Oppenheimer in Modern Ukrainian Literature: "Peacemaker" by Lyubko Deresh

After the beginning of the full-scale war in Ukraine, everyone began to talk about the nuclear bomb - a horrible reality no one could imagine before. In 2022, Russia relocated its atomic weapon to the military base near the Norwegian border and to Belarus. In response, NATO has increased the quantity of nuclear-capable fighter jets in Europe. All these events awakened interest in a person who has created a weapon so powerful that it can destroy all living things and brings death to tens of thousands of people. 

One of my favorite modern Ukrainian authors Lybko Deresh has a novella "Peacemaker" (2014), about the "father" of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer. Last summer, I accidentally came across it and was surprised by its emotional and psychological depth in portraying the character so controversial. I didn't read the book "American Prometheus" by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, on which Christopher Nolan's movie "Oppenheimer" is based, but the book by Lybko Deresh is definitely worth reading (sad that it is not translated into English yet). 

1. Trinity Test - Oppenheimer and Groves at Ground Zero. Photo: Wikimedia. 2. The cover of "Peacemaker" by Lyubko Deresh. Photo: anetta-publishers.com.

Lyubko Deresh

Lyubko Deresh was born in 1984 in Lviv, Ukraine, and studied chemistry and biology in high school and then accounting at the university. He published his first novel "Cult" when he was 16. Then followed other novels, which were translated into several European languages and aroused broad interest, making the writer one of the most famous Ukrainian authors.

I read Lyubko Deresh's first books as a student, and I remember they impressed me a lot. That was a whimsical world of the lives of young people, full of strange events and written beautifully and excitingly. After that, the writer had a career break, continued studying, took part in research programs, and returned to the literature in 2012 with the novel "Jakov's Head."

Today Lyubko Deresh is a novelist, essayist, screenwriter, lecturer, curator, and developer of innovative approaches to creativity. His books are characterized by the mood of searching for intuitive, emotional answers to the question of what human life and human being are.

I love this kind of literature, deeply studying a character's psychology, and Deresh's works remind me of my other favorite author - Stefan Zweig with the same way of showing characters' inner worlds. 

I highly recommend you read Lyubko Deresh's books, and I hope you can find some of them in your language.

The writer Lyubko Deresh, Kyiv, 2021. Photo: facebook.com/deresh.lyubko

Peacemaker / Миротворець

The book "Peacemaker" was written in 2013 and then published in 2014. It consists of three novellas: "A strange story about Stefan Lange," "Peacemaker," and "St. Christophorus, pray for us." The first two are beautiful psychological portraits of a fictional character (Stefan Lange, a student at Vienna University) and a real historical character - American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer. The third novella didn't impress me, and in my opinion, it doesn't fit the book.

In the novella "Peacemaker" (Ukrainian: миротворець), we meet Oppenheimer in the early morning of July 16, 1945, before the test of the first-ever nuclear weapon he called "Trinity test" - the name too lyrical to be explained to military generals. Deresh portrays him as a human being with his complicated relationship with himself and the people he is surrounded with, but not as the scientist deeply immersed in his studies. The person who is led by his ambition and desire for recognition. The person seduced by a general who provides him with unlimited resources for his research on his way to success - the success which means death to thousands of people... Who is this person with a keen sense of poetry and beauty, but at the same time skillfully manipulates people to achieve his goal? Only one person has power over Oppenheimer - General Groves, who deeply understands his need to be inscribed in history. 

Lyubko Deresh managed to rebuild the inner world of the soul of this outstanding scientist who gave the world the most destructive weapon, and the devastation that he felt after the meeting with his own Devil during the successful test of the atomic bomb there in the "most beautiful state" of the US. 

Oppenheimer's ID photo from the Los Alamos Laboratory. Photo: Wikimedia.

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