IRYNA VOLYTS’KA
Everything that I know I owe to my teachers-Sofia Fedortseva,
Bohdan Kozak, Natalia Kuziakina, and Nelli Kornienko. Due to
research on Les’ Kurbas’s theatrical sources and the Galician
cultural phenomenon, the questions “Who am I” and “Where am
I from” arise evermore deeply. Having devoted stacks of velum
to researching theatre I encountered other questions which gave
me no peace: “And what is theatre?”, “Why and for whom does
it exist?” Having lived half my life, I continue to search for
answers. I find myself trusting the following words of Paolo
Coello: “When you aim for something the whole world conspires
to help you”. I once wrote a poem, the only one dear to me,
as a remembrance of my youth and of those no longer with us.
...He was crucified in early evening in a city square
By which taxis streetcars and trolleybuses passed
Bags filled with cabbage and herring glimmered
The clock on city hall sounded every fifteen minutes
No one noticed the woman standing nearby
Perhaps for no reason or perhaps in await of someone
Her hands held a dusty stalk
And words were simply lost in the human hum
Blessed be Thy Name...
Candidate in art scholarship, theatre critic, director, ethnographer.
Graduate of the theatre criticism scholarship division of the
St. Petersburg Institute of Theatre, Music, and Cinematography
(1980). Graduate studies at this institute were completed with
the defense of a dissertation entitled “Problems of the formation
of Les’ Kurbas’s Creative Personality (St. Petersburg, 1992).
Authored the following monographs while employed by the Institute
of People Studies of the NAA of Ukraine and the Les’ Kurbas
Centre as a senior researcher: Theatrical Elements in Traditional
Ukrainian ritualism in the Carpathians From the First Half of
the 19th Century to the Early 20th Century (Kyiv, 1993), Les’
Kurbas’s Theatrical Youth (Lviv, 1995). In 1997 along with
actress Lidia Danyl’chuk founded the “Theatre in a Basket” artistic
collective, where she directed White Butterflies, Woven
Chains... (based on short stories by Vasyl’ Stefanyk),
1997, Ivan Franko’s Stolen Happiness, 1998, and Lesia
Ukrainka’s On a Field of Blood, 2001.
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