New steps towards the improvement of Kosachs family pantheon in Kolodiazhne

Lawyer and owner of a law firm in Lugano Roberto Haab visited Volyn for the fourth time. This time, Haab came to the International Academic Conference “Lesia Ukrainka and National Culture” held in Eastern European National University, whose patroness Lesia Ukrainka (Kosach) was a sister of his grandmother Oksana Kosach-Shymanovska, with his big family: son Hugo, daughter-in-law Martha, and daughter Edda.

Director of the Taras Shevchenko Institute of Literature, director of the Research Institute of Lesia Ukrainka within the Eastern European National University, Academician Mykola Zhulynsky introduced Roberto Haab to the audience as a “guardian and chronicler of history of Drahomanov-Kosach family.” He is a really decent example of how a person can preserve family traditions. In a short period of time Roberto Haab, born in Milan and now a citizen of Switzerland, not only learned many new things about his family, he also discovered the Drahomanov-Kosach family to the Ukrainian people. In his speech at the academic conference he said that according to undocumented information, Drahomanov family originated in Greece and the Kosachs – in Bosnia, the Balkans, but they became the glory of Ukraine. Haab also said that in the past year he studied creative work and personal life of Lesia Ukrainka much less because he already has accumulated enough information regarding her figure. Instead, he learned a lot about her uncle Mykhailo Drahomanov. He thinks that Drahomanov was a man of great intellect and a great political philosopher, who can be a model and example not only for Ukraine today.

But the most important aspect that keeps drawing the descendant of Lesia Ukrainka to Volyn is not a chance to give a speech at a respectable academic conference. But an opportunity, as he wrote in the guest book of Kolodiazhne Literary and Memorial Museum of Lesia Ukrainka during his first visit, “to find something about myself, which I didn’t have before, and to bring my greetings to the souls of my ancestors, who may still be roaming these places… Now I have found myself, found a part of my roots, now I have a clear idea about myself.” According to the director of the Memorial Museum in Kolodiazhne Vira Komziuk, even during his first visit to Volyn in 2001, Roberto Haab right after he came to Kolodiazhne asked to take him to the local cemetery. He was looking for the trace of his ancestors there too and not only to bow his head over their graves. Already then he wanted to move the remains of Lesia Ukrainka’s sisters, his grandmother – Oksana Kosach-Shymanovska – and Olha Kosach-Kryvyniuk, to this place. One of Lesia Ukrainka’s sisters was buried in Prague and another – in Austria. This would be a kind of a memorial pantheon, especially since a new memorial will soon be installed on the grave of Mykola Kosach, Lesia Ukrainka’s brother, who, as it turned out, spent his last years in the family of grandfather of the current Chairman of the Volyn Oblast State Administration Borys Klimchuk. This memorial will be installed at the expense of the Oblast State Administration. Haab has met with Klimchuk, who also supports the idea of arranging a memorial to the glorious family of Kosachs. Soon requests will be filed to appropriate institutions to resolve the issue with the transfer of ashes of Lesia Ukrainka’s sisters. Komziuk says that Haab expressed a wish that the reburial would take place at the village cemetery in Kolodiazhne. However, there is an idea to build either a chapel or a symbolic arbor on the territory of the memorial museum. For now, Haab pleased with promises and understanding of the local authorities showed the Kosach family home to his children. Komziuk was impressed by how deeply he had studied his genealogy and how highly he honors it.