIM: Ukrainka’s writing embodies nationalist themes, which makes sense because Ukraine was under Russian control during her lifetime. When she was a little girl it was actually illegal to print any books in the Ukrainian language. Incidentally, she and her siblings were privately tutored rather than attending the Russian-style schools in Ukraine. So her parents were clearly attempting to counteract this Russian indoctrination.

AMY: She was a very frail child who was frequently bed-ridden (she contracted tuberculosis at age 12, which plagued her for the rest of her life. She suffered greatly from it). She had hoped to become a concert pianist, but her illness made this dream impossible. So instead she distracted herself by reading voraciously and learning multiple languages. She spoke 12 languages as an adult which meant she could read a wide-range of books from around the globe and she could also translate works for a living later in adulthood. As a child, she wrote verse, and one of her first poems was actually a reaction to the politically-motivated arrest of her aunt. 

KIM: Wow. Her mother encouraged her to submit her poetry for publication, and she did so under this pseudonym she became known for. And if you think about her pen name, Lesya Ukrainka, which means “Lesya the Ukranian woman” she’s making a sort of bold proclamation about her identify, right?  Because Russia banned writing in the language of Ukraine, her work actually was published across the border from Ukraine in Austro-Hungary where there was more freedom. By her early 20s she had published several collections of poetry. To think of this frail and sickly young woman being the person who would rally a nation with her words is really moving. 

AMY: Then in 1905 there was a revolution in Russia that brought a little bit more freedom to Ukraine and the ability to use their own language a little more freely. Two years later in 1907 Lesya married a man who was also afflicted with tuberculosis, and her health continued to decline after she married. She had the means, though, to travel to many different countries, including Egypt and Italy, in search of a cure for her health, but all her attempts to find some relief proved fruitless. She died at the age of 43 in 1913, but not before writing the play “The Forest Song,” which she’s well-remembered for. 

KIM: Yes, Amy and I read it for this episode. It’s considered a masterpiece of Ukrainian drama and is based on popular Ukrainian folklore. She wrote the original draft over the span of 10-12 days, and it was staged for the first time five years after Ukrainka’s death. What did you think of the play when you read it, Amy?

AMY:  I thought it was beautiful and haunting. I kept thinking how much I would love to see it staged, because it just seems so visual. In my own mind, I was picturing kind of the aesthetic of —  I don’t know if you remember in Dead Poet’s Society when they put on a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and it was very sort of eerie and dark? That’s how I pictured “The Forest Song,” from an artistic standpoint. If I was the artistic director, that would be the vibe I’d go for. I think it could be really visually very stunning.

KIM: It also makes me think of Pan’s Labyrinth, I think. That’s Guillermo Del Toro, right? That’s so beautiful, I love that movie.

AMY: Oh my gosh, yeah, yeah, like that sort of otherworldly, mystical… Yes. And I mentioned “Midsummer Nights Dream” from Dead Poet’s Society, but this play is very “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” It’s got all these different spirits of the forest, and the lyricism is very reminiscent of Shakespeare, too, I think.

KIM: Definitely. So I’ll go ahead and summarize the plot of the play for our listeners: It’s a three-act story of a forest nymph named Mavka who is torn between her loyalty to the world of the forest and her love for a human named Lukash who is a gifted flute player. Mavka is enchanted by the music he plays. 

AMY: Yes, and Lukash is hot and heavy for Mavka when they first meet, and although she remains hopelessly devoted to him, he eventually treats her with disdain. He moves on, basically, and takes up with this human peasant woman of his mother’s choosing. The play ends badly for everyone, but the ending is somewhat bittersweet and there’s quite a visual there at the end. It’s hard to shake; I don’t want to give it away. The play can be read as an eco-parable about humanity’s encroachment upon nature, I guess you could say.

KIM: Yeah, that’s beautifully put. Amy, should we resurrect “Lost Ladies of Lit” theater for this episode to give listeners a very brief little taste?

AMY: Yeah, sure. And this, in fact, I feel like it gives a little bit of that Shakespearian element of it. So I thought we could read the part where Rusalka, who is basically a vengeful mermaid, convinces a pair of lost babes to try to lure Lukash to his death while he is out collecting fireflies to decorate Mavka’s hair. The lost babes in this case are babies who are conceived out of wedlock and then drowned by their mother because she is sort of ashamed. And indeed, a Makva (who is our heroine in the play) is said to come from similar origins — a female infant who dies before being christened. So I’ll play Rusalka the wicked mermaid who doesn’t like this human hottie skulking about in the forest making eyes at Mavka; Kim, I’ll make it easy on you. You can just read the part of the lost babes.

KIM: I’ll do my best.

Rusalka: 

Little Lost Babes, in the night, 

Kindle now your lanterns bright!

[the Lost Babes show up in the reeds, bearing lanterns.

Rusalka: 

See there, that one who’s wandering about

He’s like that father who abandoned you,

Who ruined your dead mother, let her die

He should no longer live!

Lost Babes

You drown him then!

Rusalka

I do not dare; the Forest Elf forbids.

Lost Babes

But we’re not strong enough; we are too small.

Rusalka:

You are tiny,

Light and shiny;

With your lights in small hands sure

You can foolish folk allure.

Go into the rushes there

Where no Forest Elf can hear.

Should he come out,

Put your lights out,

Disappear!

Be like lights deceiving always

O’er pathways;

Burst out bright o’er reeds and rushes,

Lead him into bogs and slushes,

When he’s slipping,

Send him dipping

Down into the deepest slime …

Then I’ll finish him this time!

Off now, like a flash!

KIM: Ooh, it’s very dramatic.

AMY: Yeah, very Shakespearian, right?

KIM: Totally. Like the Three Witches or something.

AMY:Yeah, for sure. And actually I was getting some old-fashioned Disney vibes reading it too, I think probably because it’s a fable and has fairy tale-like qualities to it. So of course I wasn’t too surprised to discover that it’s been made into an animated movie — from a Ukrainian film studio called Animagrad. (That’s the name of the studio.) The film is called Mavka. The Forest Song, and it was supposed to be released sometime this year (both in Ukrainian and in English) They have a trailer out, and it looks somewhat faithful in terms of the different characters but this kids’ movie also touches on one other aspect of the myth of the mavka, which is that the mavka can tickle people to death. So our girl Ukrainka was basing her story on an older mythology that Ukrainians would have been quite familiar with. (But I’m glad Ukrainka didn’t go the “torture tickle” route in her play! She left that out.)

KIM: Yeah, that’s good. Anyway, I hope the animated film still sees its release this year! We’ll go ahead and post a link to the trailer of the English-language version of the movie in our show notes if you want to check it out. 

AMY: So yeah, the play is very much a parable about the devastation humans wreak upon the natural world. I’ve seen the word “ecofeminism” used in describing “The Forest Song.”

KIM: Yeah, I love the word eco-feminism being applied to that. There is definitely a feminist bent to the play. I’m thinking of when Rusalka, the mermaid, gives a lovelorn Mavka some tough advice about the true nature of love.

AMY: And then even the wise Forest Elf tells Mavka that she has done the betraying, and she’s like, “What do you mean? How am I the one that did the betraying? He’s the one that left me?” And he says, basically, “you betrayed yourself.” But then he adds: 

“Not all the stars are faded out for you. 

Behold, see what a festival is here!

The maple-prince has donned his golden robes.

The wild rose all her wreath of corals wears;

While innocence has changed to purple proud

Upon the cranberry, whose flowers you wore

When nightingales intoned your marriage song.

The ancient willow, e’en the mournful birch

Have put on gold and crimson, rich brocades,

For autumn’s festival. And you alone

Will not cast off that beggar’s garb of yours.

You seem to have forgotten that no grief 

Should ever triumph over loveliness.”

I mean, can we cue the Gloria Gaynor anthem ‘I Will Survive’ right about now?.... There’s a bit of that going on in this play. I also love the line when Mavka confronts Lukash, who has abandoned her. It’s like one of those “I’m so disappointed in you” moments, because she says: “I’m only sad because you cannot bring your life up to the level of your soul.” What a great line.

KIM: That’s like l’esprit d’escalier, you know? Wit of the staircase.

AMY: I don’t know what that means, but okay.

KIM: It’s a French phrase, but it actually means the thing that you think of to say when you’re walking away but you always think of it too late. I probably announced it horribly, but yeah, that’s the idea of it.

AMY: Ooh, I love that!

KIM: But anyway, I also thought this would make such a terrific opera or a ballet. There’s something kind of Swan Lake about it.

AMY: Oh yeah, for sure. And I think they did turn it into an opera at one point in the 1950s. I remember reading that somewhere.

KIM: Well that makes sense. There are a lot of monuments honoring Ukrainka including a statue of her on a quiet street in Moscow as well as a beautiful statue of her in Kyiv.

AMY: Yeah, it’s interesting that she resides today in both those countries, right, you know, that are at war. And in terms of what’s happening in Ukraine right now, we thought maybe we’d let Lesya Ukrainka have the last word for today’s episode. So even though she was in a lot of physical pain during her life and she lamented the oppression of living under Tsarist Russian control, she did write poetry that was really hopeful. One of her most famous poems, “Contra Spem Spero” is a good example of that. (The title translates to “Hope Against Hope”). It was published in 1890, and I’ll go ahead and read it because it seems like a hopeful note to end on given the state of the world today:

Thoughts away, you heavy clouds of autumn!

For now springtime comes, agleam with gold!

Shall thus in grief and wailing for ill-fortune

All the tale of my young years be told?

No, I want to smile through tears and weeping.,

Sing my songs where evil holds its sway,

Hopeless, a steadfast hope forever keeping,

I want to live! You thoughts of grief, away!

On poor sad fallow land unused to tilling

I'll sow blossoms, brilliant in hue,

I'll sow blossoms where the frost lies, chilling,

I'll pour bitter tears on them as due.

And those burning tears shall melt, dissolving

All that mighty crust of ice away.

Maybe blossoms will come up, unfolding

Singing springtime too for me, some day.

Up the flinty steep and craggy mountain

A weighty ponderous boulder I shall raise,

And bearing this dread burden, a resounding

Song I'll sing, a song of joyous praise.

In the long dark ever-viewless night-time

Not one instant shall I close my eyes,

I'll seek ever for the star to guide me,

She that reigns bright mistress of dark skies.

Yes, I'll smile, indeed, through tears and weeping

Sing my songs where evil holds its sway,

Hopeless, a steadfast hope forever keeping,

I shall live! You thoughts of grief, away!