Камень. Биографический роман. Книга вторая. Непростые дороги в ад: Выживание в условиях насилия

by Володимир Шабля

Stone, Book Two is the second volume of the biographical historical novel by Ukrainian writer Volodymyr Shablia, continuing a documentary-based exploration of life in Soviet Ukraine during one of the most destructive periods of the twentieth century.
This volume places the personal story of its characters within the context of World War II in Ukraine, focusing on the early military defeats of the Red Army, chaotic retreats, disintegration of command, and the devastating consequences these failures had for civilians. War appears not as heroic narrative, but as collapse — of armies, institutions, and moral certainty.
At the same time, Stone, Book Two returns to the earlier foundations of this catastrophe: the forced collectivization of Ukrainian peasants, the campaign of dekulakization, and the systematic pressure exerted by Soviet authorities on rural communities. The novel shows how confiscations, arrests, and political violence destroyed traditional village life, leaving society fractured long before the outbreak of war.
Based on real lives, archival sources, and personal testimonies, the narrative reveals how ordinary people experienced state coercion, military failure, hunger, displacement, and fear, while being forced to navigate impossible choices under totalitarian rule.
Blending historical fiction, biography, and documentary realism, Stone, Book Two examines the intersection of war and repression, showing how the Soviet system subjected individuals to violence both at the front and in the rear — and how survival often depended not on ideology, but on memory, endurance, and inner resistance.
Stone, Book Two deepens the novel’s central question: how does a human being remain human when crushed between total war and total control?

Languages: Russian / Ukrainian.

179 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 28, 2020

About the author

Volodymyr Shablia is a Ukrainian writer and researcher whose work focuses on the lived experience of people inside the Soviet totalitarian system.
His multi-volume biographical novel Stone is based on real lives, archival materials, and personal testimonies. Through individual human stories, Shablia explores how repression, fear, and ideological pressure shaped everyday existence in the USSR from the 1920s to the 1940s.
Rather than heroic myths or political abstractions, his writing concentrates on ordinary people — their moral choices, compromises, resilience, and the quiet struggle to remain human under inhuman conditions.
Stone is both a literary narrative and a historical testimony, examining how totalitarianism enters daily life gradually, long before it becomes visible through prisons and camps.
Official page: facebook.com/Volodymyr.Shablia

Reviews

[Володимир Шабля · Rating 5 out of 5]

A novel about war, defeat, and the quiet destruction of rural life

Stone, Book Two continues the biographical narrative by shifting its focus toward one of the most painful layers of Soviet history: the experience of war and loss as lived by ordinary people in Ukraine.

This book is not written from the perspective of triumph or military glory. Instead, it explores the early defeats of the Red Army in Ukraine during World War II — the chaos of retreat, fear, misinformation, and the heavy cost paid by civilians far from the front lines. War here is not heroic; it is disorienting, humiliating, and devastating.

Alongside the wartime chapters, the novel returns to an earlier but equally destructive force: forced collectivization and the pressure exerted on Ukrainian peasants during the Soviet campaigns of dispossession and dekulakization. Fields, homes, and family traditions are stripped away not overnight, but gradually — through bureaucratic violence, fear, and moral compromise.

What matters most in this book is not ideology, but human endurance. The story shows how totalitarian power enters everyday life: through hunger, silence, and the normalization of injustice. Yet even here, moments of childhood memory, family care, and inner resistance remain present, reminding the reader that survival is not only physical but moral.

Stone, Book Two is a work of historical fiction grounded in real lives and documented realities. It will resonate with readers interested in World War II history, Soviet and Ukrainian history, collectivization, and the lived experience of civilians under totalitarian rule.

This is not an easy book — but it is a necessary one.