KOTSIUBA, Lesia (Oleksandra) Yosypivna (b. March 18, 1921, in the village of Vesele, Khortytskyi raion, Zaporizhzhia oblast—d. September 18, 1987, in Nizhyn) was a folklorist and educator. She was a participant in the Ukrainian human rights movement.
Pictured: Lesia Kotsiuba and Ivan Brovko, instructors at the Nizhyn Pedagogical Institute.
From a peasant family. In 1939, she enrolled in the Ukrainian Philology department at Zaporizhzhia University. During the German occupation, she worked as a cleaner in the children’s library in Dnipropetrovsk. After the oblast was liberated, she resumed her studies as a third-year university student. She graduated in 1945 with a degree as an “instructor of Ukrainian literature.” From 1945 to 1948, she taught Ukrainian literature at the Drohobych Teacher Training Institute, and from 1949 to 1951, at the Chernihiv Pedagogical Institute. Possessing an artistic flair, she led expressive reading circles, directed amateur plays and concert programs, and managed a drama studio.
Beginning September 1, 1956, Kotsiuba worked as a senior instructor at the Nizhyn Pedagogical Institute, actively engaging as a scholar and a figure in the Ukrainian national revival. After completing a one-year postgraduate program at the Institute of Art History, Folklore, and Ethnography, she defended her dissertation in 1964 at the Maxim Gorky Kyiv Pedagogical Institute. From April 1969, Kotsiuba worked as an associate professor specializing in “folklore studies.” Her lectures on ancient Ukrainian literature and folklore, as well as her art history circles, were eagerly attended by students from various departments, and the excursions she organized to Shevchenko-related sites and Ukrainian historical monuments drew large crowds. She conducted research in the archives of Chernihiv, Kyiv, Hlukhiv, and Kaniv. She authored 20 publications, including foundational studies on the life and work of Opanas Markovych.
A circle of active Ukrainian patriots formed around Kotsiuba. Among them were Hryhoriy Avrakhov, Ivan BROVKO, Oleksandr Zhovnir, Ivan Kostenko, Volodymyr Krutyvus, Volodymyr Lytvynov, Dmytro Nalyvaiko, Ivan Shpakovsky, and Vasyl Bublyk from Kyiv. They actively influenced student life, involving students in the literary and artistic revival. They organized meetings with B. ANTONENKO-DAVYDOVYCH, M. Vinhranovsky, I. DRACH, Y. Hutsalo, B. Oliynyk, H. Tyutyunnyk, and A. Shevchenko. *Samvydav* (self-published literature) circulated within this circle. After I. BROVKO brought I. DZIUBA’s work “Internationalism or Russification?” from Nizhyn in 1968, it was given to Yu. Bacha (a literary scholar from Prešov) and passed abroad, allowing the book to be published in West Germany in 1968 and subsequently reissued in several languages.
The matter came to light in 1974. Kotsiuba was detained for a week and subjected to cross-examinations at the KGB pre-trial detention center in Kyiv. To break the chain of arrests, she claimed that the typewritten and photocopied text had been given to her by the late Professor P. M. Popov and staunchly denied I. DZIUBA’s involvement in transferring the work abroad.
After a bold speech at a meeting with B. ANTONENKO-DAVYDOVYCH, Kotsiuba was subjected to blackmail. She was fired from her job at the institute, and her son and brother were turned against her. Left without a means of livelihood, she fell ill and died in her 66th year. She is buried in Nizhyn.
Bibliography:
Avrakhov, Hryhoriy. “Shtrykhy do realnoho portreta L. Y. Kotsiuby” [Sketches for a Realistic Portrait of L. Y. Kotsiuba]. Dyvoslovo, no. 8 (2005): 54–55.
Avrakhov, H. “Spovidne slovo pro Ivana Dziubu” [A Confessional Word about Ivan Dziuba]. Slovo i Chas, no. 3 (2004): 70–72.
Brovko, Ivan. Dobrom nahrite sertse [A Heart Warmed by Goodness]. Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. Kharkiv: Folio, 2005, pp. 31–32.
Stoian, I. “Pid maskoiu dobroporiadnosti” [Under the Mask of Respectability]. Pid praporom Lenina, no. 185 (8668), November 20, 1976.
Avrakhov, H., and V. Ovsiyenko. “Kotsiuba, Lesia Yosypivna.” In International Biographical Dictionary of Dissidents in the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former USSR. Vol. 1. Ukraine. Part 1. Kharkiv: Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group; “Prava Liudyny,” 2006, pp. 336–337.
Rukh oporu v Ukraini: 1960–1990. Entsyklopedychnyi dovidnyk [The Resistance Movement in Ukraine: 1960–1990. An Encyclopedic Guide]. Foreword by Osyp Zinkevych and Oles Obertas. Kyiv: Smoloskyp, 2010, p. 341; 2nd ed.: 2012, p. 381.