Category: Language and Literature

The history of the Ukrainian women’s movement began with those fundamental principles and ideas around which the concept of Ukrainian feminism began to develop, showing its relevance and continuity in different periods of the life of Ukrainian women. In the mid-1880s of the 19th century, Natalia Kobrynska, the founder of the Ukrainian women’s movement, laid the foundations of a new worldview and positioning of women in society, adapting the latest emancipatory trends of Europe to national challenges. Therefore, she is still rightly considered one of the most interesting European feminists, the first theoretician of Ukrainian feminism, who formulated and embodied its main principles, aimed at the formation of a nationally conscious, educated, socially active woman.

Natalia Kobrynska, 1890s

“The women’s issue has penetrated my soul too deeply,” Kobrynska declared 140 years ago in a letter to Ivan Franko about her preoccupation with modern feminist ideas. She gradually crystallized them in her fundamental journalistic works, which still remain the historical foundation of the women’s movement: “On the Women’s Movement in Modern Times”, “Russian Women in Galicia”, “Married Woman of the Middle Class”, “On the Original Goal of the “Norwegian Women’s Society in Stanislaviv” (all published in “First Wreath”, Lviv, 1887), “Women’s Affairs in Galicia” (collection “Our Destiny”, Stryi, 1893), “Domestic Women’s Crafts” (“Our Destiny”, 1893, co-authored with M. Revakovych), “News from Abroad and the Land” (“Our Destiny”, 1893, co-authored with O. Kobylyanska), “Aspirations of the Women’s Movement” (“Our Destiny”, 1895, 1896), “On Ibsen’s Nora” (“The Deed”, 1900).

What were the main messages to Ukrainian women from Kobrynska? What ideas and slogans of their time formed the basis of Ukrainian feminism? How do these imperatives speak to modern women today?

1. The women’s movement is a component of broader socio-cultural struggles.

“The women’s issue reaches further, it embraces all fields in which women as women are oppressed: in the field of social positions, since they are excluded from them, in the field of higher culture, and finally – in the field of law, both public and civil, since this law treats women differently than men” [10:25 – 26].

Nataliya Kobrynska considered the women’s issue in the context of women’s broad socio-political and spiritual aspirations for their own freedom, individual development, and social visibility. She believed that calls for emancipation, which arose from economic conditions, under the influence of European democratic developments, must develop together with other social issues, and not separately, because this would narrow the essence and principles of women’s aspirations. Therefore, the women’s issue, according to Kobrynska, should not be reduced to a narrow understanding of the struggle for equal socio-political rights for women, but should be interpreted in the broader context of deep socio-psychological and cultural-historical changes in patriarchal society.

2. Gender equality.

“In general, women have never spoken out against men as such, but only against the social order, the order that made men masters and pushed women into the position of slaves, excluded from the protection of equal rights, even from science and material independence” [9:374].

The idea of ​​equality between men and women was and is the basis of feminism, but from the beginning of the women’s movement there have been myths about “man-haters” and “women’s struggle against men”. Natalia Kobrynska first addressed the issue of gender parity in her “Report at the meeting of the Stanislavov Women’s Society” in 1884, emphasizing: “I declare to men that we can live with them in common thought for a common idea, and do not consider ourselves only as eternal candidates for their hearts” [3]. With this clear statement, she openly polemicized with the anti-feminist theory of F. Nietzsche: “life knows no equality and in itself is nothing other than the insult and appropriation of what is alien and weaker” [12:21]. And since a woman is weaker, it is worth “keeping her under lock and key, as something that is already condemned to slavery by nature and can only have some value in strong hands” [12:21]. Following Nietzsche’s ideas later provoked the emergence of a separate layer of artistic narrative in literature, in which the main motive is “strength and passion”, and a woman is treated only as an element of a “true strong man”. In contrast, Ukrainian feminism from the very beginning consistently affirmed the idea of ​​equality and socio-cultural partnership between men and women. “It must be so that a woman, as a conscious person, stands next to a conscious man” (letter from Natalia Kobrynska to Osyp Nazariev, 1912) [2, F. 13, No. 35].

Ivan Franko, 1896 Mykhailo Pavlyk

Natalia Kobrynska’s ideas were confirmed in the reality of the time: the development of the women’s movement in Galicia was in every way facilitated by authoritative men such as Ivan Franko, Mykhailo Pavlyk, Mykhailo Drahomanov, Panteleimon Kulish, Vasyl Polyansky, who not only with personal support but also with their own works worked out the ideological ground for emancipatory ideas and consensus.

home actively supported women on this path.

3. Feminism as humanism.
   “Kobrinskaya took into account a woman exclusively as a person, and considered the women’s movement to be the only means at that time for the elevation of this part of humanity” [6:3].

The desire to revive and affirm in a woman, first of all, a person with equal rights and opportunities for personal self-realization was a significant achievement of the emancipatory ideas of the founder of the women’s movement. It is in this context that feminism was consonant with humanism.

4. Nationalism and civil responsibility of women.
   “A woman has always and everywhere been able to understand the spirit of her time and the demands of her society” [13:328].

The national vector is a unique feature of the Ukrainian women’s movement, which was due to a long period of Ukrainian statelessness and national oppression. Therefore, the idea of ​​Ukrainian feminism from its very inception was clearly based on national principles. The acquisition of an independent status of women in public and family life in the understanding of Kobrinska is consonant with the concepts of national, autochthonous, spiritually rooted in one’s own tradition. Hence the close connection between feminism and nationalism, the identification of women’s emancipation and national liberation struggles, which was especially relevant in the conditions of an imperially divided Ukraine. In the words of Natalia Kobrinska, with the emergence of the emancipation movement, “our women throughout the vast expanse of Rus’-Ukraine felt their national existence,” “our intelligent woman felt herself simultaneously a Ruthenian and a man, and remembered her national and public rights” [8:287] (in the language of that time, the word “Rusyns” was used to designate Ukrainians, and “man” in the meaning of “person.” — Ed.).

In a broader sense, feminism was also associated with a state-building strategy, in which women were assigned the constructive mission of a creative citizen, because, as Kobrynska believed, “women took an active part in all the great evolutions of human development” [14:325]. Responding in a timely manner to the national-patriotic challenges of the era, the “spirit of women” and their civic intuition were harbingers of historical transformations and indicators of the life of the people.

Under the slogan of national unity, the women’s almanac “The First Wreath” was published in 1887, proclaiming the main slogan of the publication: “In the name of our national unity.”

Later, in the interwar period, the national idea became central to the ideology of the Ukrainian women’s movement, and was clearly expressed in the journalism of Milena Rudnytska: “Service to the Nation was and is one of the leading ideas of the Ukrainian women’s movement, from which it draws its ethos and its ultimate justification” [16:201].

5. Feminism, European Integration, and National Identity
   “The so often praised Europeanism should not consist in subordinating our spirit to a foreign country, in neglecting everything that is our own, but rather in the ability to elevate ourselves, our own and our national individuality to the heights of European culture and art. And we will never achieve this without learning to preserve the features of our specific character, without learning to truly “be ourselves”” [11:387].

The women’s question arose on the waves of the European progressive movement, associated, in particular, with the change in industrial, socio-economic and cultural relations. Therefore, observing the rapid progress of the women’s movement in Europe, where it had long had its own tradition, literature and achievements, Nataliya Kobrynska sought, on the one hand, to adopt the main trends of European feminism, and on the other – to adapt them to Ukrainian socio-political conditions. “This is quite natural, when we notice how vividly and strongly our society is drawn into its circles by the modern European development of social and economic relations” [8:287], she explained the growing interest in the women’s question in Galicia. It is no coincidence that Kobrynska purposefully projects all her subsequent feminist activities onto Europe, focusing on the European experience of women’s emancipation, primarily in the educational and socio-economic plan, becoming, in the words of M. Bohachevska, “one of the most interesting European feminists” [1:17].

Kobrynska’s unwavering interest in world feminism is indicated by her interesting studies-reviews, which describe the experience and social and legal status of European women, ― “On the Women’s Movement in Modern Times” (“The First Wreath”, pp. 5 – 25); trends in the women’s movement in Europe ― “News from Abroad and the Land” (“Our Destiny”. Stryi, 1893, pp. 79 – 93, co-authored with O. Kobylyanska). Striving, in Frankov’s words, “to involve our women in the sphere of ideas and interests of advanced European women” [17:502], Nataliya Kobrynska initiated the practice of effective cooperation with representatives of other nationalities – Czechs, Poles, Germans, with whom she jointly submitted petitions to the Austrian parliament on women’s educational and electoral rights.

Nataliya Kobrynska popularized European feminism in every possible way, borrowed European stylistic trends in her work, summarized and translated advanced European works and works in order to “introduce the spirit of Europe into Ukrainian relations.” But she perceived the need for Europeanization primarily as an organic

development, the path of formation and self-affirmation of a mature nation while preserving its self-identity in order to expand intellectual horizons. Therefore, Kobrynska advised to assimilate Europeanism in the form of a mental formula – “to be oneself” in all manifestations of national existence: political, spiritual, cultural and historical.

6. Woman and literature.

“We set ourselves the goal of influencing the development of the female spirit through literature, because literature was always a true image of the bright and dark sides of the social order, its needs and shortcomings” [13:328].

Almanac “The First Wreath”, published in Lviv in 1887.

The principles of early Ukrainian feminism are closely connected with educational and intellectual slogans, with the attempt of women to declare themselves through their own writing. “I came to understand the position of women in society through literature” [7:322], Kobrynska explained the origin of her emancipatory ideas. After all, with her own feminist works, the writer formed a new reading for Ukrainian women, striving to give her sisters exactly the book that would show a different essence of women through concrete life examples and women’s destinies, emancipate their multifaceted personality, and encourage them to take an active social role. It is no coincidence that the goal of the first Ukrainian feminist organization, the “Society of Russian Women,” founded in 1884 in Stanislaviv (now Ivano-Frankivsk) by Natalia Kobrynska, was the slogan “awakening the female spirit through literature.” Initially, it was planned that it would be a women’s reading room with its own publishing house, created for literary purposes. Why did literature become the most effective way of representing women then? In the conditions of Ukrainian statelessness, when the press and Ukrainian parliamentarism were silent, when a shameful linguocide was taking place in the Dnieper region, writing became an important resource for self-realization and expression of will, a sign of the people’s intelligentsia. According to Kobrinska, “in times of political unfreedom, literature is a kind of refuge for freedom” (letter from N. Kobrinska to Ivan Beley dated September 11, 1885). Also, through literature, a woman could become spiritually liberated, express her feelings and needs, and express herself in writing.

Olena Pchilka and Natalia Kobrinska – co-editors and patrons of “Pershy Vinek”

According to the idea of ​​the founder of the Ukrainian women’s movement, it was literature that was to play an important consolidating role, gathering all conscious “women under the banner of literature for the purpose of explaining and uniting thoughts” [13:299]. In a broader state-building and national-historical perspective, literature, according to Natalia Kobrynska, served as a unifying factor for the nation: “Rus-Ukraine, also divided politically, comes together with the help of literature” [13:290]. This was fully demonstrated by the publication of the women’s almanac “The First Wreath”, which initiated the tradition of women’s writing and literary sisterhood and united 17 Ukrainian women writers on both sides of the Zbruch River.

The Almanac “The First Wreath” — a modern reprint

7. Woman and War.
   “Our capabilities are as small as our environment, but our work is as great as our goals” [6:3].

Natalia Kobrynska, 1910s

Having personally experienced all the hardships of the First World War, Natalia Kobrynska advises passionate Ukrainian women to actively participate in the struggle for national freedom and their own state, and to understand the importance of even the smallest help to the front. The writer suffered morally in this war, becoming the victim of a baseless denunciation with accusations of espionage, barely escaping arrest, remaining alone in the devastated Bolekhov. However, in her civic consciousness, the war events also stirred up optimistic faith in the solution of the Ukrainian question. Already physically and spiritually exhausted, she refused to lead the national liberation leadership in Bolekhov, more willingly devoting herself to concrete work aimed at helping the army: she participated in fundraising and charity missions, made dressing materials for the front, and gladly hosted Sich riflemen who heroically repulsed Bolekhov from the Russian rear in her hut. The writer described all the tragic experience of the war in her military short stories in the cycle “War Stories”, depicting terrible pictures of national martyrology. In these literary texts, the motif of femininity permeates the idea of ​​a viable power of Ukraine, capable of raising triumphant life over the victims of death. In the works of Natalia Kobrinskaya, the idea of ​​saving the nation is feminine in its essence.

8. The conflict between motherhood and civic mission.

“…In order to bring my idea to life, I renounced the happiness that motherhood gives!” [4:6].

According to Olga Duchyminska, Natalia Kobrynska tried to “give new goals and values ​​to the female soul” [5:15], to affirm the “individuality of the female spirit” whether in married life or in personal self-realization and intellectual development. Kobrynska considered the defining value of a woman to be her moral dignity (“purity”), which was most valued at all times: “I consider those women who preserve [protect] purity to be the healthy nerve of society, which preserves the human race.

On the coast of Australia, many, many miles from the nearest town, in a house filled with the love of her mother Agnes and the cruelty of her father, lives nine-year-old Alice Hart. Her mother’s beautiful garden is the only place where she can be unafraid, hiding from sudden outbursts of anger. Until a fire, bringing with it inevitable tragedy and death, forces Alice to abandon everything she feared so much and at the same time loved so much.

The novel “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart” by Holly Ringland, soon to be published by the Laboratory Publishing House, is the story of how, over twenty years, between the lush sugarcane fields on the seashore, between an Australian flower farm and a celestial crater in the central desert, Alice is forced to understand that the most powerful story she will ever own is her own. We publish an excerpt from the book.

Alice followed Candy past the dormitory where the Flowers lived. When they reached the workshop, they stopped at a door that was covered in thick vines. Candy pushed it aside, took her keys from her pocket, and inserted one into the keyhole.

“Ready?” she asked, smiling broadly.

The door opened.

They stopped together at the doorway of the workshop. The morning sun warmed their backs, but the air conditioning in the room made Alice suddenly feel cold. She rubbed her hands together, remembering the boy who had raised his hand to wave.

“You sighed so deeply,” Candy raised an eyebrow, looking at Alice. “Are you okay?”

Alice wanted to say so much, but all that came out was another sigh.

“Words are sometimes overrated,” Candy said, and took Alice’s hand. “Don’t you think so?”

Alice nodded. Candy squeezed her hand before letting go.

“Come on,” she said, holding the door open, “let’s take a look around.”

They went inside. The first half of the workshop was filled with benches stacked like a tower of buckets, a row of sinks, and refrigerators along the wall. On the shelves were tools, rolls of sunscreen, and assorted bottles and spray cans. On hooks on the wall hung wide-brimmed hats, aprons, and gardening gloves, beneath which stood rubber boots, lined up like invisible flower soldiers, frozen in place on the rack. Alice turned back to the benches. Under each of them were additional shelves filled with jars and containers. The workshop smelled of fertile soil.

“We bring the flowers here after we cut them in the fields. We inspect each flower before we send them on their way. They have to be perfect. We get orders from customers all over the country; our flowers are delivered to every corner of the country, to flower shops and supermarkets, to gas stations and market vendors. They are worn by brides and widows and,” Candy’s voice trembled, “women who have just become mothers.” She ran her hand along one of the benches. “Isn’t it magical, Alice? The flowers we grow here speak for people when words can’t, in almost every situation imaginable.”

Alice repeated Candy’s motion and ran her hand along the work surface. Who are the people who send flowers instead of words? How can a flower say the same thing as a word? What would one of her thousand-word books be like if it were written in flowers? No one ever sent her mother flowers.

She squatted down to examine the boxes of cutting tools, the spools of string, and the little buckets of markers and pens of all colors under the bench. She took the cap off the blue marker and sniffed it. On the back of her hand she drew a circle, a straight vertical line, and then another, a slant, the letter “I.” In a moment she had added a dash and the word “t-u-t.” As Candy approached her, Alice erased the words.

“Shh. Alice Blue,” Candy stuck her head out over the bench where Alice sat. “Follow me.”

They made their way between the benches, past the sinks and refrigerators, to the other side of the workshop, which was set up as an art studio. There were tables covered with plain tablecloths, strewn with paint cans and paintbrushes. In one corner stood easels, stools, and a box filled with tubes of paint. On one of the tables lay rolls of copper foil, pieces of colored glass, and jars of tools. When Alice reached the closed corner at the end of the studio, she forgot about the boy. She forgot about June and the statues of her father. She was too absorbed in what was right in front of her.

“The corner under the letter “X,” Candy giggled.

Dozens of flowers in various stages of drying hung from a frame overhead. A long bench ran along a makeshift wall. On it lay tools and fabrics, blackened by frequent use, and dried flower petals, scattered, discarded like clothes abandoned on a beach. Alice pressed her palms to the wooden surface, remembering her mother’s hands floating over the flower heads in the garden.

At one end of the bench lay a velvet sheet adorned with bracelets, necklaces, earrings, and rings decorated with pressed resin flowers.

“This is June’s place,” Candy said. Here she creates magic from the stories that Thornfie is built on.ld.

Magic. Alice stood before the jewelry, each shimmering in the light.

“June grows every flower here,” Candy said, holding up a bracelet that held a pendant with a pale peach petal. “She presses each petal and pours it in clear resin, then seals it in silver.”

Candy replaced the bracelet. Alice studied the rainbow of other flowers pressed into the pendants of the necklaces, earrings, and rings. Each flower was sealed forever, frozen in time, but still holding the colors of life. They would never turn brown or wither. They would never rot or die.

Candy moved to stand beside her.

“In the days of Queen Victoria, people in Europe spoke through flowers. It’s true. June’s ancestors—your ancestors, Alice—women who lived a long time ago brought this language of flowers from across the ocean, from England, and preserved it for generations until Ruth Stone brought it here to Thornfield.

They say she didn’t use it for a long time. It wasn’t until she fell in love that she began to speak in flowers. However, unlike the language of flowers she brought from England, she only used the flowers her lover gave her.” Candy stopped, her face turning red. “Whatever…” she interrupted herself again.

Ruth Stone. Her great-grandmother. Alice’s cheeks flushed with curiosity. She wanted to put a ring on each finger, press cool silver pendants against her warm skin, throw bracelets on her wrists, and press earrings into her unpierced ears.

She wanted to carry the secret language of flowers around her, so that they could say for her what her voice could not.

At the other end of the bench lay a small handmade book. Alice leaned over it. The cracked spine had been repaired many times, tied with many red ribbons. The inscription on the cover was handwritten, in gold calligraphy, with red flowers that looked like spinning wheels. “The Language of the Australian Wildflowers of Thornfield.”

“Ruth Stone was your great-great-grandmother,” Candy said. “This was her dictionary. Ruth’s heirs cultivated language the same way they cultivate flowers here,” she ran her hand over the corners of the worn pages. “It has been in June’s family for generations. Or rather, in your family,” she corrected herself.

Alice ran her fingertip over the cover. She wanted to open it, but she wasn’t sure if she could. The pages were yellowed and stuck out at odd angles. There were bits of handwritten words in the margins. Alice tilted her head. She could only read a few complete words. Darkness. Branches. Crumpled. Fragrant. Butterflies. Paradise. It was the best book Alice had ever seen.

“Alice,” Candy leaned down so that she was at Alice’s eye level. “Have you ever heard that story before? About Ruth Stone?”

Alice shook her head.

“Do you know much about your family, Pea?” Candy asked gently.

A feeling of shame that Alice couldn’t understand made her look away. She shook her head again.

“Oh, what a lucky girl,” Candy smiled sadly.

Alice looked at her in confusion. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

“Do you know Alice Blue, the woman I wrote to you about in the letter, the daughter of a king?”

Alice nodded.

“Her mother died when she was little,” Candy took her hand. “She was heartbroken and sent to live with her aunt, in her palace filled with books. Later, when Alice Blue was older, she said that it was the stories her aunt told her and the stories she read in books that saved her.

Alice imagined Alice Blue, a girl in a dress the color of her name, reading in the pale light that filtered through the window onto the pages of a book.

“You are lucky to have found this place, and with it your story, Alice. How lucky you are to be able to know and understand where you come from and where you belong,” Candy turned her face away. In a moment, she wiped her cheeks.

Air conditioners clicked and hummed in the distance. Alice looked at the old book and imagined women who had bent over it long ago. Perhaps they were clutching a sprig of wildflowers in their hand to add a new entry in their secret language.

Alice began to shift nervously from foot to foot, because she was bored. Candy turned to her and asked a question that filled Alice’s whole body with impatience:

— Do you want me to show you how to get to the river?

You can purchase the book at the link on the Laboratory publishing house website.

Who is Lucrezia?
Lucrezia di Cosimo de’ Medici (February 14, 1545 – April 21, 1561) was the third daughter and fifth of eleven children of Cosimo I de’ Medici, Duke of Florence, and the Spanish aristocrat Eleanor of Toledo (Lady Whistledown would have definitely rated “the most prolific family in the upper echelons of society”).

The duchess made sure that her children received the best education: when teachers come to your palazzo, you can’t skip “school”, so all the Medici children were enrolled in science, whether they were boys or girls.

But what’s the point of educating a girl if you can’t demonstrate your knowledge to your husband?

So in 1552, Lucrezia was engaged to Pope Julius III’s nephew, Fabio Dal Monte, but the engagement had to be called off three years later due to the Pope’s death. It seems like we can breathe a little, but will it get better?

In 1557, after the death of her older sister Maria de’ Medici, Lucrezia takes her place as the bride of the future Duke of Ferrara, Alfonso II d’Este. Her dowry was 200,000 scudi – a huge sum by the standards of that time. With this money, three Palazzo Pitti could have been built and there was still enough left for pins and lace. But what is money worth if even the best doctors were powerless and could not prevent Lucrezia’s death from tuberculosis in 1560? The sixteen-year-old girl was buried in the monastery of the Corpus Christi in Ferrara, but after her death, rumors circulated for a long time that the young wife was poisoned by her own husband.

And what about the book?
The author took care to ensure that Lucrezia’s life on the pages of her novel was authentic: she allows only a number of factual inaccuracies, justified sometimes by design, sometimes out of concern for the reader, so as not to confuse him with names and statuses. Thus, the line of relations of Alfonso II d’Este’s sister Elisabetta (in reality also Lucrezia) is shifted in time by 14 years and became an important and vivid episode of the story.

Lucrezia de’ Medici was indeed an educated and intelligent girl, but we know nothing about her keen hearing, clumsiness in dancing, or talent for drawing. These are details added by the author to make the character’s image more voluminous.

Why a tigress?
In the Palazzo Vecchio of Cosimo I Medici there was a menagerie with exotic animals, among which were majestic tigers, but information about whether the children of the Duke of Tuscany were allowed there, if they were, has not been preserved.

It is worth noting that the parallel drawn by the author transforms the usual expression “like a bird in a cage”: the girl is no longer seen as a poor helpless bird. She is a tigress. Strong, powerful, with extremely great potential, with energy and abilities that are capable of conquering the world if they are recognized and not neglected.

The theme of suppression of inner strength, abilities and self-realization becomes one of the key ones in the novel.

Did Lucretia have the opportunity and right to be happy?

Few people were concerned about women’s happiness in the 16th century, because if you are a woman, your function is reduced to the role of “wife” and “mother”. Lucretia was expected to be submissive, modest, and to follow moral standards. She was to become an electron that revolved around her husband, without the right to exist in a world separate from him.

Lucretia had no chance of becoming free in a society where you were taught music and art only to entertain your husband. What kind of happiness could there be if you were perceived only as a bargaining chip to strengthen the status and influence of the family?

Freedom of choice was not something a woman had then. And Lucretia was no exception. Even clothes were chosen for her.

When first your mother, and then your husband, tell you what to wear, it relieves a little of the headache. At least, you can deceive yourself with this thought. Maggie O’Farrell pays a lot of attention to the clothes of women of that time, so let’s take a look at Lucretia’s wardrobe.

Sottane is the main item of clothing of the Duchess. A kind of designer dress, consisting of a skirt, bodice and sleeves (they could be fastened with ribbons, laces or buttons). Lucretia wears it both under another layer of clothing and on its own.

Zimarra is a loose dress that a girl wears over the bottom layer, like a modern cardigan.

Giorneas is a sleeveless cape dress, open on both sides and in front. Fur lining makes it an outfit for any season.

Camicia is an undershirt made of white linen, wool, cotton, hemp or silk. It protects outerwear from sweat and dirt. Lucretia’s camicia is guaranteed to be decorated with sewing and decoration.

Scuffia is a net into which hair was laid. In Lucretia, it is woven from gold threads, decorated with stones and pearls.

It sounds and looks very beautiful.

Would you be willing to bring back Renaissance fashion at the cost of your own freedom? After all, not all women managed to get into progressive circles of like-minded people. Usually they spent their lives in a golden cage of a tigress.

Joined by — Oksana Kis, Bohdana Stelmakh, Tetyana Guzenko, Mykyta Burov, Alena Gruzina, Dasha Nepochatova, Alla Shvets, Anna Dovgopol, Yevheniya Shevchuk, Bohdana Romantsova, Maria Dmytrieva, Iryna Grabovska, Yulia Yurchuk, Svitlana Babenko, Iryna Vyrtosu, Yulia Yarmolenko, Olena Zaitseva, Maria Poltorachenko.

Women and Full-Scale Invasion: Reportage and Documentary Nonfiction
Berlyand, Iryna, Parubiy, Khrystyna (eds.). (2024). Women at War. Spirit and Letter.

Bilyakovska, Khrystyna, Sereda, Viktoriya. (2024). I Love You… War. Vivat.

Bros, Oreli (eds.). (2024). Women and War. Letters from Ukraine to the Free World. Boston: Academic Studies Pres. The Ukrainian translation in open access was made possible thanks to the financial support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Kyiv-Ukraine bureau.

Bobyk, Iryna. (2024). D’voina. Bilka.

Ivantsova, Mila (ed.). (2024). Kyiv. Women. War: a collection of memories and reflections of women about life in the capital during the full-scale invasion. Creative agency “Artil”. Published with the support of the Deputy Head of the Kyiv City State Administration Marina Honda and with the budget funds of the Department of Public Communications.

Kari, Olha. (2024). What do you know about war?! Another page.

Nikorak, Iryna. (2024). Strong women of a strong country.

Subotina, Valeria “Nava”. (2024). Azovstal. Steel Press Service. Polon. Folio.

Subotina, Valeria “Nava”. (2024). Captive. Folio.

Foreign Nonfiction
Bar-Zohar, Michael, Mishal, Nissim. (2024). Mossad Amazons: Women in Israeli Intelligence. Our Format.

Bird, Mary. (2024). Women and Power: A Manifesto. Creative Women Publishing.

Hessel, Kathy. (2024). A History of Art Without Men. ArtHuss.

Holland, Jack. (2024). A Brief History of Misogyny. The Oldest Prejudice in the World. Ark. Uay.

Oloni. (2024). Big O. Your Guide to the World of Love, Dating, and Sex. Booklover.

Lamb, Christina. (2024). Our Bodies Are Their Battlefield. Publishing.

Prince, Alois. (2024). The Life of Simone de Beauvoir. Tempora.

Nagoski, Emily. (2024). How Long a Woman Wants. The Science (and Art!) of Creating Lasting Sexual Relationships. KSD.

Lang, Olivia. (2024). Everyone’s Body. A Book About Freedom. Grushka.

Nekvapil, Kemi. (2024). Power: Live and Rule Without Apologies. Bookworm.

Fu, Stephanie. (2024). What My Bones Know. Bookworm.

Ukrainian Nonfiction
Alla Horska. (2024). Genealogy.

Blyostka, Katya. (2024). That’s How You Need It, or Why You Should Choose Yourself in a Relationship. Vikhola.

Gundorova, Tamara. (2024). Post-Chernobyl Library: Ukrainian Literary Postmodernism. Komubook

Gundorova, Tamara. (2024). Transit Culture and Postcolonial Trauma. Vikhola.

Oleksandra Ekster. Histories of Ukrainian Artists. (2024). Projector.

Lodzynska, Olena. (2024). Alla Horska. Flash Before Dawn. Clio.

Lomykamin. (2024). Women’s Resistance in Crimea. Exhibition Catalog. Initiator Tamila Tasheva, Curator Tetiana Filevska. Representation of the President of Ukraine in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea)

Tulchynska, Maya. (2024). I Forgot My Panties. Creative Women Publishing.

Academic Publications
Maierchyk, Maria. (2024, reprint). Ritual and Body: Ukrainian Rites of Passage. Criticism.

Matsenka, Svitlana (ed.) (2024). Cassandra Intermedium: Intermedia Studies. Apriori.

Otrishchenko, Natalia (ed.). (2024). Conversations with Those Who Ask About War. Lviv: Center for Urban History.

Pavlychko, Solomiya. (2024, reprint). Discourse of Modernism in Ukrainian Literature. Fundamentals.

Samoilenko, Hryhoriy. (2024). The Stars Continue to Shine: Maria Zankovetska and Her Eaglets: Monograph. Nizhyn: NDU named after M. Gogol.

Ukrainian-Canadian Research and Documentation Center. (2024). Ukrainian Women of the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp. Voices of Prisoners. Author: Kalyna Bezhlibnyk Butler (Solonynka); Chief Co-Editor: Lida Eliashevska Replyanska; co-editor and translator: Khrystyna Eliashevska Shraybi; co-editor: Oksana Martsyuk.

Shvets, Alla (ed.). (2024). “In the name of our national unity”: the voices of the authors of the almanac “The First Wreath”. Lviv: Ivan Franko Institute of the National Academy of Sciences.

Shevtsova, Maryna. (ed.) (2024). Feminist Perspective on Russia’s War in Ukraine. Hear Our Voices. Lexington Book.

References
Ukraine is not silent: Chronicle of the SNPK’s resistance (2022–2024). Folio. The publication was prepared and published within the framework of the project “Standing together. Improving the support system for victims of war-related sexual violence”, implemented by the Ukrainian Women’s Fund in partnership with the public organization “La Strada-Ukraine” and the Association of Women Lawyers of Ukraine “YurFem” with the support of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration and the Office of the Government Commissioner for Gender Policy and with funding from the European Union.

Literature for children and adolescents
Amson-Bradshaw, Georgia. (2024). Incredible women. Stories of women from around the world who inspire. RM.

Babkina, Kateryna. (2024). Mom, do you remember? Squirrel.

Vengrinyuk, Khrystya. (2024). My mother is a mountain. Vivat.

Kolb, Lyudmila. (2024). Train. Vikhola.

Kornienko, Kateryna. (2024). Dyvokrovtsi. Staroy Lev Publishing House.

Kupriyan, Olga. (2024). Miss Olya. Morning

Omelyanenko, Liliya (ed.). (2024.) She is fighting. Publishing house.

Sytnik, Violina. (2024). Lali. VC “Academy”.

Stus, Tanya. (2024). Sprouting. Yakaboo Publishing.

Reyes, Sonora. (2024). Guide to the Catholic School for Lesbians. Publishing house.

Frankova, Maria. (2024). Outstanding Ukrainian Women. Stories for Children about Courage, Fulfillment of Dreams and Faith in Yourself. Osnova.

Yarmolenko, Yulia (2024, reprint). Little Things About Intimate Things. Vikhola.

Zabela, Anastasia. (2024). About Sex and Other Questions That Interest Teenagers. Vivat.

Fiction/Fantasy
Gladstone, Max, El-Mokhtar, Amal. (2024). This is how the war of time is lost. KSD.

Hendrix, Grady. (2024). The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Vampire Destruction. BookChef.

Jemisin, N. K. (2024). The Broken Earth Series. Textbook – Bogdan.

Dean, Sunyi. (2024). Bookworms. Yakaboo Publishing

Katorozh, Yaryna. (2024). The Alchemy of Freedom. Georges.

Rybka, Olena (ed.). (2024). Motanka. Vivat.

Samoilenko, Kateryna. (2024). The Two-Flock Series. KSD.

Sanderson, Brandon. (2024). Tress from the Emerald Sea. Vivat.

Sky, Evelyn. (2024). The Virgin Against Trouble. Vivat.

Faisal, Hafsa. (2024). We Hunt the Flame. RM.

Schwartz, Dana. (2024). Immortality: A Love Story. Georges.

A. Achell. (2024). The Queen’s Blade: Child of Shadows. BookChef.

Ukrainian Fiction
Andrukhovych, Sofia. (2024). Katananhe. Komubuk.

Vilna, Pavla. (2024). Anna, Whom I Loved. Publishing House.

Volynska, Olena. (2024). I Hear You: The Intertwining of Fates by Kateryna Bilokur and Oksana Petrusenko. Vikhola.

Dolyak, Natalka. (2024). How Not to Love Her. Tempora.

Ilyukha, Yulia. (2024). My Women. Squirrel

Karpa, Irena (cont.). (2024). I (don’t) know how to write about this. Bookworm.

Nagornyuk, Yulia. (2024) Virgin, Mother and Third. Another Page.

Savaryna, Karina. (2024, reprint). Not Pregnant. Laboratory.

Sanina, Thea. (2024). Ant Circles. Tempora.

Svitova, Slava. (2024). Names. Creative Women Publishing.

Stus, Tanya. (2024). Sprouting. Yakaboo Publishing.

Tarasenko, Galina. (2024). Former People Should Not Read. Orlando.

Shavarska, Oksana. (2024). Rysochka. Bookworm.

Reprints of Ukrainian Classics
Vilde, Iryna. (2024). The Richyn Sisters (Volumes 1, 2, 3). Vikhola.

Zabuzhko, Oksana. (2024, reprint). The Tale of the Kalina Pipe. The Pantry.

Kobrinska, Nataliya. (2024). The Wandering Meteor. Selected Works. Another Page.

Kobrinska, Nataliya, Pchilka, Olena (ed.). (2024, reprint). The First Wreath: A Women’s Almanac. Creative Women Publishing.

Koroleva, Natalena. (2024). Silk Lady. Vivat.

Plytka-Gorytsvit, Paraska. A Sweet Book. Bricks.

Pchilka, Olena. (2024). Selected Works. Another Page.

Starytska-Chernyakhivska, Lyudmila. (2024). Selected Works. Another Page.

Foreign fiction
Bachmann, Ingeborg. (2024). Thirtieth year. Publishing house 21.

Benedict, Marie. (2024). The only woman in the room. Another page.

Besser, Jen, Feste, Shana. (2024). Lustful Diana. Booklover.

Westover, Tara. (2024). Educated. Artbooks

Walker, Alice. (2024). The color purple. Old Lion Publishing House.

Woolf, Virginia. (2024). Orlando. Another page.

Ganeshananthan, N. N. (2024). The single night. Booklover.

Henry, Patti Callaghan. (2024). The secret of Flora Lee’s book. Urbino.

Gudrun, Eva Minervudottir. (2024). Beloved. Texas. Publishing.

Lang, Olivia. (2024). Crudo. Pear.

Leckie, Marianne. (2024). What is visible from here. Vivat.

Morris, Heather. (2024). Sisters in the Morning Sun. Bookworm.

Morrison, Toni. (2024, reprint). Beloved. Plot.

Moss, Sarah (2024, reprint). Figures of Light. Laboratory.

Ngozi Adichie, Chimamanda (2024). Americana. Bookworm.

Newman, Sandra. (2024). Julia. 1984. Laboratory.

O’Farrell, Maggie. (2024). Marriage Portrait. Vivat.

Tokarczuk, Olga. (2024). Anna In in the Tombs of the World. Tempora.

Paintings, manga
Arleston. (2024). Grimoire of Elfie: Almost an Island. Nasha Idea.

Kabi, Nagata. (2024). Warrior-wanderer Nagata Kabi. Publishing house.

Kabi, Nagata. (2024). Diary of a relationship with herself. Publishing house.

Inder, Karin, Pelissier, Jerome. (2024). Serpanka. Volume 1: Awakening of the Dragon. Publishing house.

Stevenson, N. D. (2024). Nimona. Publishing house.

Strömqvist, Liv. (2024). The Reddest Rose Blooms. Publishing house.

Dr Pepperco. (2024). Farewell, Rose Garden (Volumes 1, 2, 3). Our Idea.

Poetry
Amelina, Victoria. (2024). Testimony. Stary Lev Publishing House

Kazanzhi, Zoya. (2024). Marta and Other Women. Stary Lev Publishing House.

Kaur, Rupee. (2024, reprint). Body, My Home. Vivat.

Pavlova, Olena. (2024). Light-Sensitive. Stary Lev Publishing House.

Savka, Maryana. (2024). Forever Tender. Stary Lev Publishing House.

Sazhynska, Iryna. (2024). Lemniscate. Torch.

Skyba-Yakubova, Ivanna. (2024). Instead of Apples. Stary Lev Publishing House.

Tsilyk, Iryna. (2024). Thin Ice. Meridian Chernowitz.

Books to be released in early 2025
Bakaev, Mykola, Pugach, Veronika (ed., trans.) (2025) Philosophers. Plato’s Cave.

Bechdel, Alison. (2025). Fun Home: A Family Tragicomedy. Publishing House.

Woolf, Virginia (2025). A Room of One’s Own. Komubuk.

Woolf, Virginia (2025). Waves. Komubuk.

In this bold and radical book, Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality, forthcoming from Laboratorio, science journalist Angela Saini explores the roots of what we call patriarchy: how it first took root in societies and spread across the world from prehistoric times to the present. Saini travels to the oldest known human settlements, analyzes the latest research findings, and traces cultural and political histories, arguing that colonialism and empires have radically changed the way of life in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, spreading rigid patriarchal customs and undermining the way people organize their families and work. In our time, despite the fight against sexism, violence, and discrimination, even revolutionary efforts to achieve equality often end in failure. But “Patriarchs” inspires hope—it reveals the multiplicity of human arrangements, challenges old narratives, and exposes male supremacy as an ever-changing element of control.

A dusty road lined with pistachio trees leads me from the ancient Turkish capital of Konya, home to the tomb of the Sufi poet Rumi, to the ruins of Çatal Göyük, once described as the world’s first city.

The place defies comprehension. Most of the settlement was long buried beneath a rise in the generally flat and arid plains of southern Anatolia. The small part that has been excavated reveals a society in which nothing follows the rules we’d expected. The edge of the archaeological site abruptly disappears into several floors of caves. The houses at Çatalhöyük—which means “fork of the road,” because that was all it was until the excavations—were built tightly together, back to back and wall to wall. They had flat roofs but no windows or doors. Residents entered and exited by ladders through openings in the roofs, walking on top of the houses, not between them. The dwellings were built in layers on top of older dwellings.

What makes Çatalhöyük special is that it was inhabited at the end of the Old Stone Age, at least 7400 BC, in the Neolithic period, before humans invented writing. This means it was inhabited almost 5,000 years before the first pyramids in Egypt and more than 4,000 years before Stonehenge was built in Britain. It is likely older even than the Harappan civilization in the Indus Valley. Çatalhöyük is located near the Fertile Crescent, a region in the Middle East that supported some of the world’s earliest farming communities. The land appears dry now, but it was once a wetland teeming with fish and birds. People gathered berries and herded goats nearby. They had clay and reeds to build their homes. But as incredibly early as Çatalhöyük is, it is still brimming with social and artistic complexity.

Thousands of people once called it home. The walls were regularly plastered, and striking works of art were created on the fresh surface. Bright red frescoes depict tiny stick figures hunting huge animals. Headless bodies, stalked by soaring vultures with wide wings. The walls are set with bull heads, their horns jutting out, as if in the interior of some American cowboy ranch.

“It was thought to be in the middle of nowhere, this huge mound with a really rich material culture that was 9,000 years old,” says Ruth Tringham, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, whose work focuses on the archaeology of Neolithic Europe. Almost as soon as excavations began in May 1961, Çatalhöyük became a focal point for those seeking to understand human organization at one of the oldest known settlements on the planet. In 1997, Tringham led part of a team that continued archaeological work at the site, helping to piece together a picture of what life might have been like for the people there.

It wasn’t just the buildings or the murals that fascinated archaeologists. My attention focused on something much smaller, something that would fit in the palm of my hand. Now proudly displayed in its own glass case at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, the treasure is known as the “Seated Woman of Çatal-Göyük.”

Experts believe that Çatal-Göyük may have been the site of an ancestor-worshiping cult. The remains of dead ancestors were kept in the same houses as the people, under platforms in the floor. The skulls were sometimes removed, even plastered and painted, and then passed on to one another. Hundreds of small figurines have been found at the site—some clearly human, others resembling animals or something more ambiguously anthropomorphic. Yet the sculptural finds at many Neolithic sites in this region and beyond are unmistakably replete with the likeness of the female form. There are dozens of them in the museum, a handful of tiny Barbara Hepworth-style clay figures. One figurine depicts the torso of a pregnant woman on one side and the protruding ribcage of a skeleton on the other. But nothing compares to the awesomeness of the Seated Woman.

When I see her, I understand the general admiration. Her head had to be reconstructed because it was missing when she was found, but that’s It doesn’t matter when the rest of her body says so much. Several scholars have described her as a symbol of fertility. To me, at least, she doesn’t look pregnant or particularly provocative. She’s curvy, and the bare curves of flesh cascade down her body like waterfalls. Deep grooves mark her knees and navel. These are the signs of a body that has lived a long time—perhaps an older woman, hardened by age. But what stands out most is her posture. Her back is perfectly straight. On either side of her thighs, beneath her palms, are what look like two large cats, perhaps leopards, staring straight ahead.

So the most intriguing aspect of the Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük is not her famously curvaceous body. It’s her posture, commanding two large cats. In a society apparently preoccupied with animals, hunting, and death, her appearance is admirably commanding.

Even matriarchal.