Traitor. A novel by Amanda McCrina

Traitor is a historical fiction novel set during World War II that explores the little known events during the war in Poland and the Ukraine. It is told through two narratives, that of Tolya and Aleksey.

Tolya Korolenko is a sniper with the First Ukrainian Front of the Soviet Red Army which has now moved into the Ukraine. On Stalin's orders, the First Ukrainian Front are rounding up and disarming every Polish Resistance fighter left in the city of Lwow. The officers are to be shipped east to the labour camps; the rank and file soldiers offered amnesty if they will join the Soviets.

It is late in the day when Tolya comes across a man assaulting a woman. Tolya fires a bullet into the back of the Soviet, only to see that it is Zampolit Sergei Petrov. Toyla finishes the job with a bullet to the back of the head and offers to help the young woman whom he suspects is Polish resistance. But she is having none of it. Instead she robs the dead Petrov of his gun and ammunition turns on Tolya but leaves him unharmed with his rifle.

Tolya has no regrets about killing Petrov as he's wanted to kill him after what happened in Tarnopol. Tolya's friend and mentor, Comrade Lieutenant Spirin had managed to make it back from behind German lines despite two broken ribs and a bullet in his back. Petrov had him executed by firing squad, believing he'd survived because he was a double agent. After the girl leaves, Tolya is spotted by Russian soldiers and runs through the streets to lose them.

Back with his unit at the train station, as the night settles in, Comrade Lieutenant Maksym Rudenko, the battalion commander warns Tolya not to miss curfew again. He tells him he will inform Comrade Colonel Sokolov, commander of their division, "it was an accidental discharge."

The next day Tolya meets up with Nataliya Koval, a sniper also with the First Ukrainian Front. Koval warns Tolya that the Soviets suspect one of them killed Petrov. She tells him that the NKVD (Narodnyi Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del - the People's Commisariat for Internal Affairs) Soviet secret police will be certain to investigate.They will torture him to reveal "all the other anti-Soviet elements in the company." She warns him that the NKVD will know he had issues with Petrov and that other soldiers will talk. Koval tells Tolya that he could be far into the mountains in two days but he refuses to run. He lies to Koval and promises her he will leave that night for Stryy.

But at noon, the NKVD come for Tolya. Three men take him from the noon mess hall to the station and into a black car. They tell Tolya they are not NKVD, introducing themselves as Andriy, Taras, Yakiv and Aleksey known as Solovey. They are with the L'viv group of the UPA (Ukrainska Povstankska Armiia) - "the Insurgent Army, radical Ukrainian nationalists and anti-Communists." Tolya believes their claim of being part of the UPA and speaking Ukrainian is an attempt to trick him. When they show papers supposedly from the Front's senior NKVD officer Fyodor Volkov at the roadblock, Tolya is certain they are NKVD. 

They leave the city behind and eventually pull off the road.As they begin hiking into the woods, Tolya tells them to just shoot him. Solovey insists they are not NKVD and that they have "extracted" him. Tolya tries unsuccessfully to convince Solovey to let him go but when he refuses, he runs and is shot in the shoulder. When Solovey opens Tolya's shirt, he sees the rosary around his neck and knows this means he is Polish and a Roman Catholic. With Andriy, Taras and Yakiv coming, Solovey rips the rosary off and pockets it. Still Tolya believes the UPA who hate Poles and believe in cleansing the Ukraine, will kill him.

Tolya is given morphine, the bullet removed by a Red Cross nurse and he begins to recuperate in the UPA's field camp. Solovey tells him that their source in the Front arranged to get him "extracted" as he was in danger. But Tolya has no idea what's going on. The Red Cross nurses want to take Tolya to Toporiv to recover but Solovey refuses and offers Tolya another choice after he proves he can still shoot. He is asked to assassinate Fyodor Volkov, the highest ranking NKVD officer in the western Ukraine. Tolya agrees and the group begins planning. When they are told by Yakiv that Volkov is not at headquarters, Tolya goes to sleep. He awakens to find the camp under attack by NKVD forces. They have been betrayed. He and Solovey escape, running into the forest, Tolya without his boots and Solovey with a broken leg from a machine-gun slug. 

Initially they planned to stay at Solovey's grandfather's cabin however they encounter NKVD and realize that this no longer an option and head to Hruszow. Solovey wants Tolya to leave him behind as he is becoming weaker from his injuries but Tolya refuses. At this time Solovey reveals that his real name is Aleksey Yevhenovych Kobryn and he tells Tolya a bit about himself. The issue is settled when they are attacked by the NKVD and Solovey, badly wounded by gunfire, kills himself. Tolya escapes but goes back to bury Solovey and is captured by Vitalik and his UPA squad. 

He is tortured by Vitalik who believes Tolya is really NKVD and that he robbed Solovey. However, when their cabin is surrounded by NKVD who are then surrounded by the Polish Resistance, Tolya is rescued and taken to the home of Mrs. Kijek where he begins to recover from the torture. However, during his convalescence, the NKVD attack the house. As he's taking out the machine gun nests in the forest, Tolya unexpectedly meets up with Nataliya Koval whom he thought was dead. She explains what has happened over the past few months. She gives Tolya a chance to escape along with Mrs. Kijek and her daughter, Lena. The truth about the informer in the Ukrainian Front is revealed.

A second narrative by Aleksey Yevhenovych Kobryn, set three years earlier, in 1941 as the Germans are entering Lwow,  provides some of the backstory of the characters encountered in Tolya's narrative. Like Tolya, Aleksey encounters the various factions fighting in Lwow, including the Nachtigallen, Ukrainians who are the advance troops for the Germans, Vitalik of the UPA, and the Kijeks who work for the Polish Resistance.

Discussion

In Traitor, the complexities of war in Eastern Europe are explored along with the themes of loyalty and betrayal and what it means to be a traitor.

The main story is told through the narrative of Tolya, an eighteen-year-old of mixed Ukrainian and Polish ethnicity. The story is set in Galicia, a region that contains parts of both Poland and the Ukraine. In this region, with a long history of conflict, people were fighting not only occupation by the Germans (Nazis), but the Russians (Communists) as well as each other; Polish against Ukrainian and vice versa. Tolya's mixed heritage makes  him a possible traitor no matter which side he chooses and this seems to be his lot in the story. His father, a Ukrainian had died in prison while his mother was murdered simply because she was Polish. With the death of his parents, he was taken in by his Aunt Olena and his uncle who were Communist Party members but eventually when the Germans arrived in 1941, he was conscripted into the Russian army as a sniper.

Some characters in Aleksey's story are found three years later in Tolya's story: Aleksey is now Solovey of the UPA, Vitalik a brutal man who tortures Tolya and who killed Aleksey's father because he knew too much, and Mrs. Kijek, a nurse who treats both Aleksey and Tolya.

Readers will not find Traitor an easy read. There are many characters, who switch in and out of the various factions and at times it's difficult to know which side a character may be affiliated with.  While this serves to drive home the complexity of the conflict in Galicia during World War II, it can also be very confusing. And Aleksey, one of the narrators, appears as a character under a different name (Solovey) in Tolya's story. Thankfully McCrina does provide her readers with a List of Characters at the back of the book - something that should have been placed more prominently at the front.

Overall the impression after reading this novel is that it is really two books meshed together. What would have made the novel more readable and more enjoyable was to simply tell the stories chronologically, first Aleksey's story set in 1941 with the coming of the Germans as they were initiating Operation Barbarossa, then Tolya's story set in 1944 as the Germans were fleeing the area and the Russians moving in to occupy Galicia. Most adults don't know the 20th century history of this region, never mind teens. The alternating narratives added a layer of complexity that wasn't necessary.

Tolya is representative of the theme of what it means to be a traitor. First there is his heritage. When Lena Kijek mentions that at first she thought Tolya was a Polish conscript, but then realizes he's Ukrainian Tolya doesn't bother to explain. "What was there to say? He wasn't Polish, and he wasn't Ukrainian. He was a traitor to his father's people on account of his mother, and a traitor to his mother's people on account of his father, and a traitor to both on account of the Reds, and a traitor to the Reds on account of Zampolit Petrov."

But Tolya's story is also about the hunt for an informer in the Ukrainian Front - the Russian Red Army moving into the Ukraine in 1944. The Front were afraid the UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army) would place an informer into its ranks.In Tarnopol, they believed the informer was now within their ranks. After Colonel Spirin was executed, Zampolit Petrov was certain Tolya was the informer and wanted to act. However, Colonel Sokolov refused mainly because he did not want to lose another soldier. Instead, they allowed the UPA to take Tolya and tracked them to their camp. Koval was part of the NKVD who attacked Solovey and the UPA. The NKVD continued to follow Tolya;  he was recaptured by the UPA, then tortured and freed by the Polish resistance. Eventually the NKVD caught up with him at the Kijek's house where Tolya unexpectedly meets Koval and learns the truth about what has happened over the last few months. She admits to being the informer but she participated in the attacks so as to not blow her cover.

Unlike most young adult novels today, Traitor does incorporate some of the Catholic culture which was a part of the Galicia region into the story. Tolya is Catholic and carries a rosary which is considered by the Ukrainians as a way to identify a Polish person. He only knows some of the prayers, but he prays those bits he knows. Although he has no problem as a sniper taking out other soldiers, in his mind he's constantly recalling the counselling of his priest. Father Dmytro tells him "Hate is like hogweed...easily seeded, easily spread--but have you ever tried to root out hogweed? And you've got to root it out, because it chokes out everything else." 

Aleksey spends time in prayer when he returns to the room he shares with Mykola. "I went to the icons and made my prayers in silence -- To Christ first, with the sign of the cross, then to the Theotokos, then to the saints in turn, Saint Yevhen last of all."  Despite his prayers, Aleksey finds himself  considers stealing. "The obvious thing would be to take advantage of the fact that Altshuer's was closed. I'd stolen before, of course, when I'd needed to. It was easy to justify stealing from Poles and Reds. They were the ones who'd created the need in the first place. Repayment in kind -- God would understand and forgive."  When he kills Strilka, Aleksey's surprised at his lack of reaction. "I waited for the pangs of conscience. It was never as easy as you thought it was going to be. I knew that because I'd failed every time before. I hadn't even been able to kill that Red sentry, down at the station. I hadn't been able to kill Andriy, and I hadn't been able to watch Andriy kill that Pole... It was because I didn't have time to think about it, I decided. It would be harder later."

Traitor is a novel that manages to convey the brutality of war both for soldiers and the general population. It is a reminder that during this time people were murdered simply because they were a certain ethnicity (Jewish, Polish or Ukrainian) or because of their political beliefs or for no reason at all. In this regard, Traitor is an important book for our times.

Book Details:

Traitor: A Novel by Amanda McCrina
New York: Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers   2020
355 pp.