Dmytro Chub.In the Forests Near Vyazma: A Memoir Report on World War II.Munich, 1958

Dmytro Chub [born Dmytro Nytchenko]. In the Forests Near Vyazma: A Memoir Report on World War II / [Cover by P. Vakulenko].

Munich: Dniprovska Khvylia Publishing House, 1958. — 108 pp. — 19 cm. Printed by Dr. P. Belej, Munich.

Illustrated publisher’s cover printed in red, green, and black: German aircraft over the forest, an explosion on the highway, and an ambulance with a red cross. The cover is slightly yellowed, with scattered brown spots on the front and a small dark red spot near the bottom edge of the spine; the bottom left corner is slightly worn. The back cover is covered with heavy foxing, fingerprints, and a small ink mark at the bottom left. The paper shows natural yellowing and scattered foxing, most pronounced on the opening pages; the edges of the text block have darkened, but the binding is firm. Good condition.

First edition, published during the author’s lifetime. An eyewitness account of the Vyazma encirclement of historical and documentary value.

INFORMATION

Eyewitness account: The author was caught in the encirclement near Vyazma and taken into German captivity on October 10, 1941. This memoir report traces his journey from deployment to the Western Front and the bombing campaign through the encirclement in the forests, captivity, and his return to Kharkiv on foot; the author’s poems are woven into the prose. Recognized at the 1954 literary competition in Australia.

Dmytro Chub is the pseudonym of Dmytro Nytchenko (1905–1999), a writer, journalist, publisher, and linguist from Zinkiv in the Poltava region. He lived in exile in Germany from 1944 and in Australia from 1949, where he headed the Ukrainian Central School Council and founded the Lastivka Publishing House; he was a full member of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences.

The 1958 edition was the first; the second was published in Melbourne in 1983. The book was published by the Munich-based Dniprovska Khvylia Publishing House.