The Eye of the World

The first teenage novel about the UPA in Ukrainian literature was written based on real events by one of the most famous Ukrainian writers, Halyna Pahutiak.

Autumn of 1946. The village of Zalokot in the Carpathians, where a 14-year-old teenager Ilko, a UPA liaison, lives. He has two dreams: to kill the enkavedist-inhuman Major Zhbanov and to see the largest diamond, "the eye of the world," hidden on Mount Birdy, which is written about in an old book.

Every day for this village boy is a quest in which he must make the right choice: life or death, freedom or slavery, humanity or indifference, compromise or principle. And in this school of life, in this hopeless struggle with the Moscow occupier, he does as his heart tells him, and that is why he is primarily a hero, not a victim.