Novel
Перша весна
Not translated into English
Hryhoriy Epik · 1931
Synopsis
A novel of the early days of collectivisation in a Ukrainian village, at the moment when the peasants are being forced to pool their land. Beneath the praise of the movement that the period demanded, the book lets the complexity of the undertaking and the peasants' desperate resistance show through. The reference works describe neither its plot nor its characters.
Context
The novel appeared in 1931 in Kharkiv and Kyiv and went through nine editions up to 1934. Critics did not at first see that it showed the opposition of the villages, something its author was reproached with later. The following year he published a novel glorifying the new technical intelligentsia, read as an attempt to be forgiven, and which he himself judged a failure, written in response to the call for a positive hero.
Who it is for
A topical novel, written and published during the collectivisation itself; one must read beneath the official praise to see what it reveals of village life.
Prizes and reception
The book that the literary histories of his country credit with having shown the peasants' resistance to forced collectivisation.
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