Dniprova Chaika

Dniprova Chaika [Дніпрова Чайка; Dniprova Čajka] (pseudonym of Liudmyla Berezyna; married name, Vasylevska), b 20 October 1861 in Karlivka, Kherson gubernia, d 13 March 1927 in Hermanivka (now Krasne Druhe), Kyiv oblast. Writer; wife of Teofan Vasylevsky. Dniprova Chaika began her literary career in 1884, publishing her work in almanacs and periodicals, including the journal Pravda, Zoria (Lviv), and Literaturno-naukovyi vistnyk. In 1905 she was arrested for her writings. She wrote realist short stories, influenced to some extent by populist ideas, on the life of the peasantry and intelligentsia; these include ‘Chudnyi’ (The Eccentric, 1904), ‘Khrestonos’ (Crusader, 1896), and ‘Vol'terianets’’ (The Voltairean, 1908). Other works, especially the cycle ‘Mors'ki maliunky’ (Seascapes, 1900), ‘Shpaky’ (The Starlings, 1901), ‘Plavni horiat'’ (The Floodplains Are Aflame, 1902), and ‘Samotsvity’ (Precious Stones), are lyrical prose studies and symbolist miniatures that belong to Ukrainian modernism. She also wrote poetry and libretti for the children's operas of Mykola Lysenko: Pan Kots’kyi (Sir Catsky), and Zyma i vesna abo Snihova kralia (Winter and Spring or the Snow Queen). Together with Sofiia Rusova and A. Hrabenko, she wrote the libretto for Koza-Dereza (Billy-Goat's Bluff). Her selected works, edited and with an introduction by Mykhailo Ivchenko, were issued in one volume in 1929 by the Chas publishing house, and in two volumes in 1931 by the Rukh publishing house.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Pinchuk, Volodymyr. Dniprova Chaika (Kyiv 1984)

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 1 (1984).]