Unit 3. Books and Writers » Стр.96 (5)

Find information and write a report about your favourite Ukrainian or British writer. My favourite Ukrainian writer I like reading very much. It is one of my hobbies. I like foreign classics as well as Ukrainian writers. I also like Ukrainian poetry very much. I think that Lesya Ukrainka is one of our greatest and most famous poet. Lesya Ukrainka is a pen name of Larisa Petrivna Kosach-Kvitka. She was born in Novograd-Volynsky on February 15, 1871. Lesya’s father was a lawyer and her mother was a Ukrainian writer who wrote under pen name Olena Pchilka. She was educated by Ukrainian tutors at home because her parents wanted to avoid schools that taught Russian as the primary language. The beginning of her literary career coincided with the first symptoms of incurable disease — tuberculosis of the bones. These problems made her travel to warm countries, such as Austria, Germany, Crimea, Italy, Georgia, Bulgaria and Egypt. Her first book of verses «On Wings of Songs» was published in 1893. Her next books of verses «Thoughts and Dreams», «Responses» earned her a leading place in Ukrainian literature. After that she turned to playwriting. Her best plays are «The Forest Song» and «The Stone Host». In 1897 in Yalta she met Serhiy Merzhynsky and they fell in love. He died of tuberculosis on March 3, 1901. Lesia Ukrainka married to Klyment Kvitka, a court official, in 1907. They settled first in Crimea, then moved to Georgia. Lesya Ukrainka died on August 1, 1913 in Georgia, and she was buried in Kiev.