Winds of Change. Alan Greatluck

ery line that has been written on the clean sheets of this book is dedicated to the memory of the warring and lost patriots of the Ukrainian nation that put their lives on the altar of the dawn of new Ukraine; the majestic country, which would rise as a phoenix from the ashes of smoldering ruins.

      Those who perished from the steel tips of sniper's bullets (that try to take freedom away from the nation) gave their lives and immortal glory for gratitude of the people. Their blood shed on the Holy Ukrainian Land, became a monument for the country, which will be remembered in the history and revived in the canons of nobility and superhuman courage.

      Nothing will be able to replace the loss of these patriots whose fearless souls now look down from the heavens at the land that they have loved more than their own lives. Ukrainian people remember this bitter loss and will never forget their sacrifice have made for freedom.

      The grief tears through my heart but engenders hope in my soul for a bright future of my motherland. When a person perishes for a sacred idea, a fiery flame consuming his heart, he becomes immortal and leaves an eternal flame of memory for the nation that begat him.

      In a name of those who have passed away, for the sake of those who are alive.

February, 2014

      Preface

      What defines our destiny restricts secret desires by chains of laws and the prejudices of society? Is it the opinions of other people, iron set of rules and legalized norms, status in society and financial position, or unpropitious providence? For each person, the reasons will be as different as the flowers of divine plants, which refresh our eyes in the spring after an icy winter cold. However, one factor holds great influence on our mortal lives and on many forms of our thinking and mechanisms of decision-making. How it isn't surprising – it is a state system where we carry our existence through the eternally flowing steam of time.

      Unfortunately, our world is not governed by spiritual ideals. Only material benefits and rules of dirty deceitful money lead govern officials to lie to the people. However, when a government doesn't hear the voice of the begging public and continues to rob them, taking everything to the last kopeck, social changes occur. This process can be called as „historical justice“. When a nation is driven into a cesspool of poverty and slavery, it is necessary to be ready it will purge the dirt of false pretense from the rocky coast of government as a fiery hurricane. Social life passes along the path of an invisible spiral, having its own physics laws and unshakable trends. Fetters of poverty and hidden slavery can’t confine the human spirit. As a trickle of water, it will find a way out and will break through even the strongest of tyrannical barriers and immense, absolute power.

      However, enough dissertating, it is time to say a few words about this book. This result of the author's imagination and historic facts is devoted to the revolutionary events in Ukraine that stirred up most of her citizens and attired indelibly the destiny of the state. Fiery confrontation in the bitter winter of two thousand fourteen engulfed the unstable society, transforming its secret discontent to open revolution which swept over the country and crumpled the power of the rising dictator.

      The history of humankind has always taught us one interesting and majestic fact: a small ray of freedom is able to dispel the dense darkness of slavery. Just remember the Greco-Persian wars, when disparate embryos of democracy successfully resisted the strong hand of the empire. After all, freedom distinguishes humans from other earthly creatures. We are the only one creature who cannot exist without it. We are free to think, to dream and to live as our thoughts dictate to us. Since immemorial time, people have fought and died for freedom and equality, and this struggle is continuing nowadays.

      When I started to write this work, I did not fully understand the meaning of this word: freedom. What is hidden after this term? Is it a material wealth of free communication of thoughts? Maybe, is it the ability to move around the country without any restrictions? Only after finishing the book, I concluded that freedom is the opportunity to live your life as you want. Perhaps this definition is incomplete or even wrong, but it is true for me. I hope you will find your termination of the word "freedom" by reading this book.

      The burning cities and dark ranks of the police sniffed from past days to the snow-white pages of this novel, dancing again their round dance of winter collision. The destinies of two different people are depicted by a chain of the interconnected story describing their twin struggles in the national revolution from opposite banks of Ukraine’s river. Heated events confront the different sectors of society, compelling people to rush into street fights for the sake of thing each of them called freedom. Someone preferred to battle with illusory fascists and extremists, the majority decided to resist to the arising totalitarianism, having cut down it in a root of the beginning.

      In these lines that riddle clean sheets of paper set out one period in the life of two different people who became a tiny part of epochal events. Pain, blood, tears, and hatred would mix up with pride and prejudice, generating fiery opposition between nation and defenders of the authority. The eyes of two heroes behold at the brightest events of the revolutionary process, transferring the thinnest details of Ukrainian battle for independence to the reader. They discern freedom differently, reading opposite sense in it and managed polar acts. One of them was the employee of Special Forces who obeyed to the authority and the law but recited the oath to people. The second is the aspiring writer which only comprehending the way and trusting in ideals but. Different views on the same process, whose hostages they became.

      A certain part of this story – is „nude veritas“(truth) veiled only by other names and the changed appearance of heroes. Another section – is a fruit of the author's imagination that based on gossips and the embellished facts of the secret past. It is impossible to separate the truth from fiction, which is hidden under the screen of art, but believe me, the lion's share of this novel is a gloomy reality of what occurred on streets of revolution. The sea of a grief and the ocean of pleasure, imaginary despair and iron belief – all these feelings were felt by hearts of people, which walked, in an open flame of a new era.

      When I began to write this book, I had only one certain mind – to tell the true story to readers from all over the world, the novel that had happened with me and invested many destinies of the citizens of my country. I strongly believe that each person on the Earth was created for some reason, and its meaning is to change our world for something better. The mission of any writer is to tell an interesting story in which people will believe and take some useful advice that will modify their lives. Maybe it is the best purpose for any living human – to change this planet only by words.

      I hope this book will bring some light into closed hearts that buried in the darkness of ignorance, which is an eternal companion of evil thoughts. Unfortunately, without a conception of our past and correct conclusions from it, we won't be able to see that future which is drawn to us by our imagination. Once, everyone should begin to look clearly, having learned truth in the developing realities and cruelly scolding himself for the nonsense and limitation of views. However, way to the future is impossible without this cold sobering which comes on us with ignorance avalanche with each step. The wind of epoch is always invisible for a human eye, but it eternally raises sails of people’s dreams. Sometimes, it is represented to us as collapse incinerates human hearts with a flame of fear. Nevertheless, new world that is full of our dreams gets up from ashes and fragments of an old age.

      So, my dear friend, sit down in your soft chair more conveniently, turn on the gentle light of a lamp and be going to plunge into the storming world of street war which, fortunately, won't touch you. You will see the opposite worlds where two sons of one great country will appear in the middle of the flashed fire of war, blazing until hitherto. This story will take you on the wings of something that illuminates the path of humanity in the darkest days of dictatorship and feudalism, during the endless tyranny and torture of freethinking. We always talk about it but never know the meaning of this word. This book will tell you what real freedom is.

      P.S. I wish you would be able to find hope on these sheets, which will give strength to finish all your rudiments. And remember: our life is very fleeting and suddenly. It is not always filled with so much sense that we want but it would be empty at all, if there is not hope, faith and love. We will become fully creatures who do not know their place in this beautiful world without them.

Alan Greatluck