1906–1942
Olena Teliha
Poet and OUN activist
A poet and essayist who grew up in a Russian-speaking environment and, in emigration, became one of the voices of Ukrainian nationalism. In 1941, in occupied Kyiv, she headed the Union of Ukrainian Writers. In 1942 she was executed by the Nazis and most likely buried at Babyn Yar.
Key accomplishments
- Poems and essays in Dmytro Dontsov’s journal Vistnyk (from 1933); the posthumous collection The Soul on Guard (1946)
- Headed the Zarevo literary and artistic society in Cracow (1939–1941)
- In 1941, in occupied Kyiv, headed the Union of Ukrainian Writers and edited the literary weekly Litavry
Who she was
Olena Shovheniva was born in 1906 in the village of Ilyinskoye near Moscow, into the family of the hydraulic engineer Ivan Shovheniv (as given by the Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine; the Canadian Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine gives 1907 and Saint Petersburg). In 1918 the family moved to Kyiv, and in 1922 settled in Poděbrady in Czechoslovakia, where her father worked at the Ukrainian Husbandry Academy. Olena grew up in a Russian-speaking environment and began speaking Ukrainian only in emigration. In 1923–1929 she studied at the Mykhailo Drahomanov Ukrainian Higher Pedagogical Institute in Prague, and in 1926 she married Mykhailo Teliha, a bandura player, Kuban Cossack and former soldier of the army of the Ukrainian People’s Republic.
Her story
In 1929–1939 the Telihas lived in Warsaw, where Olena taught at a Ukrainian school. From 1933 she published poems and essays in Dmytro Dontsov’s journal Vistnyk; in her writing she saw the Ukrainian woman as an equal participant in the struggle for independence. In December 1939 Teliha joined the OUN (after the 1940 split, on the side of Andrii Melnyk) and in Cracow worked with Oleh Olzhych in the leadership’s cultural section, heading the Zarevo literary and artistic society.
On 22 October 1941 she arrived in Nazi-occupied Kyiv with the OUN expeditionary groups. There Teliha headed the Union of Ukrainian Writers and edited Litavry, the literary and arts supplement to the newspaper Ukrainske Slovo. According to the Encyclopedia of the History of Ukraine, she saved the poet Yakiv Halperin from arrest. When the occupation authorities closed Ukrainske Slovo and replaced it with the loyal Nove Ukrainske Slovo, Teliha refused to cooperate. On 9 February 1942 the Gestapo arrested her together with her husband. The exact date of her execution is unknown: most often 21 February 1942 is given, and another version says 13 February. She was most likely buried at Babyn Yar. Her poems were published as a book only after her death, in the collection The Soul on Guard (1946).
Debates and assessments
Teliha belonged to the OUN and published in Dontsov’s Vistnyk, the mouthpiece of integral nationalism, an ideology that was authoritarian in character. As critics of her commemoration, including the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, point out, the newspaper Ukrainske Slovo, whose supplement she edited, also printed antisemitic material in the autumn of 1941. For this reason, when a monument to Teliha was unveiled in 2017 at Babyn Yar, where the Nazis shot tens of thousands of Jews in 1941, the Ukrainian Jewish Committee objected. Supporters of her commemoration stress that she refused to cooperate with the occupiers and was killed by the Nazis. The assessment of her role in occupied Kyiv remains a subject of debate.
Why it matters today
Teliha is one of the best-known poets of the Prague school and a symbol of resistance for many Ukrainians: streets in dozens of cities bear her name, a memorial cross was put up at Babyn Yar in 1992, and in 2007 the National Bank issued a coin in her honor. At the same time, her figure shows how hard it is to remember a war in which different tragedies intersected.
