Tarnished by Lesia Annastasia Chytra

Published by Lesia Annastasia Chytra, July 30, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9948981-0-4 Paperback
271 pages 

Reflections by Lesia Shipowick

In listening to the account of Anastasia (Tasya’s) early life, Tarnished has reiterated to those of us who are first generation Canadians, the stories we have heard from our own mothers and grandmothers (babas). It depicts their unsettled lives that took them from the security of their homes in Ukraine to the unthinkable hardship of forced labour in factories and on farms in Germany during WW2.

The young women in Tarnished portrayed lives so similar and familiar to some of our own mothers and babas, it appears that for many, the only difference was the name of the factory or camp they resided in.  

Reading this book, I sadly realized that many of us probably did not ask enough questions of our own mothers and babas to really understand what their lives were like during this unsettled and difficult time.  More likely, we didn’t even know what questions to ask because we had no idea of what they had been through and we couldn’t imagine a life like that.  Now safely in North America, many of these women did not wish to relive this awful past and hence the generalities they told us were an oversimplification but seemed sufficient for them and for us. 

Tarnished retells the stories we have all heard, but Lesia Chytra has fleshed them out, and hence has given our limited versions, substance and a soul.  We, the readers come nearer to feeling the uncertainty and fear that these young women experienced and in reading about Tasya’s story, stand in awe of their tenacity, their strength and their optimism that they would, persevere.  The Ukrainian spirit lived in Tasya as it did and does in our mothers and babas today.

Reflections by Marta Bozdek

I approached this book with no expectations other than getting ready for our book club meeting and was very pleasantly surprised by how readable and well written the book was. The author, Lesia Chytra, quickly captured my attention with the story and the characters. The characters were immediately believable and relatable. The pacing of the storytelling was strong, and I found myself carried along and wanted to continue reading.  The dialogue flowed, was natural, and well-utilized for the storytelling. 

Chytra was able to vividly paint the scenes and settings in the lives of the characters. The emotional responses of the characters to difficult and dreadful situations were real and not over-wrought. Telling the story from the perspective of three generations of female family members, and at different periods, made the story more complete. I am glad the author stayed with a time and a place until that particular story had unfolded, and then switched perspective, place, and time.

This book makes one think about all the life stories that the baba's generation did not speak about, did not share, did not tell. Lesia Chytra has made this story available for her own family and has unexpectedly opened the door for other families to learn about and share their stories.

The graphic design elements of this book also make it more accessible.  The cover is intriguing and the layout is clean, clear and easy to read.

Reflections by Karen Yarmol-Franko

Lesia Chytra’s Tarnished is an engaging read that cleverly interweaves history and personal experience into a compelling story. Her interviews with her grandmother, supplemented by research to “fill in the gaps” as she puts it, gives us a glimpse of a reality that we hope we will never know. It also explains the tenacity, perseverance and determination of Ukrainian people of that generation in the diaspora.

Ms Chytra provides each of us with a role model for capturing the experiences of our parents and grandparents who come from a time and place that’s so very different from our current reality. Her desire to tell her Baba’s story for her family, organically mushroomed into a novel for a generation of Canadian-Ukrainians with their own family stories to gather. 

Personally, I feel immense regret for not having the foresight to ask my grandparents – who have all long passed – more about their lives in Ukraine, and their journeys to Canada in the 1920s. My parents, having grown up in Canada, did not experience the trauma and displacement of war, although theirs is also a story worth capturing. For those whose parents and grandparents are still with us – we should rally to hear them and record their experiences for future generations.

Be sure to Like Tarnished on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TarnishedLAChytra/

Lesia Chytra (second from left front in white) joined a Rozmova Book Club meeting in April 2016 to discuss her writing process, her inspirations, and her new venture in literature on Ukrainian themes.