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tell us the story of the sorcerer and the princess." Through the persona of the stove-maker, the reader enters the agrarian physical world of the Ukrainian peasant as well as his spiritual world that borders on superstition and even sometimes witch craft. It is significant that it is the stove-maker who laments that people no longer read the Bible. He is neither Greek Catholic nor Orthodox but an Evan gelist. Thus the craftsman who builds stoves to sus tain physical lives is also the one who symbolically embodies and promotes the existence of a spiritual life. When the women who have retrieved a chalice from the church seek his help in hiding it, he be comes a defender of the faith, creating a cache in a well so deep that no militia rods can ever find it. Barka, in passing, mentions that a built-in- stove is the first and the last item of the structure of any house: the first to appear and the last to disap pear. When little Andrijko walks around the village, and finds the metal plate of a stove, he knows that a cottage there has been destroyed or burnt. Darkness is as deep as soot. The sixth chapter is quite lengthy and describes in detail Myron’s strug gle to find food. At night, he goes to a secret cache to retrieve some grain he has hidden in the straw. Later, he goes out again to the mud pond where he has hidden some vegetables. In the morning, he goes back to these hidden places to check that no one can detect their existence. He overhears a tax collector at a neighbor’s house threatening, "If you do not pay, you are the enemy." Myron Danylovych was getting closer to the build ings o f the kolkhoz; this name and everything it represented brought this thought to mind: “ Tar tars!” Myron is one of the thousands who have the same idea, get some grain. They have all been stopped in their attempt; some are lying dead in front of the building while a train of wagons filled with grain continuously rolls in and out of the area. On his way back home, Myron hears about some Party members who are kind; Zintchenko, for in stance, the director of a convalescent home, shows compassion. Myron walks along a ravine known in the village as the Dragon’s Ravine. Myron remem bers his childhood vision of a dragon’s head with its bloody mouth. He is distracted and bypasses his own house and the Party building. He is brought back to his senses when he hears a gunshot soon followed by a woman’s scream. He discovers that the local Party secretary has just committed suicide. On the desk, a decree from Moscow indicates that the secretary must requisition 90% of the villagers' wheat. Unable to carry out this order, the secretary prefers death. Unfortunately, Myron finds himself at the wrong place at the wrong time: Otrokhodine sees him in the vicinity and Myron becomes a vic tim of suspicion for the rest of his existence. In this first part of the novel, which culmi nates with the suicide of the official, the back ground of the novel is clearly outlined. The year 1933 is mentioned in the Chapter 7 as the anniver sary year of doom because Christ died in 33 A.D. The death of the local Party secretary shows the despair of people designated to carry out impossible tasks. Man’s inhumanity to man is personified in his tragic end. Copyright Helene N. Turkewicz-Sanko, Ph.D. John Carroll University, October 2005 (Editor's Note: Parts II and III o f Professor Sanko's Synopsis will be published in the next issue o f Our Life.) “НАШ Е Ж ИТТЯ”, ЛИСТОПАД 2005 17
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