Translation Profession: Lesya Ukrainka

A brilliant Ukrainian writer and cultural activist Lesya Ukrainka (1871-1913) established also a career rich with translations lasting for about 25 years. Ukrainka is known as one of the greatest translators in the history of Ukrainian translation.

From the very childhood, the girl was surrounded by literature, and Ivan Franko is considered to be her godfather in translation. From a young age, she translated poetry, prose, dramatic works, and scientific works from Russian, Polish, German, French, English, Italian, Ancient Greek, Ancient Indian, and Egyptian, and read fluently the works of Czech and Slovak writers. 

Due to her illness, tuberculosis of the bone, she traveled a lot around Europe and got to know foreign cultures closer. At that time, Ukrainka was passionate about translations from English: she translated Cain by Lord Byron and Macbeth by William Shakespeare. Macbeth was translated in Crimea.

Macbeth

When shall we three meet again?

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

Коли ми стрінемось, сестриці?

Чи в грім, чи в дощ, чи в блискавиці?

Cain

God! the Eternal parent of all things!

Who didst create these best and beauteous beings, 

To be beloved, more than all, save thee –

Let me love thee and them: – All Hail! All Hail!

Боже одвічний! Батьку всього світу!

Ти нам створив найкращії створіння,

Щоб їх любить над все, опріч над тебе.

Дай силу все любити! – Слава! Слава!

She also translated into Ukrainian the Russian works of Franko, Lirychni Pisni Davnioho Yehyptu (The Ancient Egyptian Lyrics), The Lost Letter by Mykola Gogol, Old Izergil by Nikolai Gorky, The Poor Children by Victor Hugo, The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, lyrics from The Lyrical Intermezzo cycle by Heinrich Heine. 

Together with her Kyiv colleagues, she developed a “Procedure for translating works into Ukrainian”. The list, besides the ones mentioned above, includes works by Pushkin, Lermontov, Turgenev, Nekrasov, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Cervantes, Petrarch, Shakespeare, Molière, Voltaire, Rousseau, Walter Scott, Balzac, George Sand, and Mickiewicz.

Her heritage also includes scientific literary works: Dva Napriamky V Novii Italiiskii Literaturi (Two Directions in Modern Italian Literature) and Novi Perspektyvy I Stari Tini (New Prospects and Old Shadows).