Novel
The Cathedral
Собор
Oles Honchar · 1968
Synopsis
In Zachiplianka, a working-class suburb set at the foot of the blast furnaces on the banks of the Dnieper, stands a Cossack cathedral. Mykola Bahlai, a metallurgy student, his brother Ivan, a foundry worker, Ivan's wife Virounka, Yelka, who sees the domes from her village, and old Yahor Katratyi, a former partisan of Makhno, each hold to it in their own way. Volodka Loboda, a child of the suburb turned official, would like to tear it down.
Context
Written from 1963 to 1967, the novel appeared in the first issue of the journal Vitchyzna, in January 1968, and was at first well received. After the party plenum of March, a press and meeting campaign condemned it; the planned Russian translation was halted, the Ukrainian edition withdrawn, and students who defended it were placed under surveillance. Critics treated it as a failure for almost twenty years; the Russian translation appeared in 1987. The cathedral is inspired by that of the Trinity, at Novomoskovsk.
Who it is for
A novel of about three hundred pages in translation, in which the cathedral, in the Cossack Baroque style, ties together all the stories of the suburb.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as its author's best-known novel, it appears on the list of 1001 books to read before you die.
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