Natalena Koroleva

She was educated at the Convent of Notre Dame de Sion in France, the Kyiv Institute for Noble Maidens and the Archeological Institute in Saint Petersburg. She studied history, archaeology, philosophy, medicine and music theory and was fluent in a number of languages including French, Polish, Spanish, Arabic and Italian. Koroleva participated in archaeological expeditions to Pompeii, Alexandria, Armenia and Iran. Her first work, written in French, was published in journals in Paris in 1909. She returned to Kyiv in 1914 because her father was ill. She served as a Red Cross nurse during World War I and was seriously wounded. In 1919, she moved to Czechoslovakia, where she worked as a translator for the Ukrainian diplomatic mission in Prague. In 1921, she published her first Ukrainian work, a short story, in the Ukrainian-language weekly Volia in Vienna. Her stories were published in various Ukrainian-language publications, especially Dzvony. She also translated works by other authors into Ukrainian. Later, in Prague, she married Vasyl Koroliv-Stary, a Ukrainian writer and publisher; he died in 1941. During her lifetime, she was criticized because her plots and characters were often abstract and did not reflect Ukrainian reality. Now, she is recognized for her unique contributions to Ukrainian literature.

Source: • Vo dni ony ("Once upon a Time"), stories (1935) • 1913, novella (1935) • Inakshyi svit ("A Different World"), stories (1936) • Bez korinnia ("Without Roots"), autobiographical novella (1936) • Son tini ("A Dream of a Shadow"), historical novel (1938) • Legendy starokyïvs’ki ("Ancient Kyivan Legends"(stories, 2 solumves (1942–3) • Predok ("An Ancestor"), historical novella (1961) • Quid est veritas, historical novella (1961) • Bez korinnia, collected works (2007) • Tvory ("Works"), collected works (2010)