Sunflowers Under Fire

By Diana Stevan
Published by Island House Publishing
April 10, 2019
326 Pages
ISBN 9781988180069

Summary by Lesia Shipowick

Diana Stevan, the author of this book, centres her story around the main character, a feisty woman named Lukia Mazurec, the author’s real life grandmother. Lukia’s youngest daughter, Eudokia, is Stevan’s mother and the storyteller who recounted the stories to make sure family history was passed on. Stevan says that many of the conversations between family members and others in this book really happened but she has filled in other stories with what she imagined would have happened. Historical fiction would be an apt classification. Lukia’s life warrants that this is not a ‘history’ of that time, rather it is a ‘herstory’ that takes place in Volynia, Ukraine and surrounding areas.

Centring on a resilient survivor, we are introduced to Lukia in 1915 as she gives birth to her eighth child, Eudokia. Two previous children died in infancy. After a short nap, she promptly goes to the kitchen to prepare dinner as her husband arrives home to say that he is leaving her and the six children to go and fight in the Tsar’s army. There is not a lot of conversation about the birth or the war or how she will cope. It is all very perfunctory. ‘This is what you do’. ‘This is what I do’. Within the first chapter, we are introduced to this character who is the independent woman we follow through the next 14 years.

Sunflowers Under Fire is a book of emotional endurance and constant hardships. Lukia is separated from her husband because of war and then expelled from their farmland while watching the family home burned to the ground. She and her children survive as a war refugees in the Caucuses region, living in a makeshift army tent for a gruelling three years and then finally return to Volynia to rebuild their home. Lukia has more thrown at her than is imaginable and she largely holds it all together throughout her tortuous journey that has its share of indescribable grief and heartache … because what else was she to do?

During this time, we get a glimpse of history and politics in Ukraine and that part of the world that was bombarded with revolutions, seemingly endless battles over who should rule, and regimes that changed constantly. This political unrest compounded by raging epidemics, being a refugee in your own country, and witnessing death all around, impacts Lukia’s life, her family’s, and all those of the peasant class.

Throughout, we see a woman who is not only has strength, perseverance and common sense, but an extremely strong dose of faith. During all of life’s hardships, her faith keeps her focused and more often than not she uses her faith as an explanation of what should be or shouldn’t be in the hope that it will guide her family and give her solace. Through her eyes, we witness the everyday life of a people and their ethnicity and get a glimpse and insight into Ukrainian culture with its many traditions, foods and celebrations and how this all transpired in the early part of the 20th century.

Stevan’s writing style is straightforward in its storytelling. There is so much to tell. We are given narrative, and a history of the political climate and insight into cultural norms. At the end of the book, we see the storyline end abruptly and the fragments of a family banding together with decisions looming ahead of them. Perhaps Stevan will be writing a sequel to Sunflowers Under Fire because the characters and the story leaves us thinking: what’s next?

Sunflowers Under Fire is a fine tribute to Stevan’s grandmother and a good recounting of a family history, fleshed out with historical anecdotes.

See a video interview with Diana Stevan here.