Izydora Kosach-Borysova

Izydora Petrivna Kosach-Borysova (Ukrainian: Ізидора Петрівна Косач-Борисова; 21 March 1888 – 12 April 1980) was a Ukrainian writer, scientist, educator, and translator.

Izydora Kosach-Borysova
Ізидора Косач-Борисова
A young white woman with hair in a bouffant updo, wearing a white pleated blouse with a dark bow at the neck
Izydora Kosach as a young woman
Born
Izydora Petrivna Kosach

21 March 1888
Kolodiazhne
Died12 April 1980
Piscataway, New Jersey
Occupations
  • Writer
  • agronomist
  • plant physiologist
  • translator
  • educator
MotherOlena Pchilka
RelativesMykhailo Drahomanov (uncle)
Lesya Ukrainka (sister)
Olha Kosach-Kryvyniuk (sister)

Early life and education

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Kosach-Borysova was born in Kolodiazhne, the daughter of Petro Antonovych Kosach and writer Olena Pchilka. Writers Lesya Ukrainka and Olha Kosach-Kryvyniuk were her older sisters, and Mykhailo Drahomanov was their uncle.[1] She was one of the first women admitted to Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, and graduated from the school's agronomy program in 1911.[2]

Career

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Kosach worked in the viticulture industry in Kyshyniv; after 1917 she taught and researched plant physiology in Kyiv, and worked as a translator of French literature. She was convicted of "counter-revolutionary agitation" in 1937, and spent two years in a labor camp, and at Lukianivska Prison in Kyiv.[3] She left Ukraine with her daughter and her sister Olha in 1944[1] after she was imprisoned by the Gestapo. She spent time in refugee camps,[4] and moved to the United States in 1949.[2]

Kosach-Borysova wrote memoirs. She and her sister, journalist Olha Kosach-Kryvyniuk, worked with Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences (UVAN) to publish their sister's works on the occasion of Lesya Ukrainka's centenary.[2][5] She was an honorary member of the Union of Ukrainian Women of America.

Personal life

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Kosach married Yuri Hryhorovych Borysov in 1912. They had a daughter, Olga.[6] Her husband died in a Siberian prison in 1941. She died in 1980, at the age of 92, in Piscataway, New Jersey.[2] In 1989, she was posthumously "rehabilitated" by the Supreme Soviet, and soon after her daughter transferred her papers to a Ukrainian archive.

References

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  1. ^ a b Haan, Francisca de; Daskalova, Krasimira; Loutfi, Anna (2006-01-01). Biographical Dictionary of Women's Movements and Feminisms in Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe: 19th and 20th Centuries. Central European University Press. p. 419. ISBN 978-963-7326-39-4.
  2. ^ a b c d "Izydora Kosach-Borysova, Lesia Ukrainka's sister, dies" The Ukrainian Weekly (April 20, 1980): 2.
  3. ^ Struk, Danylo Husar (1993-12-15). Encyclopedia of Ukraine: Volume III: L-Pf. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-4426-5125-8.
  4. ^ Isajiw, Wsevolod W.; Boshyk, Yuri; Senkus, Roman (1992). The Refugee Experience: Ukrainian Displaced Persons After World War II. CIUS Press. p. 208. ISBN 978-0-920862-85-8.
  5. ^ ""Brilliant daughter of the Ukrainian people"". Korsun-Shevchenkivskiy State Historical and Cultural Preserve. 2021-04-15. Retrieved 2024-03-27.
  6. ^ "Olga Borysova Serheeva, talented artist". The Courier-News. 2001-07-26. p. 17. Retrieved 2024-03-27 – via Newspapers.com.
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