The Wall (short stories)

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The Wall ("Сьцяна") is a collection of short stories by the famous Belarusian writer Vasil Bykaŭ. The book deals with the tragic fate of Belarus, from Stalinist repressions (novella Yellow Sand) and World War II battles that left Belarus in ruins to the dismal life of the Belarusian people in 1990s. The author's disillusionment and pessimistic attitude is obvious throughout. Similarily to many other works by Bykav, parallels to existentialism can be drawn, e.g the focus on choice and moral scruples like in the story The Poor Folk. It can be regarded as examplary on its depiction of the absence of liberty and powerlessness of an individual within a totalitarian system.

As Vasil Bykaŭ was a persona non grata for Alaksandar Łukashenka's regime, the stories were first published in Russian literary magazines 'Druzba Narodov' (nr 7,8,11, 1999) and 'Zvezda' (nr 5, 1999), the first book format being the translation (of most of the stories) into Estonian, titled Valgevene tragöödia ('The Tragedy of Belarus'), in 2001.