A tough one... the book has a very strong antisemitic vibe, which requires a curious reader to go and read a bit more on the topic "Ivan Franko, antisemitism". After doing so, one can agree with a 'whitewashing' scheme: it is not Franko who's speaking, it's his characters. By the end of the book (that eventually remained unfinished), many would probably agree that it is not that much of a 'whitewashing' to accept the above clich茅. So to dot the i on the topic of antisemitism in this short review, one could consider it as much antisemitic as every Hollywood movie from 30 till 90(?) to be racist for having non-white characters as antagonists and the like. Antisemitism (hidden, apparent or obvious) aside, this is an interesting novel. And even though with this novel Franko can't probably compete in 'dialogism' with his more 'dialogic' contemporaries, it is an interesting story describing a working class struggle in the second half of the 19th century.