Knysh, Irena

Knysh, Irena [Книш, Ірена; Knyš; née Шкварок, Shkvarok], b 20 April 1909 in Lviv, d 11 May 2006 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Feminist and author; wife of Zynovii Knysh. After emigrating to Canada in 1950, she worked as a journalist and wrote extensively on the Ukrainian women's movement. Her major works include Ivan Franko ta rivnopravnist' zhinky (Ivan Franko and Equal Rights for Women, 1956); Smoloskyp u temriavi (A Torch in the Darkness, 1957), a study of Nataliia Kobrynska and the origins of the Ukrainian women's movement; and Try rovesnytsi: 1860–1960 (Three [Ukrainian] Contemporaries: 1860–1960, nd), a collection of biographical studies of Uliana Kravchenko, Mariia Bashkirtseva, and Mariia Zankovetska. She edited a collection of reminiscences, Nezabutnia Ol'ha Basarab: Vybrane (The Unforgettable Olha Basarab: Selections, 1976), and published two collections of her journalistic articles.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 2 (1988).]