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Roman Ivanychuk (1929-2016) was a famous Ukrainian writer, winner of many literary awards, including the Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine. His oeuvre includes about twenty historical novels, with which the writer filled in the gaps in our history. R. Ivanychuk expanded the genre boundaries of the historical work, opening up the past to the reader, which activated the national memory.

The novel The Merchant (2012) is a story of what the author's generation experienced in the 1930s during the Polish and Soviet occupations, a story about the long-awaited independence, and a description of the spiritual and political life of the small town of Kolomyia, where Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, and German colonists, often linked by family ties, lived, worked, and traded peacefully. The work is imbued with national colour, striking descriptions of the Carpathian nature, and the vivid language of the inhabitants of Kolomyia, their distinctive culture and way of life allow readers to learn "what it was like to live then...