Spirit of Flame: A Collection of the Works of Lesya Ukrainka. Translated by Percival Cundy (HQ158)

Published 1950: First Edition / Hardcover / Very Good Condition / Illustrated frontispiece

Original blue embossed cloth with gilt titles on the spine and original pictorial dust jacket. 320 very clean and bright pages. Boards slightly rubbed with time and slight shelf wear on the dust jacket consistent with age. A very scarce publication. (HQ158)

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Lesya Ukrainka (born Larysa Petrivna Kosach-Kvitka (February 25, 1871 – August 1, 1913) is one of is one of Ukrainian literature's foremost writers, best known for her poems and plays. She also was an active political, civil, and feminist activist

Among her most well-know works are poems collections «On the wings of songs» (1893), «Thoughts and Dreams» (1899), «Echos» (1902), epic poem «Ancient fairy tale» (1893), «One word» (1903), plays «Princess» (1913), «Cassandra» (1903—1907), «In the Catacombs» (1905), «Forest song» (1911).

Reviews:
As a scholar of Ukrainian history I've known about Lesya Ukrainka for decades, and I saw a production of Forest Song some twenty years ago, but I've never read her thinking I should probably read her in the original. Finding myself teaching a history course about Ukraine and Russia, in which students have the opportunity to read some Russian or Ukrainian literature, I thought I better familiarize myself with this text since a student might decided to read it -- none did as it turns out. In any case, this book was very much a product of its time, and the postwar effort to raise awareness about Ukrainian culture. So this selection makes an effort to show various facets of Ukrainka's interests rather than highlight her literary genius such as it might be. Thus the headings about "Human Rights" and such. The dramatic poems are the more interesting items here. One has think of her as something of a symbolist and modernist like the Polish playwright Wyspiański. In the two plays set during the Babylonian Captivity it is not difficult to see a metaphor for Ukrainians plight living under Russian rule. The piece "A Noble Woman" does so even more directly. Forest Song though really is transcendent. While drawing on Ukrainian folklore, it is more focused on the broader phenomenon of modernity, though one can also see it as reflecting her peculiar position as a leading figure in a small literary and cultural seen, whose ability to connect romantically was hampered by her illness.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2178660.Spirit_of_Flame