Olena Teliha

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Olena Teliha
Олена Теліга
BornJuly 21, 1906
Ilyinskoe (near Moscow), Russia
DiedFebruary 21, 1942(1942-02-21) (aged 35)
Babi Yar, Reichskommissariat Ukraine
OccupationPoet and writer
NationalityUkrainian

Olena Ivanivna Teliha (Ukrainian: Олена Іванівна Теліга, July 21, 1906 – February 21, 1942) was a Ukrainian poet and activist of Ukrainian and Belarusian ethnicity.

Biography

Olena Teliha was born in the village of

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, within which she became an activist in cultural and educational matters.[3]

Fingers breaking – long and slender, To tear up habits like old cats, To take up weapons from your hand And strike hard where a hard strike is needed.

O. Teliha, "Answer"[2]

In 1941, Olena and her husband Mykhailo Teliha (whom she met and married in Czechoslovakia[2]) moved back to Nazi-occupied Kyiv,[3] where she expanded her work as a cultural and literary activist, heading the Ukrainian Writers' Guild and editing a weekly cultural and arts newspaper "Litavry". A lot of her activities were in open defiance of the Nazi authorities. She watched her closest colleagues from the parent-newspaper "Ukrainian Word" ("Ukrayins'ke Slovo") get arrested and yet chose to ignore the dangers. She refused to flee, declaring that she would never again go into exile.[2]

She was finally arrested by the

Kyiv[1] along with her husband.[3]
In the prison cell where she stayed, her last written words were scribbled on the wall: "Here was interred and from here goes to her death Olena Teliha".

Poetry

  • "Only the evening flies over the city"
  • Joy
  • Abroad
  • Life
  • To men
  • I. Someone else's spring
  • II. Sleepy day
  • III. Blazing day
  • Everlasting
  • Turn
  • Tango
  • Cossack
  • Travel
  • "No need for words. Let there be only business..."
  • Summer
  • Loyalty
  • "The night was turbulent and dim..."
  • "My soul and a dark drink..."
  • "Not love, not a whim and not an adventure..."
  • To a man
  • "Sharp eyes open in the dark..."
  • "Today every step would like to be a waltz..."
  • A unique holiday
  • On the fifth floor
  • "They wave their hand! Pour the wine..."
  • Reply
  • "I will not forgive the hand that hit me..."
  • Immortal
  • Fifteenth autumn
  • Evening song
  • Black square
  • Letter
  • "Everything - but not this! Not these peaceful days..."
  • On the eve [Two sonnets]
  • A sunny memory
  • 1933—1939
  • Convicted

Remembrance

Wooden cross in Babi Yar in memory of Olena Teliha and other Ukrainian nationalists executed there in 1942

On July 19, 2007 the

National bank of Ukraine issued a commemorative coin dedicated to Olena Teliha.[4]

On 25 February 2017 a monument to Teliha was unveiled at

Patriarch Filaret.[5]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Ukrainian poet-heroine Olena Teliha, 1906 – 1942, Brama (July 20, 2006)
  2. ^ a b c d Life is not to be sold for a few pieces of silver – The life of Olena Teliha Archived August 14, 2007, at the Wayback Machine by Ludmyla Yurchenko, CYM, the Ukrainian Youth Association
  3. ^ a b c 1942: Mykhailo and Olena Teliha, Ukrainian artists, ExecutedToday.com
  4. National bank of Ukraine
  5. ^
    Radio Free Europe
    (25 February 2017)

External links

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