This is an automatically translated description

The publication contains works by Mykola Khvylovy (1893-1933), an original Ukrainian writer who went down in national history as a leading exponent of the ideas of the Executed Renaissance, a complex and controversial period in history. It was this writer who, in his pamphlets, substantiated the need for Ukrainian culture to be guided by the best international models, and not to limit itself to adopting Russian themes, plots, and textual practices. In his sharp journalistic statements, he protested against the forced Russianisation of Ukrainians and Moscow's chauvinism, naively hoping that under the conditions of the then-existing system, favourable conditions could be created for the development of the Ukrainian language and culture. His pen coined the phrase "Europe or 'Enlightenment'?", which became a guideline for many intellectuals. Under "Enlightenment" the writer understood the provincial backwardness of Ukraine in colonial conditions, and "Europe" meant new forms oriented towards highly artistic examples of other literatures.

Mykola Khvylovyi is an innovator and experimenter in prose, his works show signs of expressionism and elements of naturalism. The writer's fiction attracts with its original style of writing, shows illusions, hopes and moral hesitations and catastrophes of the first third of the twentieth century - the era of incredible cruelty, hopes and modernisation.