City

Welcome to Kyiv in the 1920s! To a city where the soft colors of the houses are replaced by the sharp colors of the revolution, where, having passed the dirty cowsheds of Podil, you admire the shiny shop windows of the central shops, where the former owners of luxurious apartments are crowded into under-requisitioned rooms, hiding the fragments of life in carved sideboards, while conspicuous Nepmans and proud comrades celebrate another state order. To a city where jazz flows in the cellars at night, and passionate party speeches are heard in the morning. Where fresh blood from the village arrives, which will change its appearance and likeness. Like this talented student Stepan Radchenko in a shabby suit and dusty boots! And yet the young man does not yet realize that Kyiv will very soon change him...
"The City" (1928) is called the first urban novel in Ukrainian literature. Valerian Pidmohylnyi initially wrote a script for a comedy film, but, feeling “his complete helplessness in this treacherous field,” he decided to embody this theme in a novel. After the author’s arrest and execution, the work was banned until 1989.