The life story of Sofia Okunevska captivates with her courage, determination and great self-sacrifice, and at the same time impresses with its deep tragedy and dramatic trials that befell this woman. She went down in history as the first doctor in Austria-Hungary with a university education and the first doctor of medicine who, despite social prohibitions, prejudices and various difficulties, managed to go through the difficult path of her own professional development and pave the way for other women in science. Sofia Okunevska became a symbol of women's emancipation and an example of successful professional realization of a woman.
Since women were not allowed to enter university in Austria-Hungary, Sofia Okunevska successfully graduated from the University of Zurich and also defended her doctorate in medicine. However, in order to obtain a license to practice medicine, she would have to spend several more years confirming her diploma in the Senate of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, and later she would have to look for a long time and unsuccessfully for opportunities to obtain a doctor's position in Europe. And all because she is a woman.
Medicine and serving people became for her not just a profession, but a real life calling. Sofia Okunevska would begin to gain medical experience in Lviv, working on charitable terms as a gynecologist in the "People's Hospital". Here she would first apply the method of radiation therapy to treat oncology in women, organize courses in obstetrics and sisters of mercy. She continued her scientific activities, compiling a dictionary of medical terminology. During the First World War, Sofia Okunevska went to the Austrian camps in Gminda to save the lives of her deported compatriots. For her noble heart and service to people, she was called "Saint Sophia".
She showed a unique ability to combine different hypostases of a woman – a subtle artist and pianist, a sacrificial doctor, the first scientist, a caring mother, a faithful friend, a selfless citizen, a public figure and a patriot, in love with her own people. Although the fate of this famous woman is striking in its tragedy and trials, which she had to go through, painfully experiencing a divorce from her husband, the suicide of her young daughter, life in loneliness at the end of her years and a fatal death from purulent peritonitis.
Sofia Okunevska was an active participant in the Ukrainian women's movement, one of the first members of the "Society of Russian Women", co-author of the almanac "The First Wreath", the spiritual pupil of Natalia Kobrynska and a close friend of Olga Kobylyanska. Her more than 40-year friendship with Olga Kobylyanska would be fateful in the life of the Bukovyna writer, as it was Sofia who influenced the formation of her Ukrainian identity, instructing her to write and enrich national literature, developing her literary skills and teaching her the Ukrainian language. Sofia Okunevska would be called “the child of her spirit” by her half-sister Natalia Kobrynska, in whose house she was raised from an early age, as she lost her mother at an early age. Natalia Kobrynska would teach her literacy and music, accompany her to study in Zurich and later actively involve her in public activities in the women’s movement. After World War I, Sofia Okunevska would continue her participation in the women’s movement as a member of the Ukrainian Society of Women with Higher Education.
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