Blue Echelons

This book by Petro Panch (real name Petro Yosypovych Panchenko) includes two novellas — Blue Echelons (1927) and Revenge (1930) — along with two short stories: The Green Quagmire (1923) and Mouse Holes (1923).

Blue Echelons is published here in its original 1927 version. Later, in 1947, the author was harshly criticized and subsequent editions of the novella were radically altered both ideologically and artistically, becoming heavily Sovietized as a result. The original text is deeply autobiographical, reflecting the period when officer Petro Panchenko joined Colonel Petro Bolbochan’s Zaporizhian Corps in 1918 — the first military formation to side with the Directorate during the uprising against Hetman Skoropadskyi.

The novella Revenge has not been republished since 1930, although the author created a revised version in 1962 that remains preserved in his archive.

Panch’s short stories offer vivid testimony to how residents of provincial towns in Slobozhanshchyna perceived the Bolshevik coup and the realities of life at the time.