tutors at home, to avoid schools that taught Russian as the primary language. Ukrainka learned how to read at the age of four, and she and her brother Mykhailo could read foreign languages well enough to read literature in the original. By the time she was eight, Ukrainka wrote her first poem, "Hope," which was composed in reaction to the arrest and exile of her aunt, Olena Kosach, for taking part in a political movement against the tsarist autocracy. In 1879, her entire family moved to Lutsk. That same year her father started building houses for the family in the nearby village of Kolodiazhne. It was at this time that her uncle, Mykhailo Drahomanov, encouraged her to study Ukrainian folk songs, folk stories, and history, as well to peruse the Bible for its inspired poetry and eternal themes. She also was influenced by the well-known composer Mykola Lysenko, as well as the famous Ukrainian dramatist and poet Mykhailo Starytsky. At age thirteen, her first published poem, "Lily of the Valley," appeared in the magazine Zorya in Lviv. It was here that she first used her pseudonym, which was suggested by her mother because, in the Russian Empire, publications in the Ukrainian language were forbidden. Ukrainka's first collection of poetry had to be published secretly in western Ukraine and snuck into Kyiv under her pseudonym. At this time, Ukrainka was well on her way of becoming a pianist, but due to tuberculosis of the bone, she did not attend any outside educational establishment. The writing was to be the main focus of her life. Since the beginning of the 90s, the poetess has been communicating with the Poltava region. From the summer of 1893 to the middle of 1906, Lesya lived almost every summer in Hadiach and near the city, in the Green Grove. The writing of many works is marked by this place; in particular, the legend "Robert Bruce, King of Scotland" was written here. It was here that Lesya befriended the teacher A. S. Makarova, with whom she later corresponded, the latter left memories of the poetess. The poems and plays of Ukrainka are associated with her belief in her country's freedom and independence. Between 1895 and 1897, she became a member of the Literary and Artistic Society in Kyiv, which was banned in 1905 because of its relations with revolutionary activists. In 1888, when Ukrainka was seventeen, she