She received her primary education at the Borys Grinchenko School in Lviv, then the Vasiliyanka Sisters Gymnasium and the "Native School" (which she graduated with honors), and from 1936 - the Faculty of Classical Philology of the Lviv University.
She joined the OUN as a high school student and was the leader of the women's network. For which she was arrested by the Polish police and sent to the "Brygidka" prison. At the beginning of the Second World War, Bohdana Svitlyk got out of prison and went underground again. There she met and married Zenon Lytvynka (a member of the OUN), who probably died in 1944.
"This person had an extremely heroic character," wrote Daria Malyarchyn, a prisoner, in "Memories of Bohdana-Maria Yulianivna Svitlyk". - At the same time, she combined the signs of a revolutionary, a warrior, an indomitable fighter for the freedom of Ukraine, a talented writer, an ardent journalist and... a gentle, romantic, decent woman with a sincere soul and a tender heart, whom relatives and friends called Danuseya.
In February 1942, the couple had a son, Andriy. Due to the threat of persecution of the family by the Gestapo, Svitlyk left the child with her mother (who adopted the boy) and went to the UPA.
She worked in the Main Center of Propaganda and Information Service of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), headed by Petro Fedun-"Poltava". As an author and editor, she collaborated with the underground periodicals "Idea and Chin", "Independence" and publications of the OUN propaganda center.
She wrote short stories, essays on the lives of the rebels (in particular, "Overheard and Spied", the short story "Heroica"). In 1948, her short story "Teacher" was published in the illegal UPA printing house.
"Bohdanka often liked to sit in the shade of a branchy beech tree and type her works on a portable typewriter," Daria Malyarchyn recalled. - More than once she asked me to dictate to her from drafts... We had long evenings with her and had heart-to-heart conversations. Bohdana studied art, was fond of music, loved dancing and ... the intoxicating smell of roses covered with morning dew. In the evening time, she gathered the girls around her and we quietly sang Ukrainian folk songs. But Ukrainian songs were most often heard: "Far away, hey far away", "Girl, give me a little hand", "Water flows green in the grove".
On December 29, 1948, Bohdana Svitlyk-Lytvynko died in a battle with the NKVD when they surrounded a group of workers of the Office of the Ukrainian Main Liberation Council near the village of Lybohori. In order not to reach the enemy alive, Bohdana Svitlyk saved the last bullet for herself.
Anna Porokhovnyk, a resident of the village of Lybokhory, told that "... on the night of December 28-29, 1948, Enkavedists brought a murdered woman to the village, who was thrown into the snow near the village council, where an eyewitness was on duty. She was ordered to look at the murdered woman to see if she knew her. With emotion, she looked at the beautiful face and long blond hair of the murdered woman whom she did not know. After returning home, after 2-3 hours, the narrator saw a large group of enkavedists who were carrying this murdered woman, in only one shirt, thrown over the back of a horse, face up, in the direction of the "Bukovinka" tract.
Her burial place is still unknown.