The Thickets is the first volume of Polish poet and novelist Józef ¿obodowski's Ukrainian Trilogy, written between 1955 and 1960. Set primarily in Russia's Kuban region, the novel unfolds against a rich backdrop where Ukrainians, Russians, and Cossacks live alongside Tatars, Circassians, and waves of other peoples under Tsarist rule-among them Armenians and Poles. From this world emerges Stä (Stanis¿aw), a young Pole and the central figure of the trilogy.

In The Thickets, ¿obodowski paints a stark, unforgettable portrait of the turmoil that engulfed the former Russian Empire after the fall of the Tsar and Kerensky's government. For Stä, once a student at a classical gymnasium, survival now means peddling contraband on the black market. Through his eyes, the reader is plunged into the chaos of war, revolution, and occupation-rendered with visceral power and human urgency.