The collapse of the blue empire

Leonid Danilchyk is a powerful new name in the colorful landscape of modern Ukrainian prose, and his novel The Collapse of the Blue Empire is endowed with that special fresh voice that is sometimes so lacking in stories about our most recent history. Sharp, frank, striking, sometimes cruel, this novel is nevertheless full of optimism about our future and the finale of the fight against an old enemy.

This is an alternative story with significant allusions to the present, the plot of which unfolds against the backdrop of the liberation struggle of the Motherland against the People's Eurasian Federation. Having just gained independence, the young state faces the threat of a new enslavement and balances between preserving democratic values ​​and effective resistance to the invader, which requires neglecting freedoms and adopting the aggressor's totalitarian system.

All the events of the novel are tied to the fates of three heroes, whose paths are constantly intertwined in the endless cycle of turbulent times marked by revolutions and wars. Different in their worldviews, they still strive for one goal - a free Fatherland.

The old empire is collapsing, and the first sprouts of ideas of freedom are breaking through the asphalt grayness compacted by repression. Bogdan, Leva and Valentin - three completely different heroes - grow up among the ruins of totalitarianism. The fates of the boys are intertwined first in the liberation struggle, and then in the war aggressively unleashed by the colonialist.

In stunning events, bold decisions, incredible actions and tough discussions, the edges of the abyss into which society can fall are glimpsed, and the young, unformed state maneuvers between the catastrophe of finding itself in captivity again or surviving, but turning into the same anti-human monster as the former metropolis.

The paths of the heroes wind among the military trails, ministerial chairs and prison beds, so that, having gone through all the circles of war, captivity and totalitarian hell, they eventually become witnesses to the final collapse of the empire.