With Women’s History Month beginning on Tuesday, it is sad, yet fitting, to remember all the girls and women whom history has forgotten. Whether through acts of aggression, acts of neglect, or acts of nature, more voices have been silenced than we can ever know. For every story and heroine we uncover, there are countless more that have been so completely erased we’ll never know their stories existed.
There are, however, some stories we are grateful to be able to share. Lina Kostenko, born in 1930, is a Ukrainian poet who helped usher in a new style in Ukrainian literature, while criticising the totalitarian regime of the time. Maria Prymachenko (1908-1997) was a Ukrainian folk artist in the Naïve art style, who was praised by Picasso and whose work was immediately successful. Solomiya Krushelnytska (1872-1952) was a Ukrainian soprano, considered by Madama Butterfly composer Giacomo Puccini to be “The most beautiful and charming Butterfly.” And Olha Kobylianska (1863-1942), was a primarily self-educated author and feminist, using her writing to advance the cause of women’s emancipation in Ukraine.
Girl Museum will always stand with and for the innocent, the victims, and the oppressed.