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This is the ‘first Ukrainian urban novel��, initially published in 1928, just before collectivization and Stalin’s repressions, which among many others, murdered the author. Right now this book is a part of school program, but when I was in school in the late USSR, it, as well as most other works of Ukrainian 20s weren’t studied.

The book’s title is ‘the City�� and it tells (partially autobiographic) story of a talented young man Stepan Radchenko, coming to Kyiv to study and return to his village, but who gradually changes into an urbanite. In style it reminds me of Guy de Maupassant, and as I later learnt, the author translated French writers into Ukrainian.

The protagonist is far from a hero, but neither he is a villain. He has talents and all studies go easy for his, but at the same time his psychic is extremely labile (opposite to stable) and there is even some paranoia: he can sing accolades to a person one moment and then hate and denigrate them a moment later. At one moment, he decides to break down with his girlfriend, but coming to tell her that, proposes to marry instead and right after starts (in thoughts initially) accusing her in trying to tie him to her. He is both an ardent communist calling for the equality and a person, who thinks he is much better than everyone around and underappreciated and that the whole world owes him.

This is a great example of how dreams of a brave new world and socialist revolution turns former victims into new masters and how people with a lot of potential can be narcissistic and pity.