Five women and a spring morning in Paris

I wonder how many other Ukrainian women have walked these streets — on vacation, for their studies, or, like me, in migration. I must admit, their names sound less often today than I would like, but their marks are here — nearby, in the damp air, in the honey-spiced light, and in the ringing silence of Paris at daybreak.

Anna

I turn toward Île de la Cité. The sun makes me squint, and suddenly, as if in a movie, I notice a small procession heading toward me on one of the bridges (likely a wooden one at the time): horses, a few guards, and a graceful figure in a dark but expensive cloak – head covered, yet with a very calm posture. I recognize her intuitively: Anne of Kyiv, daughter of the glorious Kyivan prince Yaroslav the Wise and Ingegerd of Sweden, a bride to the king who stepped onto French soil almost a thousand years before me. According to the tradition of that time, her coronation was the culmination of her wedding to Henry I in Reims on May 19, 1051. And although there was no permanent capital in the modern sense, nor even a France in its current form, Anne undoubtedly enriched its life and legacy, bringing with her our language, education, book culture, diplomatic restraint, and political rationality. After the death of her husband, King Henry I, Anne became regent for the young Philip I and effectively ruled the state alongside Count Baldwin of Flanders. Her signature, ANNA REGINA, on royal charters is not merely a formality but proof of her real participation in state decisions. She was a queen who did not stand on the sidelines; she acted.

Much will be written about this later; a monument to Anne can be found in both Kyiv and Abbaye Saint-Vincent de Senlis, where she spent the mature years of her life. But right now, she passes by me just a few steps away, and I catch a scent: not of perfume, but of damp wool, horse, and, very faintly, the herbal warmth brought from far away. For a moment, Anne Yaroslavna appears to me not as a queen, but as a woman who has just crossed the bridge between worlds.

I do not even try to follow her; the bridge remains behind me, and a feeling grows within me that today, I will cross through time more than once.

Marko

And once again, the ancient city begins to change: the wood underfoot turns to stone, the streets fill with the aroma of coffee, shadows stretch, and the buildings grow in height. I note with curiosity that I find myself not in the 11th, but somewhere in the mid-19th century. After the rain, everything here is different, yet recognizable: that same glistening light, only now reflected in the glass of shop windows, on the cobblestones, and on umbrellas. I emerge slowly from the shadow of an archway; the rain has just stopped. Here, too, there is silence; ahead of me is a small bookstore with fogged-up windows, its door opening constantly, letting visitors in and out. My attention is drawn once again to a woman who, this time, is moving unaccompanied but without haste. Holding several notebooks wrapped in paper, she pauses for a moment under an awning, tracing her fingers along the damp stone of the wall, as if checking the reality of it all. And there is something of her predecessor in her, but this time it is not about power, it is more about a sense of inner self-reliance. Inspired and appearing slightly dreamy, this woman, to me, is just as much between worlds as the one who crossed the border on the Seine earlier. She seems to notice my gaze and smiles politely, barely nodding. But I instantly recognize that smile: it is Marko Vovchok!

A well-known intellectual of the 19th century and a legendary woman in Ukrainian literature, whom the “Great Kobzar” Taras Shevchenko would later call his “daughter,” Mariia Vilinska (1833–1907) moved to France with her son. By taking this step, she effectively severed her marriage to Opanas Markovych while simultaneously preserving her independence. Inspired, focused, armed with a brilliant circle, bold and unconventional, she may have just emerged from the space where she was writing, and not yet fully returned to our world. I imagine this could have been one of her working meetings with her colleague, fellow author and friend Jules Verne, for it is no secret that he highly valued her contribution to the profession and her perfect French, and thus gave her a truly fantastic gift: exclusive rights to translate all his works into the language of the Russian Empire. Watching her up close, I can easily imagine how she carried within her that signature stubbornness of a Ukrainian woman, one that does not allow circumstances to break her will. For her, Paris was not an escape, but a space of freedom where she could be herself, supporting her son and herself through her own work. It is no wonder that her trace in this city becomes, for me, all the more visible and alive.

Sonia

I turn into Café Le Procope, which smells of books and coffee. The dark wood panels rise almost to the ceiling, as if preserving the warmth of hundreds of voices that resonated here long before me. Mirrors in gilded frames catch the lamp light — soft, yellowish, slightly theatrical — and break it into tiny glimmers that slide across the tables, the marble slabs, and the old engravings on the walls. To enliven the moment, I mentally invite a woman in one of Delaunay’s “simultaneous” dresses to enter — and the antique mirrors suddenly catch new colors that have never been here before. Paris has always known how to combine eras as if they were just different shades of the same light.

Sonia Delaunay is not just an artist, but a woman who taught Paris to see color in a new way. She came from Ukraine, but it was Paris that became the city where her talent fully blossomed, where she created her own language — a language of rhythms, light, and movement.

Sonia was a painter, a designer, a fashion creator, and a decorator, and in every role, she remained true to herself: bold, modern, and free. She was the first to prove that art could live not only on canvas, but in fabrics, interiors, clothing, and in the very movements of the city. Her “simultaneous” dresses became a symbol of an era when Paris discovered a new aesthetic — the aesthetic of color in motion.

In 1964, the Louvre dedicated a personal exhibition to her — the first woman in her lifetime to be awarded such an honor. That was the moment when France officially declared: Sonia Delaunay is part of our cultural history.

Yet, in her colors, there always lived a memory of the light of her Ukrainian childhood, which she recalled as her first impressions of bright ornaments, festive dresses, and contrasts that later became the foundation of her artistic language. Sonia Delaunay is Paris in motion. Paris that glows. Paris that breathes color.

Marie

After a short pause, I head down Boulevard Saint-Germain, passing the Luxembourg Garden, and with every step, Paris grows quieter, as if preparing me for a new encounter. Beneath the still-damp rustle of leaves at the Montparnasse Cemetery, I make my way to the burial site of Marie Bashkirtseff. The air here seems thicker than in the city — as if the stones hold within them foreign stories and are in no hurry to let them go. The trees stand in straight lines, like in an old album where every page is someone’s destiny.

I move slowly between the rows, and at one point, it seems as if the silence begins to speak. Not with voices, but with an atmosphere. With that same intonation that was in her letters to Guy de Maupassant: slightly ironic, slightly weary, slightly too honest for her time.

Marie Bashkirtseff — a Ukrainian artist, writer, and diarist who lived only 25 years but managed to leave behind a trace enough for several lifetimes — lies here, in the Paris she yearned so much to conquer. Her grave is not pretentious, but recognizable: white marble, slightly aged, with that same restrained dignity that was in her diary.

I pause beside her, going over the details of their correspondence in my memory: she wanted to be seen, heard, understood, and for her word to carry weight. Their correspondence lasted only a few months. She wrote to him with that courage possessed only by those who feel that little time is left. He replied with that curiosity elicited by people who are not afraid to be themselves.

And, perhaps, that is precisely why I will return to this place again; not to find something, but to once more feel this silence, in which the past and the present so easily recognize each other.

Because today, I was not walking through Paris alone. Anna, Marko, Sonia, Marie — each of them was walking beside me, in their own time, in their own light, in their own truth.

And I am beginning to feel that their stories did not end here, on these streets. They continue within me — in my steps, in my daily motivation, in my movement forward.

So, I mentally store this moment like a postcard — about a Paris where Ukrainian women are not lost in history, but recognize one another across the centuries.

Until the next visit — and until the next meeting with them.