The Time of the Tyrant is the newest and final part of the trilogy created by writer, journalist, and diplomat Yurii Shcherbak. The longtime friend, contributor and expert of The Day presented it at the House of Teacher in Kyiv on September 2.
Shcherbak admitted he had long deliberated whether to go ahead with the presentation, taking into account that “World War III has actually started in Ukraine.” “However, our unwillingness to come together and tell each other the deepest and most sincere words would be a victory for Vladimir Putin. He wants to intimidate our people, to destroy the nation and the state, and prove to the world that his crazy ideas work,” Shcherbak noted.
Another reason in favor of the idea that the meeting was worth having was a queue that lined up to the writer, as some wanted to congratulate him on the book, while others wished to have a book signed and a picture taken with the author.
“No other author in Ukraine would be able to write such novels. These books sum up Shcherbak’s legacy as politician and visionary. This is the darkest ever novel in our literature, but it shows a future Ukraine still existing, fighting back and defending itself,” secretary of the National Union of Writers of Ukraine Mykhailo Slaboshpytsky said.
In his turn, Doctor of Science in Physics and Mathematics, writer and translator Maksym Strikha noted that “of all living Ukrainian authors, Shcherbak is the best positioned to write about what he wrote about and in the way he did it.” “The author confirmed once again his reputation as one of the most talented Ukrainian writers,” Strikha added. He admitted that while he had read the first two parts of the trilogy at one go, he had found the third part “terrifying.”
Renowned historian and journalist Vadym Skurativsky, who also authored the foreword to Shcherbak’s novel, said that the book “was the first of its kind in the world literature.” “We are dealing with a trilogy depicting Ukraine’s past and present and a hypothetical future. It is the best novel that the world has seen after Walter Scott,” Skurativsky remarked. At the same time, he said, Shcherbak’s novels explain to Ukrainians who they are, what is happening to them, and where they are going.
Shcherbak’s trilogy, including The Time of Christothanatists, The Time of the Big Game and The Time of the Tyrant describes three Ukrainian regimes: one led by Hetman Makhun in 2077, another is a pseudo-liberal regime of Vasyl Volia in 2079, and the third one has the trilogy’s protagonist Ihor Haiduk as its leader.
The Time of the Tyrant depicts Ukraine in 2084. Despite having risen to power, Haiduk feels lonely, because he is forced to take a lot of unpopular measures to protect Ukraine from its enemies, both external and internal. Haiduk feels enslaved by his power, but opponents fear him and make several assassination attempts on him. In fact, this novel is a confession of a man at the helm of the nation who frankly admits: “What kind of democracy can there be when I defend the nation in an existential fight?” Another cross-cutting theme of the book is our inability to even realize how great is the test that a committed patriot is going through when they reach a power position. As noted by Shcherbak, all events are fictional, except those that are not, and the entire plot has never happened, but it has to happen...
