Shcherbak’s “icebreaking” political thriller published

Dnipropetrovsk — “All that I write is about my own self. All things good and bad, lofty and dirty… Whoever begins to write about others, without understanding themselves, is doomed to failure.” It is with this quote of Yurii Shcherbak that Mykhailo Slaboshpytsky, a Ukrainian writer, journalist, head of the League of Ukrainian Art Patrons, and director of the Yaroslaviv Val publishing house, began his speech. The lines are from the well-known documentary story Chornobyl, which Shcherbak wrote as long as 20 years ago, when the world saw a new Shcherbak — one who is always worried about the fate of the entire planet, not only his native Ukraine. This time the publisher visited his longtime like-minded friends at the Department of History and Political Theory (headed by Prof. Viktor Pushkin) of the Dnipropetrovsk National Mining University, as well as their students, to launch Shcherbak’s newly-published book, A Time of Christ Buriers. The Mirages of 2077. Slaboshpytsky noted that this book portrayed Ukraine in a riot of color. “Our literature has not yet had a novel of this magnitude. Mirages… is an icebreaker that is bound to force its way from Ukraine to the hearts of people of various nationalities,” the publisher said. The action-packed thriller focuses on what the author considers to be the sorest point — the destiny of Ukraine and the likely disappearance of the Ukrainian nation and statehood. The book is like an alarm signal warning mankind of the geopolitical perils that await it. What caused this paradoxical and prophetic vision? Shcherbak, who also came on May 23 to see the launch of his book, said that his job had resulted in him mingling with a lot of well-known international politicians, including US presidents George Bush Sr. and George Bush Jr., Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, US Vice President Albert Gore, US secretaries of state Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, and Hillary Clinton, and almost all the prominent Ukrainian figures. The former Ambassador for Peace and founder of the Ukrainian Ecological Academy of Sciences, Shcherbak decided to use this novel to show what the future may hold in store for Ukraine. To do so he chose the very popular genre of political thriller. The Ukrainian patriot spoke to the Mining University’s audience about the current hardships of our free Ukraine. The characters of his novel are prototypes of the well-known politicians. “If the MPs read my novel, they will recognize themselves,” Shcherbak confessed. Speaking from the bottom of his heart, he said that a country that occupies a central place in Europe should not remain so uncared for and outraged. “[It is unacceptable that] 20,000 doctors remain jobless. People go to a hospital to be treated rather than to see representatives of one party or another. Universities, too, should be independent of the authorities, and academics at an educational institution ought to tackle its staff-placement problems on its own, for we need specialists, not a party. We are now on the eve of Ukraine taking a giant leap — either toward outright dictatorship or open society. I wish there would be no revolution. So I think our younger generation must believe in its own strength. We are not a black hole on the map or last in the world, although we do have some glaring drawbacks. We must be proud because we have endless opportunities to tap our potential and capabilities,” the author said. Shcherbak’s opinion was also supported by such well-known poets as Pavlo Volvach, Yurii Buriak, and Stanislav Bondarenko, who had come to Kyiv. Under a tentative agreement, they decided to visit the mining university again to read poems to the students.