Novel
Робітні сили
Not translated into English
Mykhailo Ivchenko · 1929
Opening lines
Десь у далечінь ночі, в бліде, забризкане молочним пилом небо, бучною копицею, що зводилась над усім парком, сочисто вгрузав величезний розрослий дуб.
Somewhere off into the depths of the night, into the pale sky spattered with milky dust, rising like a lush haystack above the whole park, a huge spreading oak sank deep, heavy with sap.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from ukrlib.com.ua
Synopsis
At an agricultural plant-breeding station, the sugar content of the beets has collapsed and no one knows why. Viktor Savlutynsky, a young professor at the agronomy institute who long worked abroad at a Czech plant-breeding institute, is sent there. His sharp judgements and his faith in the exceptional individual win over some and offend others, and the small society of the station divides around him, while a sudden passion disrupts his ordered life.
Context
The novel was published in Kiev in 1929 by Knyhospilka; it was the last book its author published in his lifetime. The criticism of the time attacked above all Professor Savloutynsky and his thesis that the future belongs to the strong, intellectual personality. The book, which is classed with the novels of the same period on the intelligentsia, was not reissued before 1990, when it reappeared in Kiev, from Dnipro, in a volume of his prose.
Who it is for
A little over two hundred pages, made up in large part of conversations and debates about science, art and the country.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's most important work, and ranked with the great Ukrainian novels of the late twenties.
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