(book review)

The book ‘Martians on Khreschatyk’ was published in 2023 by the Vikhola publishing house. The author is Vira Aheieva, a professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Her previous book about Ukrainian-Russian relations named ‘Behind the scenes of the empire’ was also a Ukrainian bestseller.

‘Martians on Khreschatyk’ is a book about the literary Kyiv of the 20th century. Kyiv is a truly historical city that keeps many memories of different events and people. We walk along the streets that Borys Hrinchenko, Valerian Pidmohylnyi, Volodymyr Vynnychenko, and so on walked many, many years ago. Many streets have been renamed, and buildings have been repainted, but they don’t stop preserving memories. Vira Aheieva tells about this in her book.

The modern Kyiv is actually not much different from the city that our classical poets and writers knew. The author gives us a tour of this literary Kyiv: places where classics were written, where members of literary and artistic societies met, and where they talked, ate, loved, and simply lived.

The book also contains geolocations and marks of addresses mentioned in the text. That makes it easier for readers to navigate and find the places in Kyiv that the author talks about. Vira Aheieva also gives many examples and quotes from the books, poems, and novels of Ukrainian writers.

The book makes it possible to look at Ukrainian writers in a new way. Because they were the same people as us and not just someone’s mentions on paper.

I can say that the book is written in a rather complex scientific language, so it cannot be called easy reading for the evening (is this a disadvantage? I don’t think so). My rating is 4.5 out of 5!