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.

Orphanage 41 by Victor Malarek

Published by Victor Malarek & Friesen Press, July, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4602-4413-5 Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-4602-4414-2 Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-4602-4415-9 eBook
264 pages 

Review by Natalia Baziuk

Orphanage 41, an account of a young man's search for his true mother, engages the reader with a quickly developing plot of corruption, dishonesty, and notably trafficking of babies. Along with this, the author also deals with prostitution, how women are often victimized, but most importantly, how societal values contribute to their continued marginalization.

Mykola Yashan is introduced as a third year university student of Ukrainian-Canadian descent, an only child of a scholar and notable Ukrainian historian, who was well respected in academic circles of the diaspora, but also internationally.

His somewhat normal life comes to an abrupt end, when both parents are killed instantly in a motor vehicle accident. Losing both parents – an aloof and antagonistic father, and a cherished and supportive mother – leaves Mykola emotionally destroyed. The shock only continues to escalate when he discovers documents that show he was an adoptee from an orphanage in Ukraine. Of course, this provides a greater depth of understanding as to the strained relationship with his father, but at the same time creates a curiosity and desire to find out about his real mother. Mykola decides to visit Ukraine, after finding the name of the orphanage and its director, Natalka Matlinsky. Against the advice of his godmother Sonia, what starts off as a mere fact finding mission about his supposedly dead biological mother, turns into a dangerous search for his true mother, her family, and in the end, an evolutionary process of self-discovery, along with a sub-plot that exposes the evil and corrupt Matlinsky, who trades in babies for self-gain.

Upon his arrival in Lviv, Mykola meets a diverse cast of characters, who all reflect and exemplify in some way the heartbreak and human resilience, as well as the best and worst traits often cultivated by the former communist system. From the kindly cab driver (Alex) and simple-minded caretaker (Petro) of the orphanage, to the corrupt village priest negotiating moral dilemmas with only self-preservation in mind, and slimy, lawless bureaucrats, each person Mykola meets is painted with realism, despite being a fictional novel. Malarek uses these individuals to demonstrate the often impossible moral choices that are forced upon people as they attempt to survive in a flood of poverty, corruption and political instability.

Mykola's whirlwind journey takes him from the orphanage, where he is able to determine that his mother is still alive, to the village where her family resides. Upon arrival in the village, Mykola realizes after asking questions of the family, that no answers will be forthcoming, but instead his interest is met with great anger. The mystery deepens, but the village priest does at least disclose the whereabouts of Mykola's mother, Kateryna. He travels to find her, and discovers that she is a town prostitute, controlled by her pimp Yuri.  For Mykola this is a rude awakening, a reality he was not prepared for, but one that he must now come to terms with. Her story certainly leaves Mykola in a quandary, as he realizes that she did not choose this life, nor did she willingly give up her son for adoption. Village and societal values left Kateryna with few options, especially since no one, including family or friends, wanted to confront the true culprit – the sister of the priest. Mykola decides that he needs to get his mother away from this life but unfortunately, before he succeeds in accomplishing this, she is murdered with Matlinsky being the likely instigator of this murder.

Mykola manages to obtain the necessary documentation to expose Matlinsky and her corrupt baby adoption business. As he returns home to Canada, he meets his biological father and Sister Eugenia, the nun who helped to rescue his mother Kateryna from prostitution on the streets of Italy.

At the end of the book, we see a wiser and more mature Mykola – a young man who has to deal with a double life story and in the process transcends enormous personal pain, in order to improve and benefit the lives of others. Somehow, he must find the middle road – the answer – which will allow him to honour his biological mother for the hardships she endured, but at the same time to show his gratitude and respect to his adoptive mother. Sister Eugenia, whom he met in Italy, helped him deal with his own feelings of shame, when she explained that many women are prostituted and forced into this life. According to Sister Eugenia, silence and indifference result in a form of complicity. Mykola takes this message to heart, and the result of this is Kateryna's House in Ukraine, a rehabilitation home for prostituted women, which he founded as a tribute to both his mothers.

Needless to say, this novel is brilliantly written, fast-paced, well-plotted, with a cast of characters that clearly represents post-Soviet society as well as the Canadian Ukrainian diaspora. Victor Malarek, the author of this poignant novel, is a well-respected investigative journalist. He has written widely about trafficking of women and speaks frankly of the impact of institutionalization upon his own childhood. As a result of this unfortunate set of circumstances, he, more than most, understands how powerful the quest for identity is, and its resultant motivational force. Mykola's journey is not just an understanding of his past, but a search for meaning, which he, in the end, finds.

Victor Malarek shared his perspectives on human trafficking, institutionalization and investigative journalism among other topics with Rozmova Book Club members.

The Boy Who Stole from the Dead by Orest Stelmach

Published by Thomas & Mercer, March 2014
ISBN: 978-1477809488 paperback
ASIN: B00CO9CRSS e-book
366 pages

Author's summary

Bobby Kungenook, a mysterious seventeen-year-old hockey phenom from the Arctic Circle, is accused of murder in New York City. Bobby's guardian, Nadia Tesla, knows his true identity. Revealing his secret could cost him his life. Sports journalist Lauren Ross is in hot pursuit of Bobby's story. Where did the boy with the blazing speed and magical hands come from? Why has no one heard of him before?

Nadia's certain the boy is innocent, but the police disagree. They have a signed confession and an eyewitness. To discover the truth about that night in New York, Nadia must dig into the boy's past. Her international investigation — in New York, London and Ukraine — will make her an unwitting pawn in a deadly game and reignite her quest for a priceless treasure, one that could alter mankind forever.
Source: http://oreststelmach.com/boy-who-stole-from-the-dead.php

The Boy from Reactor 4 by Orest Stelmach

Published by Thomas & Mercer, March 2013
ISBN: 978-1612186085 paperback

ASIN: B008BU75D6 e-book

377 pages

Review by Karen Yarmol-Franko

The Boy From Reactor 4 is the first novel of The Nadia Tesla Series about a courageous and spontaneous American-Ukrainian heroine, Nadia Tesla. She embarks on a quest to solve a mystery that is connected with her father and a long-lost uncle. Along the way, she encounters a young cousin she must smuggle out of Ukraine. Nadia is threatened, bugged, tailed, shot at, and followed across international borders in a high intensity chase by Ukrainian criminals that is at times, violent and brutal. Her quest takes her from New York to Kyiv, inside the boundaries of the ravaged Chernobyl, through the Siberian tundra, and over the Bering Strait to Alaska – home to American soil. 

Author Orest Stelmach has most certainly done his research. He has a knack for creating vivid and lively scenes putting you ‘on location’. His haunting and immersive depiction of the exclusion zone that surrounds the ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor gives readers an intimate glimpse into a neglected and desperate part of the world. His portrayal of Ukraine’s capital city of Kyiv, and weaving of the history and culture of Ukraine into the story is skillful, though somewhat forced. As Nadia circumnavigates the globe, Stelmach describes each location, from New York’s city streets, to the treacherous backroads of the Siberian tundra, to the claustrophobic caves of Pecherska Lavra in Kyiv, in rich detail. In fact, with such diverse scenery, non-stop action, and diverse characters, The Boy From Reactor 4 would translate well into film.

While Stelmach fully develops and details the intense action and vivid locations, the same cannot be said of the characters. We understand little of the “Boy” of the title. And Stelmach’s gangsters, while terrifying, are described superficially. Nadia’s mother, brother and Johnny Tanner are also enigmas but perhaps Stelmach will develop them further in the next books in the series. Having read the prequel novel, The Altar Girl, I had a deeper insight into Nadia. Stelmach repeats some of those details in this novel, but Nadia’s strong motivations would’ve been a mystery had I not recalled the character development from the prequel novel.

The Boy from Reactor 4, with its short chapters and breakneck pace, is an easy yet compelling read embellished with Ukrainian history lessons along the way. The surprise ending pays a proud and patriotic homage to America that reminds North American readers to be proud of their heritage yet grateful for their freedom.

Note: Readers should note that Orest Stelmach donated 10 percent of royalties from the first two books in the series, The Boy from Reactor 4, and The Boy who Stole from the Dead to Chernobyl Children International (CCI). CCI funds surgical missions to Ukraine to help victims of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Stolen Child by Marsha Skrypuch

Published by Scholastic Canada, February 1, 2010
ISBN-10: 0545986125
ISBN-13: 978-0545986120
154 pages

Summary

Stolen from her family by the Nazis, Nadia is a young girl who tries to make sense of her confusing memories and haunting dreams. Bit by bit she starts to uncover the truth—that the German family she grew up with, the woman who calls herself Nadia's mother, are not who they say they are.

Beyond her privileged German childhood, Nadia unearths memories of a woman singing her a lullaby, while the taste of gingersnap cookies brings her back to a strangely familiar, yet unknown, past. Piece by piece, Nadia comes to realize who her real family was. But where are they now? What became of them? And what is her real name?

This story of a Lebensborn girl — a child kidnapped for her "Aryan looks" by the Nazis in their frenzy to build a master race — reveals one child's fierce determination to uncover her past against incredible odds.
Source: https://books.google.ca/books/about/Stolen_Child.html?id=ixNfQqoDicMC

Blood & Salt by Barbara Sapergia

Published by Coteau Books, September 2012
ISBN: 9781550505139
448 pages

Summary

Blood and Salt imagines the lives of men interned in Banff National Park from 1915 to 1917. Prisoners lived in tents at Castle Mountain in the summer and in bunkhouses in Banff in the winter.
In August, 1915, a young man finds himself on a train bound for Castle Mountain. "What have I done wrong?" he wonders. "Why am I here?"

He came to Canada to be with his love, Halya. Now he doesn't know if he'll ever find her.

Taras does make wonderful friends in the internment camp: Yuriy the optimistic young farmer; Tymko the radical socialist; Myroslav the scholarly schoolteacher; Ihor the Hutsul; Bohdan the carver. These men help him survive. In the evening the men tell each other their stories. As Taras talks about his life, his understanding grows; he becomes a storyteller.

Taras's love, Halya, is a strong-willed, passionate, and unsentimental woman, determined to be with the man she chooses, despite her father's objections. Taras thinks of her on the train to Castle Mountain.

Another layer of the story reveals the life of Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine's great poet, artist, and patriot. Taras's friend Myroslav tells stories of Shevchenko's love of Ukrainian culture and his desire for Ukraine to become a free, independent country.
Excerpted from: http://www.barbarasapergia.com/

The Silence of Trees by Valya Dudycz Lupescu

Published by Wolfsword Press, September 23, 2010
ISBN-10: 0982126131
ISBN-13: 978-0982126134
323 pages

Summary

Too often the women of history have been silenced, but their stories have power- to reveal, to teach, and to transform. This is one such story. In Chicago's Ukrainian Village, Nadya Lysenko has built her life on a foundation of secrets. When Nadya was sixteen, she snuck out of her house in Western Ukraine to meet a fortuneteller in the woods. Ignoring the threat of Nazis and Russians, Nadya was driven by love and a desire to learn the unknown. She never expected it to be the last time she would see her family. Years later, Nadya continues to be haunted by the death of her parents and sisters. She clings to her traditions and stories from Ukraine, the only parts of her past that she can share with her family. The myths and magic of Nadya's childhood are still a part of her reality: house spirits misplace keys and glasses, dreams unite friends across time and space, and a fortuneteller's cards predict the future. Her beloved dead also insist on being heard, through dreams and whispers in the night. They want the truth to come out. Nadya needs to face her past and confront the secrets she buried within – The Silence of Trees.
Source: http://www.amazon.ca/Silence-Trees-Valya-Dudycz-Lupescu/dp/0982126131

Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex by Oksana Zabuzhko

Translated by Halyna Hryn
Published by Amazon Crossing, June 6, 2011
ISBN 978-1-6110900-8-6
164 pages
 
Review by Uliana Pasicznyk
 
This book rattled Rozmova readers. Reactions differed, as did understanding and opinion, but none of us who read Fieldwork in Ukrainian Sex came away indifferent or unconcerned. Given its provocative title, there was reason to think this book would be sensational—and so it is, but not as we might have expected.
 
Zabuzhko’s book is no precursor to Fifty Shades of Grey. Yes, there is eroticism here, but it is just one element in an astoundingly rich and very personal story. It is, in fact, the psychological odyssey of a talented, clever, ambitious, and supremely self-absorbed Ukrainian woman, told in the first person and in a style bearing comparison to Joyce’s Ulysses. The story focuses on a relationship that has come to an end. Both the heroine, Oksana, and her lover, Mykola, are artists—she a writer, he a painter and sculptor—and both appear here as creative and dynamic people. But this is wholly her story, and she tells it intimately and powerfully. As a writer, her world is one of language and literature. She conveys that world, together with the story of her feelings for Mykola and what has happened between them, in language that is at once expressive, evocative, and searingly intense. The narrative requires close attention, for it shifts between layers of time and place. The setting and action switch between Ukraine and several cities in the eastern U.S., and the time is the early 1990s, the first years of Ukraine’s independence. Our narrator and heroine passionately addresses matters ranging from social conventions to literary motifs to philosophical ideas, but underlying everything she says is anguish and grief over the obsessive relationship that has dominated her life. As her story with Mykola unfolds, it becomes clear that she cannot comprehend her lover or herself without recalling and examining their separate lives. In confronting what happened to each of them as individuals and to the society to which they belong, she realizes that their lives have been shaped by a painful historical past that also determined how they could relate to one another.
 
When this book appeared in 1996, Oksana Zabuzhko was already an acclaimed poet and literary critic. This, her first novel, became a best-seller and remains one today. In Halyna Hryn, her work found a gifted translator who has produced an English edition no less expressive and evocative than the Ukrainian original. The translation, a paperback of 164 pages, was published by AmazonCrossing and is available online. Like most good literature, this book both beckons and challenges its readers. If the experience of our Rozmova group is any gauge, those who take up the challenge will not leave it unmoved. For some readers, it may well be a revelatory experience—an insight into a nation’s pervasive past through the telling of one woman’s unique story.
     

Bequest by Anna Shevchenko

Published by Headline, October 14, 2010
ISBN-10: 0755356373
ISBN-13: 978-0755356379
416 pages

Summary
 
History can be a powerful and ruthless enemy.

In Moscow, ambitious Lieutenant Taras Petrenko stumbles across file N1247, a case opened by the Russian secret police more than two centuries ago. Three crucial documents are missing which, if found, could change the lives of millions. One country would come crashing down. A second country would never forgive the discovery, and a third would never forget. Taras is determined not let this happen – but others believe it should.

Kate, a young solicitor in London, is thrust into the mystery of an eighteenth-century bequest when she meets a secretive Ukrainian. He has three documents he claims would alter the balance of power in Europe. As a treacherous race to uncover the truth becomes a harrowing journey into the shadowy side of power, what price will be paid?
Source: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bequest-A-K-Shevchenko/dp/0755356373

Sweet Snow by Alexander Motyl

Published by Cervena Barva Press, April 9, 2013
ISBN-10: 0988371375
ISBN-13: 978-0988371378
156 pages 

Summary

Sweet Snow is set in the winter of 1933 in Ukraine. A terrible famine is raging in the countryside, while the Soviet secret police is arresting suspected spies in the cities. A German nobleman from Berlin, a Jewish communist from New York, a Polish diplomat from Lwów, and a Ukrainian nationalist from Vienna come to share a cell in some unknown prison. One day, as they are being transported to another prison, their van overturns, their guards are killed, and they are freed — to wander amidst the devastated villages, desolate landscapes, snowbound villages, and frozen corpses. As they struggle to survive, they come to grips with the horror of the famine as well as with their own delusions, weaknesses, and mortality.
Source: http://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Snow-Alexander-Motyl/dp/0988371375