By Klara GUDZYK, The Day
Foreign travelers were sailing up the river Rai (Dnipro), gazing out at
the valley unfolding before them. The farther their boat sailed the more
picturesque it became. The air became thick with the fragrance of honey
and bread. Beyond the river lived mysterious tribes.
"This must be a simple and warm world," Apostle Andrew, the first called
of Jesus, told himself prophetically, "here people listen to the voices
of the land and seek heaven." Later, St. Andrew got to know the Venedy,
our ancestors, and saw that "this people will not fight others, this land
will not covet other lands, but before long deadly clouds will gather all
over it."
We see "St. Andrew atop a big hill, erecting a tall wood cross, the
first one in these parts... He baptizes people and the land, blesses children
and everyone living here. This land will know great happiness, but it will
also experience so much pain, suffering, and death. The Apostle weeps atop
the big hill."
The above excerpts are from Natalia Dziubenko's new novel Andriy
Pervozvanny (St. Andrew, the First Called), an epic about a man who
was the first to bring the Good News to the Slavic lands. The Apostle Andrew,
a Galilean fisherman of Bethsaida, brother of the Apostle Peter reached
the Dnieper shores in the fourth decade AD, at the beginning of Christianity.
This new book is a monumental, colorful work in which history is complemented
by a keen insight into the mysticism of creed and of the soul. It is a
novel in the truest, currently a bit obscure, sense of the word. The reader
feels a strong affinity to the characters and events, and remembers them
long after turning the last page. The plot is whimsical, with countless
unexpected turns and masterfully portrayed intertwined destinies and epochs.
It is a gripping account of human souls transformed by exposure to the
forces of good and evil. Dozens of strikingly real characters masterfully
created, leaving a vivid impression, among them the immaculate Jesus, saddened
with eternal knowledge, wrapped in a golden cloak, the Great Mother surrounded
by faithful wolves, fearless warriors astride serpentine horses, bewitching
Polissian river-maids, world-weary Roman bureaucrats, great sinners, and
more. However, the novel's greatest asset is perhaps that "behind the visible
world one discerns a different, real one..." revealing forgotten yet ever
alive links of that endless historical chain that can be broken neither
by people nor even by time.
Sage and simple Andrew is portrayed with a delicate touch (in fact,
the New Testament mentions this Apostle only nine times; there is no conclusive
historical evidence about his missionary trips). Natalia Dziubenko's Andrew
is a personality whose soul is wholly and thoroughly dedicated to the Lord.
He is an Apostle of Love who never "broke souls, hearts, destroyed tribes
and peoples, but who steered them aright " with his words. He believed
that the teachers of fear are always in motion, but "will the people ever
find the teachers of freedom?" It is extremely interesting to follow the
author's ideas as she lets the reader have an insight into the Apostle's
heart at the moment of ultimate truth, when healing people or delivering
prophecies; he can look into the future, and what he sees fills him with
sadness.
Russia rightfully takes pride in Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita
as a mystical insight in The Word. Now we have Natalia Dziubenko's St.
Andrew the First Called which is even more mystical, and which will
surely find devotees. Carefully and expertly incorporating historical and
New Testament context (using sources she knows in the most minute detail),
the author builds situations never described by the Evangelists but which
logically could have happened, filling the temporal lacunae between universally
known events. Owing to her talent, erudition, and creative imagination,
she describes numerous extremely divergent and highly dramatic scenes from
the life of the world's first Christian community led by Jesus and his
disciples.
The novel is also a thoughtful approach to current realities, an attempt
to answer the eternal questions, Why is this great and rich land so defenseless,
exposed to all that blows in the wind? Why can all who wish rape this land
with sword and fire? When will this people finally become its own true
master? Is there really no way to progress other than through suffering,
disease, sweat, and blood? Natalia Dziubenko is convinced that "it is only
through love that our people will shed its animal skin and show the rest
of the world its true immortality."







