Mirna, Zinaida

Mirna, Zinaida [Мірна, Зінаїда; née Хильчевська; Khylchevska], b 12 October 1875 (or 1878) in Horodnia, Chernihiv gubernia, d 1 April 1950 in Prague. Civic and political leader; wife of Ivan Mirny. After moving to Kyiv in 1910, she was active in the Ukrainian women's movement and women's education movement. During the First World War she organized relief for deportees from Western Ukraine and played an important role during Ukraine’s struggle for independence (1917–20) as a member of the Central Rada and the Little Rada. In 1919 she helped found the National Council of Ukrainian Women in Kamianets-Podilskyi, and she served as its vice-president. Later she headed its Berlin branch. After settling in Prague in 1924, she served as the longtime president of the Ukrainian Women's Union in Czechoslovakia and gave much of her time to the Museum of Ukraine's Struggle for Independence. In 1937 she was elected to the presidium of the World Union of Ukrainian Women. She was a constant contributor to the Ukrainian press and a translator of French literature into Ukrainian.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]