Olha Yulianivna Kobylianska (; 27 November 1863 Gura Humorului, Bukovina, Austro-Hungary - 21 March 1942 Cernăuți, Cernăuți County, Romania) was a Ukrainian modernist writer and feminist. Biography Origin Kobylianska was born in Gura Humorului () in Bukovina (now in Suceava County, Romania) in the family of a minor administration worker of Ukrainian noble descent from Central Ukraine. She was the fourth child of seven in the family of Maria Werner (1837–1912) and Yulian Yakovych Kobyliansky (1827–1912). One of her distant relatives was the German poet Zacharias Werner. Maria Werner was a Polonized German who was baptized a Greek Catholic and learned the local dialect of the Ukrainian language. One of Olha's brothers, Stepan Yulianovych, became a painter-portraitist, another, Yulian Yulianovych, became a philologist and was the author of several textbooks in Latin. Early days Kobylianska was mainly self-educated, receiving only four years of formal schooling in the German language. She wrote her first works in German, beginning in 1880. Besides a proficiency in German she spoke Ukrainian as well as Polish. Sometime in 1868, she moved with her family to Suceava where her father accepted a job. There she met with Olha Ustyianovych, the daughter of Ukrainian writer Mykola Ustyianovych. In 1889, she moved to her mother's parents estate in the village of Dymka (today part of Chernivtsi Raion, Chernivtsi Oblast). In 1973, a museum was opened there in her memory. Chernivtsi In 1891, she moved to Chernivtsi. There she met Natalia Kobrynska (Ozarkevych), Doctor Sofia Okunevska, and fell in love with Kobrynska's brother, Dr. Yevhen Ozarkevych. In 1894, she became one of the initiators of the Association of Ruthenian Women in Bukovina, the program of which she included in her brochure Something about the idea of the feminist movement. One of her most prominent works which captured her political and social views was the novel Tsarivna (Princess), published in the Bukovina newspaper in 1895, as well as in other publications later. In 1896, she wrote Arystokratka, followed by Impromptu phantasie, and Valse melancolique in 1898. The last of these constituted a pioneering treatment of same-sex love, and was based partly on Kobylians'ka's own experiences. In the 1890s, she had enjoyed a romantic relationship with the male literary critic, Osyp Makovei, who had championed Kobylians'ka's work and was comfortable with the theme of strong, independent, educated female characters who asserted their right for sexual fulfillment. However, the two later broke