Olena Pchilka

Olha Petrivna Kosach[a] (née Drahomanova[b] 29 June 1849 – 4 October 1930), better known by her pen name Olena Pchilka (Ukrainian: Олена Пчілка), was a Ukrainian publisher, writer, ethnographer, interpreter, and civil activist.

[1] Pchilka was born in Hadiach, into the family of a local landowner, Petro Drahomanov.

She began her career by translating poetry by Pushkin and Lermontov.

In 1880, Pchilka published Stepan Rudansky's Songs at her own expense, and a year later a collection of her translations from the works of Gogol, Pushkin, and Lermontov, To Ukrainian Children (1881), was published.

At the same time, she took an active part in the Ukrainian women's movement; in 1887, together with Natalia Kobrynska, she published the almanac "The First Wreath" in Lviv.

Olena Pchilka with Lesya Ukrainka
Olena Pchilka with Lesya Ukrainka, 1898
A group of Ukrainian writers gathered in Poltava to inaugurate a monument to Ivan Kotliarevsky , 1903. From left: Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky , Vasyl Stefanyk , Olena Pchilka, Lesya Ukrainka , Mykhailo Starytsky , Hnat Khotkevych , Volodymyr Samijlenko.