 Five Tough Ukrainian Women By Serhiy KHARCHENKO |
Anna, Queen of France
Anna was one of the rare women to receive effusive praise from the Vatican. In a letter written in the 11th century, Pope Nicolas II admitted that, "this glorious ruler combines femininity and men's valor, strictness and kindness, pious prayer and high commitment."
These words reflect the achievements despite the difficult circumstances of the daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, the grand prince of Kyivan Rus. The 17 year-old princess, escorted by a large retinue, spent two months travelling to France to marry King Henry I. Raised in the palace of a sovereign with encyclopedic knowledge, Anna arrived at the court of an illiterate king who placed wars and intrigues above all else.
It was Anna who brought the Orthodox gospel to Paris. Later named the Rheims Bible after the old capital of France, French kings used to swear their oath upon this splendid folio during coronation ceremonies.
Unlike her husband, Anna was educated and managed to bring up her two sons properly. After the king's death in 1060, Anna became the regent of her minor son. She dealt with all of young Phillip I's papers until he was grown, signing them, "Anna, the Russian Queen of France."
Though very homesick, Anna always remained faithful to France. She adopted Catholicism and paid much attention to the construction of cathedrals. Using her innate diplomacy, she worked to prevent rancor and schisms within the church.
Anastasia Lisovska
While Princess Anna agreed to her marriage to Henry I only after long negotiation, Anastasia Lisovska, the daughter of a humble priest, was unwillingly made a slave before becoming a powerful figure in the Turkish sultan's harem.
Five centuries separate the lives of these two women. Rus had been defeated by the Tatars, and the new Ukrainian state - Zaporizhska Sich - was fighting new invaders from the south. Despite the reckless struggle, the assaults of the Crimean Tatars and Turks did not stop. Thousands of people were enslaved.
The 13-year-old Anastasia was among those miserable captives displayed at the slave market.
No one knew her name in Istanbul. Anastasia did not want to reveal it. Very soon she was known as Roksolana, or merely "a Ukrainian girl." Dozens of pieces dedicated to this woman appeared in the European literature of the 16th through 18th centuries.
Anastasia rose from amid hundreds of others in the harem to become the sultan's only real wife. As the "favorite mistress" of Turkish sultan Suleiman, she proved not only to be beautiful, but also to be strong-willed, flexible and wise. These characteristics elevated her from the status of a slave to nearly that of an empress to the severe Suleiman, who reigned over the 16th century Ottoman Empire.
Roksolana's influence was such that amazed Turks wondered whether she was a witch. Her inexplicable sorcery allayed the expansion of Ukraine for some time, and caused resentment among the sultan's retainers.
Marusya Churay
Marusya Churay stands apart on our list of tough guys. When faced with a promiscuous fiance, a fellow called Gryts (Gregory), she poisoned him. But that's not why Churay is celebrated today. Though sentenced to die in the gallows, the girl was pardoned by Hetman Bogdan Khmelnytskyy. The reason for his mercy lay in the songs this courageous and tender peasant girl sang. They raised the Cossacks' fighting spirit during the war of liberation against Poland. They sang about themselves, their campaigns, and love. Ukrainian and Polish folklorists later called Marusya Churay "the legendary Ukrainian Sappho." Churay's last song was called, "Gryts, do not go to parties." The song- confession tells of Marusya gathering herbs and preparing the poison for herself, but later giving it to a defiant and unrepentant Gryts. The ballad has been translated into Polish, Czech, German, English and French, and has entered the repertoire of musicians from Ukraine, Canada, Argentina and the United States.
Lesya Ukrayinka
Though Larisa Kosach, better known as Lesya Ukrayinka, lived only 42 years, she sang a magnificent anthem to the power of the human spirit and Ukrainian national dignity. She lived at the end of the 19th century, a Draconian period in the Russian Empire when even the word "Ukraine" was banned. Suddenly, poems written by a woman with the controversial pen name Ukrayinka appeared in several magazines. She suffered from tuberculosis arthritis, a painful disease that affected her joints for 30 years, but the disease did not stop the proud Ukrainian woman from becoming a prominent personality. As male writers said, this weak woman possessed a "character of steel," and was, in fact, "the only man among Ukrainian writers." Some said that Nature gave her a quill to hold in her weak hand, and instructed her to write. Soviet ideologus tried to disguise the ingenious literary daughter of Taras Shevchenko as a "revolutionary democrat" and a "friend of the working class," yet Soviet censors excluded some of her writing from an otherwise complete
12-volume collection of her works. The excluded texts were deemed nationalistic. Among the expurgated works were her play, "Boyarynia" and a poem, "You once fought like Israel, my Ukraine."
Lina Kostenko
While the previous four Ukrainian women worth being called "tough guys" are historical figures, the fifth, Lina Kostenko, is a contemporary. She is strong and influential as well as tough. The poetess, considered by some to be of similar stature as Lesya Ukrayinka, is known for her work as a chronicler of Chernobyl, following Ukraine's atomic Atlantis for a decade. The winner of the prestigious Shevchenko and Francesco Petrarch prizes wears protective overalls when she visits the Chernobyl zone. There, vegetation grows in former streets and deer, unafraid of people, walk calmly. Proud old people who refused to abandon their homes live in wooden huts framed in lilac.
The residents offer Lina milk and dried fish, which she consumes. Her vital mission in the zone is to collect radioactive artifacts and ethnographic items left there after the blast 16 years ago forced most to flee their homes. Kostenko is brave, as well as being incredibly uncompromising and scrupulous. Many of her phrases and actions agitate the public opinion, creating friends as well as enemies. During the Soviet period, she deliberately did not publish anything as protest against the communist's censorship and the state's retaliation against dissident writers. In independent Ukraine, she has refused to accept the country's highest civilian honor: the Order of Yaroslav the Wise. She rejected the medal because it had also been awarded to Boris Yeltsin and Pavlo Lazarenko.
Any list of Ukrainian tough guys would necessarily include these tough gals as well. And our list would likely not need resort to fellows who have survived multiple intentional auto accidents!
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More in the section:
Bat'kivshchyna reached Australia. What's next?
Read also previous issue' articles:
Are Ukraine's Political Habits Unique?
Is Ukraine's Economic Growth Speculation-led?
Ukraine is Drifting to the West - Slowly but Surely
The Unfinished Orange Revolution?
Vacuums, Reforms and the Need to Regain the Initiative
Pirates of the 21st century
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