My Lesia dates back to The Days of my early childhood. From Lily. Lilies in grandmother’s garden and Lesia’s Lily were sisters in my childish imagination. Later I learned that this was one of the earliest works written by then 16-year-old Lesia.
Later, owing to good teachers, we, being schoolchildren, visited the play Forest Song in Lutsk. I still remember those feelings: how nobility of spirit opposed primitivism. Perhaps my special love of trees comes from there: each tree is like a friend and brother to me, and I suffer when they suffer.
In our raion’s Palace of Culture in Lokachi some artist wrote on the wall:
In the poor sad fallow
I will sow colorful flowers,
I will sow flowers in the frost,
I will shed bitter tears on them.
And those hot tears will melt
That hard cover of ice
Maybe the flowers will sprout
And the cheerful spring
Will come for me.
Perhaps these lines ‘programmed’ me?
There was a time when they wrote such lines. How important it was to see and remember them, even maybe not completely understanding their meaning. How natural it seems that in high school years I visited Kolodiazhne. I will hold on to the impressions I felt in those rooms forever, from those things that Lesia touched, from the piano... And the understanding that it was an extremely noble family. So Ukrainian. So humane.
At the same time the literary union Lesia’s Kadub functioned in Lutsk. All this filled my life with deep sensations. It’s very important to be present in such an environment at a young age.
Lesia is Volyn, the Volyn that retained that powerful feeling of pre-Mongolian Rus’-Ukraine, from which a special world grew.
Lesia is a unique intellectual, mindset. It gives you an idea about how strong the Ukrainian language can be. Not only mild and lyrical, but also powerful and energetic. Like steel.
Moreover, there are many Lesias in Volyn. There were three Larysas in my class. Our parents understood who Lesia was. For us, Ukrainians.
