The novel "Without Soil" and the short stories "Revenge", "The Taming of Haidamaka" and "Oh, the Revuhka went..." are united by a common theme. These are stories about the coexistence of conflicting identities in one person and the need to pretend to be someone you don't feel like.
The events of the novel "Without Soil" take place at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, when the spokesmen of the ideology of the new world proclaim a complete break with any tradition: to start history from a clean slate, to nurture a person unencumbered by any inheritance. In an authoritarian state, the leader should become the only object of worship.
Kharkiv culturologist Rostyslav Mykhailovych comes to his native city of Dnipro to decide the fate of the teacher's building - the Varangian church.
Domontovych depicts the atmosphere of total state fear, wearing masks that sometimes grow on the faces, and intellectual escape from the terrible reality.
About the series "Non-canon canon"
Thinking about the canon of Ukrainian literature, only a few names from the school curriculum come to mind: Shevchenko, Franko, and Nechuy-Levytskyi. Although in reality, this list is much more extensive and more diverse.
Before you are the series "Non-canon canon", with the help of which we want to talk about all those we did not know, whose texts we read without understanding the context of the reality of the time. Before you are a series designed to rediscover familiar strangers. You will find a range of Ukrainian authors and their works - from Pidmohylnyi and Barhianyi to Khvylovyi and Johansen, from an elegant intellectual novel to a dynamic adventure, from innovative urban prose to psychological texts.
Keys accompany each text for reading from Ukrainian literary experts. They will tell you what to pay attention to and help you look at the texts of Ukrainian classics in a new way.
