Novel
The Horsemen
Вершники
Yuri Yanovsky · 1935
Opening lines
Лютували шаблі, і коні бігали без вершників, і Половці не пізнавали один одного, а з неба палило сонце, а ґелґання бійців нагадувало ярмарок, а пил уставав, як за чередою; ось і розбіглися всі по степу, і Оверко переміг.
The sabres raged, and horses ran without riders, and the Polovtsians did not recognise one another, and the sun blazed down from the sky, and the cackling of the fighters was like a fair, and the dust rose as it does behind a herd; and then they all scattered across the steppe, and Overko won.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from ukrlib.com.ua
Synopsis
A novel in eight short stories about the civil war in Ukraine. In the first, in 1919, in the southern steppe, the five Polovets brothers find themselves on the roads of the war, each under a different flag, while their old father Musiy watches his family tear itself apart. The following stories follow other horsemen of the revolution, Chubenko, Shved, Danylo Chaban, from the time of the fighting to the return of peace and work.
Context
Written from 1932 to 1935, the book appeared in Kharkiv in 1935 and was reissued in 1936 and 1937. Its author, whose previous novel had been fiercely attacked, took care to give the censors no hold; the book long passed for his masterpiece, and Tytchyna said that Ukrainian literature was sitting its school-leaving exam in it. In France it appeared from Gallimard in 1957, in a translation revised and introduced by Aragon.
Who it is for
Eight short stories that can each be read on their own but form a novel; the first, the most studied, gives the key to the whole.
Prizes and reception
Long regarded as the summit of its author's work, it is studied in Ukrainian schools, mainly for its first story.
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