Liudmyla Skyrda is a Ukrainian poet, scholar, literary critic, cultural researcher, translator, and pedagogue. She is a member of the National Union of Writers of Ukraine and a laureate of several international literary prizes named after Andrii Malyshko, Hryhorii Skovoroda, Volodymyr Vynnychenko, and Ivan Koshelivets. She holds the honorary title Merited Artist of Ukraine.
Born in Kropyvnytskyi (then Kirovohrad), Liudmyla Skyrda graduated from the Faculty of Philology at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv in 1968. Her first poems were published in Literaturna Ukraina in 1962, and at the age of 20 she released her debut poetry collection, The Waiting, which immediately drew attention both in Ukraine and abroad. The collection stood out among the works of the celebrated “Sixtiers” generation — Mykola Vinhranovskyi, Lina Kostenko, Ivan Drach, Vasyl Symonenko — thanks to its distinctive urban lyricism and emotional depth.
Her poetry attracted international critical acclaim early on. Polish scholars and translators were among the first to introduce her works abroad. Professor Jerzy Jędrzejewicz, a renowned expert on Taras Shevchenko, translated her poem Polish Lessons; Florian Nieuważny wrote that a new generation of Ukrainian poets — led by Liudmyla Skyrda and Ihor Kalynets — had taken the place of their now-classic predecessors.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Skyrda taught Ukrainian literature at Taras Shevchenko University, published scholarly research, and led the cultural TV program The Living Word on Ukrainian Television. Despite facing censorship due to her independent views and her academic work on repressed poet Yevhen Pluzhnyk, she continued to write and publish.
Since 1988, together with her husband — diplomat Yurii Kostenko, later Ambassador of Ukraine to Austria, Germany, Japan, and China — Liudmyla Skyrda has represented Ukrainian culture across continents. She has lived and worked in Vienna, Bonn, Tokyo, and Beijing, promoting Ukrainian poetry and fostering cross-cultural dialogue through readings, lectures, exhibitions, and media appearances.
Her poetry collections have been published in Austria (Meditations near St. Stephen’s Cathedral), Germany (Rhenish Elegies), Japan (The Garden of Love and Sun, Zuihitsu from Sakura), China (The Breath of China, Melodies of Four Seasons), as well as in *the UAE, Greece, Italy, and South Korea.
A major event in Ukrainian–Japanese relations was her translation into Ukrainian of Building Bridges, a book by Her Majesty Empress Michiko of Japan.
Her works have been translated into English, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, Greek, Uzbek, Spanish, French, Russian, and German — encompassing all six official languages of the United Nations. Individual poems have also appeared in Polish, Finnish, Portuguese, Hungarian, and Romanian.
Liudmyla Skyrda is the author of over 40 poetry collections and more than 200 academic and cultural essays published in Ukraine and abroad. Her poetry blends European intellectualism with the refined aesthetics of the East, creating a unique lyrical world that transcends cultures and epochs.
Prominent Ukrainian artists — including Hryhorii Havrylenko, Viktor Zaretskyi, and Ivan Marchuk — painted her portraits, while sculptors Max Gelman and Mykola Rapai created her sculptural likenesses.
Liudmyla Skyrda remains one of the few Ukrainian poets widely recognized internationally — a voice of Ukrainian lyricism, humanism, and cultural dialogue.