A Flock of Swans. Green Mills

The “Non-Canonical Canon” series is a way to talk about those we did not know, whose texts we read without understanding the context of their time. It brings together a wide range of Ukrainian authors and their works. Each text is accompanied by reading guides by Ukrainian literary scholars.

Vasyl Zemliak writes about seemingly familiar realities: Ukrainian village life of the 1920s–1940s, revolution, the destruction of noble estates, early communes, collective farms, World War II. Yet everything is presented from a strikingly unusual perspective.

An old Babylon on the Southern Bug, villagers digging up a collection of antique weapons under a pear tree, a local philosopher reading Plato and speaking about the Taurians and Scythians, a swing built by a Singer sewing machine salesman to help marry off his daughters, a goat named Fabian turning his back on a firing squad — all of this weaves into a surreal novel set against the dark currents of great history.