I (Romantica) — Mykola Khvylovyi

I (Romantica) is one of the most powerful novellas in 20th-century Ukrainian literature. Written in 1924, it shows revolution through the inner conflict of a person who chose ideology but paid with his humanity. The Cheka narrator becomes part of the terror machine.

The central scene — the execution of his own mother — remains one of the most tragic episodes in Ukrainian prose. Khvylovyi uses stream-of-consciousness technique and nervous rhythm to convey the disintegration of personality.