This is an ugly world near the zero line. The zero line, that is, the hypothetical border between the Russian and Ukrainian troops, and the soldier with the pseudonym, the horse, which fights the last on the side, is located in the middle of the archaic sphere at the front.
The victims and the dead must be paid here – “Trihokhosot, that is, three hundred, means of the wounded, bias, two hundred and dead” – soldiers are called rats, jackal or leopard, the language is dirty, enemies are called “ruscken”, “pedorussia” or “fucked mosquitors”.
ZCZEPAN TWARDOCH Roman Die Zerzinie plays in the warlike presence in the Chessi region, “Romance from War” is a subtitle of the book. His main character is the horse (Ukrainian Kanh = horse)-academic, he comes from the Polish Ukrings family and lived in Warsaw before he initially switched to war as a volunteer.
The form Du passes through the novel, the main character is in a constant inner dialogue
At the front, he meets people whom he looks down, with rats who have no training, a leopard, an alcoholic from the vicinity of the cup. But the horse quickly finds out that in the war everything that was no longer used before, everything goes away in the face of artillery fire and bombing.
War is a common motive at Zczepan Twardoch
The Polish writer Szczepan Twardoch was already engaged in the wars and Polish injury of the 20th century in his novels, he wrote time in Warsaw immediately before the German German attack on Poland (Morphine, 2014) and the murder after the end of the First World War (Demut, 2020).
The 45-year-old football player is very successful in the German market, he was awarded many times, recently in April with a prize of literature on the use of 2025. For his new novel, he went to the front several times and investigated, spent a lot of time in trenches from a rifle, as he says.
On the one hand, the “zero line” depicts how existence can hardly talk about life – in war. The author has a formed horse, found with people from a low level called the lower class; Relations turn around here at the front, here they are the smart ones that explain the war to him. This is a regressive masculine world that depicts a twaries, at some point he says about the soldiers: “(…) in the end, they probably were looking for their masculinity (in the war), which could not flourish in the calm life of their native countries.”
ZCZEPAN TWARDOCH: “Zero Line”. From the varnish Olaf Kul. Rowohlt Berlin, Berlin 2025, 256 pages, 24 euros
With a mechological language
The novel is very full of expressions, such as “cunt” and “damn”, the language is by car. A certain hobby of rude also seems to be part of the author, he reproduces the song of a soldier, vulgasm and racisms more than it would be necessary. It is also annoying that women in war are unlikely to appear here where you know how many soldiers on the Ukrainian side (also at the front) and what important role they play for the infrastructure.
On the other hand, Twardoch Can Can, of course, processes only what he experienced. His main character should find his own path in this world that changes his system of values, whether he wants or not: “You have your own rationalism in front of you, like a shield and a sword, the banner of your inventive intelligence, but that it is good in the war, is still not so, if not the cause, neither courage, nor in any case, and cannot protect itself from the fact that it cannot be simple, it cannot only be.
The form Du passes through the novel, the main character is in a constant inner dialogue. How many those who almost casually agreed on Twardoch are noteworthy. He talks about the often complex family origin of many eastern Europeans: inside the von horse based on the family.
He describes how Ukrainian soldiers (actually mainly a man) work with right extremist symbols, just to “provoke” the enemy – and thus harm themselves. He finds successful words about the completely opposite development of Russian and Ukrainian society after 1991 (“Without the property of the nurse Maidan, namely their anarchist love for freedom, today there would be no Ukraine”).
War as a fundraising
For example, he calls the war “war in raising funds”, hints at many drones, which are fundamentally financed by donations. He gives lectures on the “original text of the war”, “Ilias” Homer. And finally, ends in the middle now, when negotiations are being held.
In parts, the sound seems too effective, hardening at the front is reinforced by a cruel language, so there could be literary means to establish contrasts; Another voice, another tone. “Zero -Linius” undoubtedly talks about the fortexist in the war.
Twardoch brings you closer to the desire to two incompatible worlds, civilians and the military, describing how an educated city man enters into war and becomes a fighter. And how terrible, next to the zero line, that’s all. Terribly banal and terribly cruel.
