Lina Kostenko

Lina Vasylivna Kostenko
The famous Ukrainian poet Lina Vasylivna Kostenko was born on the 19th of March, 1930 in the town of Rzhyshchev in Kyiv region in the teachfamily. Since 1936 she lived in Kyiv where she graduated from the secondary school. Lina Kostenko continued her edin the Kyiv Pedagogical Institute. As a matter of fact she did not want to stop at this level and in 1956 she gradu-ated from the Moscow Literary Institute.
Such Ukrainian outstanding writers as Taras Shevchenko and Lesya Ukrainka, I. Karpenko-Kary and M. Kotsubinsky, M. Rylsky and A. Dovzhenko influenced the creative works of Lina Kostenko. The leading theme in her poems is the role of an artist and art in the society, its close connection with the people's life.
Lina Kostenko belongs to the genera-tion that is usually called "the children of the war". That is why the problems of war and peace are very often raised in her works.
The Chornobyl tragedy did not leave Lina Kostenko careless. The new topic became interesting for her — the probof ecology.
Nevertheless I would like to admit that the majority of Lina Kostenko's works are dedicated to the historical life of Ukraine.
The most famous Lina Kostenko's creation is the novel in verses "Marusya Chury". In this work the political, philand esthetic problems are raised against the national background. In the centre of the novel is the image oflegendary Marusya Chury — the poet and the author of many Ukrainian folk songs. In the novel the accent is made on Marusya's love to people, her mothand her patriotic feelings are un-derlined as well. The action takes place in the period of the liberation war of the Ukrainian people that was headed byBogdan Khmelnitsky. In this context Lina Kostenko depicted the tragic love story of Marusya and Grits Bobrenko. It was difficult for Marusya to forgive her beloved for betraying their feelings, because Grits decided to marry another girl for the reason she was rich. Marusya made up her mind to commit the suiAccidentally Grits drank the poiprepared by Marusya for herself.
Lina Kostenko managed to create the perfect picture of psychological, heroic and romantic life of Marusya Chury and to depict the historical events in Ukraine in the mid of the 17th century.
Being devoted to national traditions Lina Kostenko proves the immortal spiritual values of the Ukrainian people, and that fact makes her creative works sound very vital especially today when the Ukrainians solve the problem of the national and cultural revival of their country.

In my opinion, in the modern Ukraine almost nobody can be called a real hero of our time. To my mind, Lina Kostenko is worthy of the biggest respect and the title of legendary public figure.


Lina Vasilivna Kostenko is a famous Ukrainian poet, she was born on the 19th of March, 1930 in town Rzhishchev, Kiev region, in a family of teachers. In 1936 the family moved to Kiev, where Lina graduated from high school. She studied at the Kiev Pedagogical Institute and Moscow Literature Institute named after M. Gorky, which graduated in 1956.

Works of Lina Kostenko

Lina Kostenko was one of the first young Ukrainian poets who started to write in the late 1950-1960's.Collections of her poems, "The rays of the earth" and "Sails" attracted the readers and critics, and the book "Journey of the heart" put her name among the great masters of Ukrainian poetry. Books of L. Kostenko "Above the banks of the river of eternal", "Marusya Churay", "Uniqueness" were extraordinary phenomena of modern Ukrainian poetry. Lina also wrote a collection of poems, "Neta Sculpture Garden" and a collection of poems for children "Buzinovuy tsar".In 2010 she released her first novel in prose: "Notes of Ukrainian madman."