The brilliant poet Lina Kostenko is 94. Prophetic poems about Ukraine and the war
19 March 2024 12:15
Today, on 19 March, Lina Kostenko, a writer, poet of the sixties and a classic of Ukrainian literature, celebrates her 94th birthday. Komersant ukrainskyi 
has collected interesting facts from the writer’s life and prophetic poems about Ukraine and the war.
Lina Kostenko is a master of words, a strong woman and a living legend, and her life has become an example for millions of Ukrainians and a source of boundless wisdom. Her statements are impressive and encourage reflection on eternal questions.
Throughout her life, the writer was not afraid of the authorities and spoke the truth frankly, both during the KGB period and during Yanukovych’s presidency.
Life and work of the poetess
Lina Kostenko was born into a family of teachers on 19 March 1930 in the city of Rzhyshchev in the Kyiv region. At the age of six, the family moved to Kyiv, where Lina finished school. Already at the beginning of her school life, she attended a literary studio at the Dnipro magazine, run by Andrii Malyshko. She published her first poems at the age of sixteen.
Lina Kostenko’s childhood was spent during the Second World War, so she had heard the sounds of explosions and seen the devastating effects of shelling before.
After graduating from high school, the future poet studied at the Kyiv Pedagogical Institute and then at the Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow, where she graduated in 1956. Immediately after graduation, Lina Kostenko published her first collection of poetry, Rays of the Earth.
Her second collection, Sails, was published in 1958, followed by Journeys of the Heart in 1961. Lina Kostenko gained the love and respect of the Ukrainian public, but her work was not always understood.
The collection Starry Integral in 1962 was banned by the censors, and for 15 years Lina Kostenko’s name disappeared from literary life. During this time, she continued to write, and her works became key for the generation of Ukrainian sixties.
Kostenko returned to readers only in 1977, when she published a collection of poems, Over the Banks of the Eternal River, and in 1979, a historical novel in verse, Marusia Churai. in 1987, she received the Shevchenko Prize for Marusya Churai.
After publishing Inlays in 1994 and Berestechko in 1999, Kostenko disappeared from public life for ten years. She returned to the literary world in 2010 with the publication of her first prose novel, Notes of a Ukrainian Samashodshchy. However, in 2011 she decided to interrupt her presentation tour due to personal circumstances.
Not much is known about Kostenko’s personal life. She was married twice. Her first marriage to Jerzy-Jan Pachlowski did not last long. Her second marriage was to Vasyl Tsvirkunov, with whom she lived for 25 years. In this marriage, they had a son, Vasyl.
In 2000, Leonid Kuchma awarded Lina Kostenko the Order of Yaroslav the Wise. Later, under the presidency of Viktor Yushchenko, she refused the title of Hero of Ukraine. But the poet refused to accept the awards, commenting: “I do not wear political jewellery.”
However, in 2022, she was awarded the French Legion of Honour, and made her first public appearance in a long time.
Lina Kostenko continues to write. She worked even when there were battles near Kyiv.
“I belong to the generation that lived through the Second World War. And these bombs at four o’clock in the morning – I’ve been used to them since childhood. Now I heard the same bombs again, more terrible ones, and I must tell you, I was not afraid. I never went to the shelter. I thought it was okay, let it go: if it kills me, it will kill me. The first month, however, I didn’t write much. For the first month, I followed every step and nuance of this war. And then I pulled myself together and started writing, writing and writing. And other people are doing their own thing in their profession,”
– the writer said in 2022.
Lina Kostenko’s best quotes
Yes, the state is me, not what they did to it. And if everyone realised that the state is them, we would have a decent state by now.
And you thought Ukraine was so simple. Ukraine is super. Ukraine is exclusive. It has been through all the rinks of history. All kinds of trials have been worked out on it. It is hardened to the highest degree. In the modern world, it has no price.
Fate does not smile on slaves.
We are a unique nation. Our farmers were starved to death. Directors staged plays in concentration camps. Poets were buried in permafrost. Who else has an atomic sarcophagus? We do.
How many of us, humanity, are there on the planet? Six billion? And among them are Ukrainians, a strange, strange nation that has lived here for centuries and is only now building its independent state.
History is written on a table. We write them in blood on our own land.
Nations do not die of a heart attack. First, they lose their language.
Words are terrible when they are silent.
In order to raise real men, you need to raise real women.
“Notes of a Ukrainian Samashid”: Every nation has its own diseases. In Russia, it is incurable.
In our country, if you speak Ukrainian, you are already a nationalist.
I am not afraid of anything. I’m only afraid of being involved with idiots.
The eternal paradigm of history is that some people fight for freedom, and others come to power.
In general, I think that this people still cannot build their own state, because they have experienced a great historical humiliation.
It is a crime to betray a state in your life, but is it possible to betray a person?
Half of Ukraine is a Cossack orphan. From Lokhvytsia to Moldova, half of Ukraine is made up of Cossack widows.
Those who, like me, suffered in the war, have made life more valuable.
