Finiteness theorems for limit cycles: a digest of the revised proof

This is the first paper in a series of two presenting a digest of the proof of the finiteness theorem for limit cycles of a planar polynomial vector field. At the same time we sketch the proof of the following two theorems: an analogous result for analytic vector fields, and a description of the asymptotics of the monodromy transformation for polycycles of such fields.