The City

The first fully realized urban novel in Ukrainian literature, it marked the transition of national prose from traditional peasant themes to a deep psychological exploration of life in the city.

The protagonist, Stepan Radchenko, arrives in Kyiv by Dnipro river steamer to study at the Institute of Economics, like thousands of other young men and women who, in the early 1920s, streamed from the countryside to the city. The young villager dreams of “conquering” the capital — getting an education, becoming part of the conscious Ukrainian intelligentsia, and returning to the village with new ideas to infuse the city with fresh peasant blood and overcome the long-standing antagonism between the Ukrainian countryside and the Russified city. Yet Kyiv gradually changes Stepan himself: from a naive, modest youth with noble dreams of serving the people, he turns into an adult intellectual and writer, while at the same time drifting away from traditional moral values. In the city, various women enter his life — faithful Nadiika from his native village, the capricious and passionately devoted Zoska, who will not survive his betrayal, and other characters who reflect the diversity of urban life.

Pidmohylny’s innovation lies in the fact that the city itself becomes one of the novel’s fully realized protagonists — and in the end, it is Kyiv’s influence that determines Stepan’s fate.