Erin Litteken is a debut novelist with a degree in history and a passion for research. At a young age, she was enthralled by stories of her family’s harrowing experiences in Ukraine before, during and after World War II. Her debut novel, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv, draws on those experiences.
During the Holodimar, or the Great Famine (1932 to 1933) millions of Ukrainians died of starvation (estimates range from as high as 12 million to at least four million) not from crop failure or climate disasters but because of the policies of Joseph Stalin (ruler of Russia from 1927 to 1953).
Several of the most featured writers on my blog left the Ukraine to
find a better life. Among them are Clarice Lispector, Irene Némirovsky, Gregor Von Rezzori and Joseph Roth. Many Yiddish writers fled the Ukraine, an area of deeply rooted virulent anti-Semetic feelings going back centuries. Arguments about the Ukraine have become a big factor in American politics. Of course those speaking know next to nothing about the history of the region.
Basically starting with Lenin, Soviet leaders felt that they had a choice, save the Revolution in Russia by taking the massive grain production from the Ukraine to feed Russians or letting millions of Russians starve which would turn the Russians against the Bolsheviks. Lenin made a decision to sacrifice the Ukrainian people to save Communism in Russia. He made no effort to hide this as Applebaum very throughly documents in quotes from his speeches. Stalin continued this policy to horrible consequences. Stalin seems to have gone from the pure pragmatic views of Lenin to a personal hatred for everything and everyone Ukrainian.
Prior to the Russian Revolution grain was produced on farms run by their owners, called “Kulaks”. The more they produced the more they made. Stalin saw the Kulaks as the enemy of communism. He began a process know as collectivism in which many farms were combined into one unit run by officials, often with no agricultural experience, who were ordered to deliver all their products to other Russian officials (or Stalinist Ukrainians) to be sent to Russia. The peasants no longer had any incentive to work hard, to produce as much as they could. Instead they focused on finding a way to feed their families. Stealing was no longer a vice to them as their land had been stolen. (From my post on an essential book for anyone hoping to Understand the Ukraine-Red Famine -Stalin’s War on Ukraine by Anne Applebaum - 2017
Litteken's powerful historical novel has two interconnected times lines, separated by several decades and thousands of miles. The plot line begins in Wisconsin in 2004, then in Chapter Two we are taken to Katya in the Ukraine in 1929.
In Wisconsin we encounter a young widow and her daughter Birdie. She and her husband had moved there for a job offer for her husband but he was killed in automobile accident. Since then Birdie, 12 or so, has not spoken. The doctors say it is the result of the trauma and hopefully in time she will recover. Her mother persuades to move in with her to help take care of her widowed grandmother. Her grandmother hordes food and sometimes has cognitive disorders in which she imagines she is back in the Ukraine in the 1930s. She has a journal from this period that her granddaughter, with the help of Nick, a Ukrainian speaking family friend, she is working her way through.
Kanya, back in the Ukraine in 1930, is 16, lives with her parents and sister. The Soviets and Ukrainian collaborators are trying to force everyone into a farming collective. It is often just an excuse for theft and sexual molestation. Just having food becomes a challenge, people live on the brink of starvation unless they cooperate with the Russians. Katya soon marries her childhood sweetheart. The horrors of the Holodimar are vividly shown.
I do not want to go much further into the very enthralling plot. The connections between the two time lines are powerful.
Erin Litteken is a debut novelist with a degree in history and a passion for research. At a young age, she was enthralled by stories of her family’s harrowing experiences in Ukraine before, during and after World War II. Her first historical fiction title, The Memory Keeper of Kyiv, draws on those experiences. She lives in Illinois, USA with her husband and children. From the author's website: https://www.erinlitteken.com
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