But far from offering a saccharine vision of potential future peace, Kurkov calmly shows us man’s brutality to man (and bees) with an almost fatalistic shrug. Blended into the silence, becoming its property, an integral part of it, a note in its endless music. But now looking at the news, I’m not even sure whether the grey zone is still there or the Russian troops have moved in. The character is of another time, another country, not even of flesh and blood, but we recognize something as true and relevant to our own lives.

Wherever this wisdom was visible and comprehensible to him, he would compare its manifestations with human life—always to the detriment to the latter.We’ve been independent from the start, which means we’re not connected with any academic institution, wealthy benefactor, or part of a larger publishing company. In der zweiten Hälfte des Romans macht sich Sergej mit seinen sechs Bienenstöcken auf in westlichere Regionen. On his way to Crimea and in Crimea he meets many characters, who see him, a man from the no-man’s land with rather ambivalent feelings as they are never sure which side he stands on. Kurkov has a way of explaining to the rest of us what’s happening in his country in an entertaining way. The book takes us to the small village of Starhorodivka in the grey zone between combatting Ukrainians and separatists.

The town has mostly been destroyed and consists of only two roads, one named Lenin and the other after Taras Shevchenko, a Ukrainian poet and symbol for Ukrainian nationalism.Ganz abgesehen von der inhaltlichen Stärke von "Graue Bienen" kann Andrej Kurkow auch wirklich fantastisch schreiben und Geschichten erzählen - besonders die Idee, die Bienen als Ordnung zum Gegenteil des Chaos der Menschen als Motiv zu wählen, hat mich sehr fasziniert. Adott egy merőben neutrális tér, ahol a katonák (az "ukrók" éppúgy, mint a "mieink", vagyis az oroszok) csak távoli, testetlen entitások, akik a fejünk fölött lövik egymást. But Sergey lives in Ukraine, where a lukewarm war of sporadic violence and constant propaganda has been dragging on for years. With its focus on Sergeyich, it captures the conditions in this small corner of the world during this time exceptionally well -- though of course now, in 2022, when full-scale war and large-scale destruction has been imposed on it by Russia it's no longer anything even like this.

There are also always reminders of the nearby conflict: the shelling in the distance (and occasionally closer to home) or, for example, the dead soldier Sergeyich spies lying in the snow not far from his home. Once in Crimea, this becomes more centre stage—the persecutions faced by the Tartars, disappearances and forced recruitments into the army; the venom and racist attitudes that have spread among some sections.Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole.