Камень. Биографический роман Quotes

“My blissful childhood was shattered without warning when I was about ten years old. One day, my father told me that he had spent seventeen years of his life in prisons, Gulag labor camps, and internal exile. At that moment, his confession became the greatest shock I had ever experienced.
“My father — the kindest and wisest man on earth — and suddenly this?” I refused to believe my own ears.
But my dad did not stop at the bare fact. He spoke of hunger, of cruelty, of utter powerlessness — and of his own horrific existence within a totalitarian, inhuman system.
— Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book One. Author's Preface


Context note:
This passage comes from the author’s preface and reflects a real childhood revelation that became the moral and emotional foundation of the novel. Learning that his father had survived years of prisons, labor camps, and exile under the Soviet totalitarian system, the author transformed personal memory into a literary quest to understand repression, trauma, and human endurance.”
― Володимир Шабля, Камень. Биографический роман: Часть первая. Первые шаги к свету и обратно

“Somewhere nearby, artillery thundered. Vast fields — flat as a table, without a single tree — turned any moving figure into an easy target against the monotonous landscape, drawing German pilots toward whatever appeared below.
Twice already, the exhausted and terrified prisoners were strafed by Junkers aircraft returning from their missions, deciding to use up their remaining ammunition. At the command of the group leader — a State Security lieutenant — everyone scattered in all directions. Yet despite this, nearly twenty people, including soldiers, were killed by the bullets of the German vultures.
Roughly the same number were executed by the guards themselves. Anyone seriously wounded, anyone unable to keep walking, was shot on the spot.
— Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book One


Context note:
During the first weeks of the German–Soviet War in 1941, prisoners and soldiers are driven across the open steppe. Caught between German air attacks and Soviet security forces, the weak and wounded are systematically eliminated. The scene exposes the brutal logic of total war on the Eastern Front.”
― Володимир Шабля, Камень. Биографический роман: Часть первая. Первые шаги к свету и обратно

“I want to make buns too!” four-year-old Peter declared firmly.
“Then help me knead and roll the dough,” Grandma Iryna suggested, “and I’ll shape and bake all sorts of tasty treats from it.”
“Deal!”
She lifted her grandson onto a sturdy chair at the edge of the table so he could reach the dough comfortably, then pinched off a small lump for him.
“I’ll knead my piece, and you’ll knead yours — together we’ll finish faster,” she said. “Watch me and do the same.”
Glancing at his teacher, the boy eagerly began working his dough. Soon he was covered in flour from head to toe. Iryna only smiled and encouraged him, kneading her own dough with skillful hands and humming gentle folk rhymes.
— Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book One


Context note:
Set in rural Ukraine before war and repression tear childhood apart, this scene captures a fleeting moment of safety and love — a grandmother teaching her grandson patience, trust, and joy through the simplest ritual of home.”
― Володимир Шабля, Камень. Биографический роман: Часть первая. Первые шаги к свету и обратно

“A son. An heir. Fragile — born too soon, and yet deeply desired.”
The thought had barely formed when the father took the newborn into his arms and fell in love at first sight. Afraid to harm him, yet unable to resist, he gently kissed the baby’s cheek.
“He is not Alexander, as I once imagined,” he realized suddenly. “He is Peter. My son is Peter.”
When the parents chose the name, they did not know its ancient Greek meaning. Nor could they imagine how precisely it would define the boy’s fate: Peter — a stone, a rock.
From the very moment of his painful birth, he would stand like a rock against suffering and injustice, enduring hardship, surviving cruelty, and emerging stronger — destined to fulfill a mission of goodness, reason, honesty, and justice.
— Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book One


Context note:
Born into a turbulent era of war, revolution, repression, and uncertainty, Peter enters the world fragile — yet claimed by history itself. This moment of birth marks the quiet beginning of a life shaped by endurance, moral strength, and resistance to cruelty.”
― Володимир Шабля, Камень. Биографический роман: Часть первая. Первые шаги к свету и обратно

“Stalin perceived the world in stark black and white. In the same way, he divided people, nations, actions, and ideas into only two absolute categories: “ours” and “theirs.”
“Ours” were all those — and everything — that, at the moment of decision, fell under his control or contributed to strengthening it. “Theirs” were everyone else, and everything else.
He saw his role as a strategist in constructing a system of power that would force each of the “ours,” individually and collectively, to work at the very limit of human endurance in order to fulfill his strategic design.
That design was simple and ruthless: to endlessly increase the number and strength of the “ours” by coercing the “theirs” into becoming “ours,” while simultaneously destroying — or, as a last resort, neutralizing — all who refused to submit.
— Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book One


Context note:
This passage reflects the ideological logic of Stalinist totalitarianism, where power was built on absolute division, forced loyalty, and systematic repression. In the Soviet worldview of the 1930s–1940s, survival depended on belonging to “ours” — or being destroyed as “theirs.”
― Володимир Шабля, Камень. Биографический роман: Часть первая. Первые шаги к свету и обратно

“A volley thundered — and the prisoner kneeling beside Peter collapsed lifelessly into the dirt. Three more men fell elsewhere along the line.
“Reload!” the State Security lieutenant kept commanding. “Aim!”
Peter turned his gaze toward the NKVD squad. A rifle was pointed straight at his chest, the bayonet gleaming. He looked into the barrel.
“Can a crude piece of lead really destroy my unique soul forever? No — that is absurd!”
In a state of shock, he felt himself tearing away from reality, rising above the turmoil into a silvery, radiant height. Below, his body knelt on the ground. But his essence — his soul — watched what was happening with bitter irony from above. His gaze turned toward the beautiful light descending from the heavens.
Peter shuddered. The rifle was still aimed at his chest. Yet he felt no fear. Now he knew: his soul could not die — it was impossible. His essence, his spirit — and therefore he himself — were immortal.
“Stand down!” the NKVD lieutenant said with relief. “This time you are spared. But if there is any further sabotage, there will be no mercy.”
— Volodymyr Shablia, Stone. Book One


Context note: During a prisoner transport in Stalin’s USSR, Peter witnesses an execution and is moments away from being shot himself. Facing death, fear gives way to a profound inner realization about the immortality of the human spirit.”
― Володимир Шабля, Камень. Биографический роман: Часть первая. Первые шаги к свету и обратно