To the stars

"Ad astra" is a philosophical and lyrical novel by Eliza Orzeszkowa, in which love, nature, and the inner search of a human being merge into one melody. It is a work that has been called "that which remains" — profound, symbolic, and uncommonly beautiful.

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One hundred and twenty years ago, Ad astra was called "a work that remains."
The authors placed the musical word "duet" under its title and unfolded the plot against the backdrop of hymns to living nature, songs of ancient times, the music of the cosmos, and the silence of sphinxes. The voices of the heroes come from the Białowieża Forest and the Bernese Alps, from the wondrous and fearful Black Forest tract and from the majestic Rhone glaciers, from the fairy-tale Lauterbrunnen Valley, over which a shepherd's song rings out, and from the ruins of a Belarusian castle, plowed up by wild boars, from where the sounds of a ghostly hunt echo into the forest...

Notes of life are woven into the melody of love: the characters engage in what, in modern terms, would be called a philosophical-psychological battle, in which, among other things, one hears the disputes of a patriot and a cosmopolitan, heart and mind, happiness and sacrifice, love and duty.

The work is a continuation of Eliza Orzeszkowa's novel "Dzika" ("Two Poles"). This is its first publication in Belarusian.