Vasyl Zemlyak (1923-1977), a Ukrainian writer and screenwriter, came to literature in the 1950s with a generation of veteran writers. His first stories are devoted to the theme of the postwar village, the events of the Patriotic War and are often based on personal experience. "Swan Flock" and "Green Mills" - the most famous works of Vasily Zemlyak. They are a dilogy and were awarded in 1978 by the State Prize of Ukraine. T. Shevchenko. The author depicts the history of the Ukrainian peasant Pobuzhye, beginning with the post-revolutionary events, when communes arose and a deadly "class" struggle took place, and ending with the liberation of the region in the spring of 1944 from the Nazi occupiers. Each of the heroes of the novel - both the main and even the most episodic - appears before the eyes of the reader as alive, thinks, speaks and acts in his own way, at the behest of his inherent "nature". And together, they form the integrity whose name is the Ukrainian people.
