Oksana Stefanivna Zabuzhko is a Ukrainian writer, poetess, essayist, publicist, teacher.
Place of Birth, Education
She was born on September 19, 1960 in Lutsk in a family of philologists.
In 1968, she moved to Kyiv with her parents.
In 1982, Zabuzhko graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy of Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv, and in 1986 she completed her postgraduate studies at the Department of Ethics and Aesthetics of the same institution.
In 1987, she defended her dissertation “The Aesthetic Nature of Lyrics as an Art Direction” and received a PhD in Philosophy.
Career
Literary activity
As a child, Zabuzhko dreamed of becoming a film director, but connected her life with literature. She began to write poems “from pre-literate age”, and first published them in the press at the age of 9.
In 1973, the publishing house “Youth” planned to release her first collection “Spring Watercolor”. However, after the repressions of 1972, Zabuzhko’s parents were blacklisted. Because of this, the prepared book was taken out of print.
The writer no longer published her early poems. Her first published poetry collection “May Frost” was published only in 1985.
In 1996, the writer’s first novel “Field Studies on Ukrainian Sex” was published. The book caused conflicting reviews from critics and readers, but at the same time became one of the bestsellers of Ukrainian literature after independence.
In 2006, according to the results of a survey by the Elit-Profi agency, the novel was called the book that “had the greatest impact on Ukrainian society in 15 years of independence.” The work was translated into 15 languages and included in the lists of modern Eastern European classics.
In 2009, the novel “Museum of Abandoned Secrets” was published, translated into 6 languages. It is a family saga covering the events of World War II, the 1970s and early 2000s.
In the book, the author paid considerable attention to the history of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).
Zabuzhko’s most famous nonfiction book was “Notre Dame d’Ukraine: Ukrainian Woman in the Conflict of Mythologies”, published in 2007. In it, the author examines Ukrainian cultural history through the figure of Lesya Ukrainka and the postcolonial approach. She pays special attention to the Ukrainian nobility and intelligentsia.
Community Service
From 1995 to 2010, Zabuzhko was vice president of the Ukrainian PEN Club.
In the fall of 2004, she drew the attention of the international community to the presidential elections in Ukraine. On the eve of the Orange Revolution, she published an article in The Wall Street Journal “Ukrainian Solidarity”, in which she predicted mass protests.
On November 28, 2005, Zabuzhko spoke at the First Presidential Hearings with a report “Humanitarian Policy and State Independence”.
Before the parliamentary elections of 2006, the writer was offered to run for the Our Ukraine bloc, but she refused.
In June 2018, Zabuzhko supported an open letter calling on world leaders to protect director Oleg Sentsov, imprisoned in Russia, and other Ukrainian political prisoners.
In 2023, the writer was included in the list of 100 women of the year according to the BBC.
Marital Status
The writer is married to the artist Rostislav Luzhetsky.
