Novel
Вальдшнепи
Mykola Khvylovy · 1927
Opening lines
В цей, колись заштатний городок, що стоїть від Не-Парижа (так хтось іронічно назвав наше місто) за шістсот, приблизно, кілометрів, Ганна і Дмитрій приїхали в середині червня,— тоді, коли не тільки виноградом, але й абрикосами не пахтить наш степовий південь.
It was in this once insignificant little town, which stands some six hundred kilometres from Not-Paris (as someone had ironically called our city), that Hanna and Dmytrii arrived in mid-June, at a time when our southern steppe smells neither of grapes nor even of apricots.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from ukrlib.com.ua
Synopsis
Dmytri Karamazov, a disenchanted communist, spends the summer with his wife Hanna in a small town in the south of Ukraine. There he meets Aglaia, a strong-willed young woman, who harshly reproaches the men of the revolution, and him first of all, for having let die what they had wanted. Around them, Ievhen Valentynovytch and Vovtchyk take part in endless discussions about the country, the revolution and the future, while an uneasy attraction grows between Dmytri and Aglaia.
Context
Written in the summer of 1926 in a German colony near Kherson, at the height of the literary discussion, the novel appeared in 1927 in the fifth issue of the journal Vaplite. The sixth issue, which carried its continuation, was seized at the printing house and destroyed; the author had to publish a letter of repentance, and the group had to dissolve. Andrii Khvylia called the book anti-party and counter-revolutionary; the author's supporters saw in it the summit of his work, the poet Ievhen Malaniuk a manifest failure.
Who it is for
A novel of ideas, made in large part of dialogues and disputes; only the first part exists, the second having been destroyed.
Prizes and reception
Banned for a long time, the novel is now studied in Ukrainian schools and remains one of the central texts in the debate of Ukrainian letters in the twenties.
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