Download or read book Summary of Yelena Lembersky s Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-06-21T22:59:00Z with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 I had walked holding my thumbs folded into my fists, a Russian superstition: hold your thumbs and think of someone to bring them good luck. I had watched as Mama went down into the metro station with the stench of burned rubber. #2 I was placed in a children’s asylum, and while I was there, I didn’t speak about my mother. I was numb, and I wanted to free myself from the hatred that had consumed me. #3 I walk to the forest near my old home. I sit on an old apple tree by the pond. I write a letter to Mama. I forget the unimportant things in quietude, and I meet what has been lost. #4 I remember my old landlady at the summer dacha in Leningrad, who had a tattoo of the word Mama on her shoulder. I wanted to explain to my American friend that people need to live in houses with a lawn and a garden, so they can plant flowers.

Download or read book Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour written by Yelena Lembersky and published by Academic Studies PRess. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2022 National Jewish Book Award Finalist in Autobiography & Memoir; 2022 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist; and a 2022 WNBA Great Group Reads Selection "Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour is more ambitious than the average memoir. It’s informed by Galina’s and her parents’ lessons on the value of art and culture and enriched by Alëna’s beautifully constructed images and Galina’s poetry." – Herb Randall, LA Review of Books Like a Drop of Ink in a Downpour traces Yelena Lembersky’s childhood in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) in the 1970s and ‘80s. Her life is upended when her family decides to emigrate to America, but instead her mother is charged with a crime and unjustly incarcerated. Told in the dual points of view, this memoir is a clear-eyed look at the reality of life in the Soviet Union during the Cold War, giving us an insider’s perspective on the roots of contemporary Russia. It is also a coming-of-age story, heartfelt and funny, a testament to the unbreakable bond between mothers and daughters, and the healing power of art.

Download or read book Legacy of Blood written by Elissa Bemporad and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Pogroms and blood libels constitute the two classical and most extreme manifestations of tsarist antisemitism. They were often closely intertwined in history and memory, not least because the accusation of blood libel, the allegation that Jews murder Christian children to use their blood for ritual purposes, frequently triggered anti-Jewish violence. Such events were and are considered central to the Jewish experience in late tsarist Russia, the only country on earth with large scale anti-Jewish violence in the early twentieth century. Boasting its break from the tsarist period, the Soviet regime proudly claimed to have eradicated these forms of antisemitism. But, alas, life was much more complicated. The phenomenon and the memory of pogroms and blood libels in different areas of interwar Soviet Union-including Ukraine, Belorussia, Russia and Central Asia-as well as, after World War II, in the newly annexed territories of Lithuania, Western Ukraine and Western Belorussia are a reminder of continuities in the midst of revolutionary ruptures. The persistence, the permutation, and the responses to anti-Jewish violence and memories of violence suggest that Soviet Jews (and non-Jews alike) cohabited with a legacy of blood that did not vanish. This book traces the "afterlife" of these extreme manifestations of antisemitism in the USSR, and in doing so sheds light on the broader question of the changing position of Jews in Soviet society. One notable rupture in manifestations of antisemitism from tsarist to Soviet times included the virtual disappearance-at least during the interwar period-of the tight link between pogroms and blood allegations, indeed a common feature in the waves of anti-Jewish violence that erupted during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries." --

Download or read book The Escape Artist written by Helen Fremont and published by Gallery Books. This book was released on 2020-11-03 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A luminous new memoir from the author of the critically acclaimed national bestseller After Long Silence, The Escape Artist has been lauded by New York Times bestselling author Mary Karr as “beautifully written, honest, and psychologically astute. A must-read.” In the tradition of Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home and George Hodgman’s Bettyville, Fremont writes with wit and candor about growing up in a household held together by a powerful glue: secrets. Her parents, profoundly affected by their memories of the Holocaust, pass on to both Helen and her older sister a zealous determination to protect themselves from what they see as danger from the outside world. Fremont delves deeply into the family dynamic that produced such a startling devotion to secret keeping, beginning with the painful and unexpected discovery that she has been disinherited in her father’s will. In scenes that are frank, moving, and often surprisingly funny, She writes about growing up in such an intemperate household, with parents who pretended to be Catholics but were really Jews—and survivors of Nazi-occupied Poland. She shares tales of family therapy sessions, disordered eating, her sister’s frequently unhinged meltdowns, and her own romantic misadventures as she tries to sort out her sexual identity. Searching, poignant, and ultimately redemptive, The Escape Artist is a powerful contribution to the memoir shelf.

Download or read book Two Big Differences written by Ian Ross Singleton and published by M-Graphics Pub.. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zinaida Bondarenko is returning to Odessa, Ukraine from Detroit, USA, with one companion, Valentine Pechenko, a Ukrainian-American who is in love with her. Zina came to Detroit in search of her mother, met Valinka (Valentine), and forged a strange relationship with him. Now Zina-as Valinka ends up calling her-has been deported. Upon their return to Odessa, they are greeted by her father and a country at the brink of war with Russia. It's 2014, and the Euromaidan Movement is underway in Kiev. Odessa appears to be taking her usual unique path.On May 2nd, 2014, the worst violent event in Odessa since the Great Patriotic War (World War II) took place in the fire in the Building of Trade Unions along Kulikovo Field. This event will bring Zina's and Valinka's journeys to an end. It will both unite and divide Odessa. It will show how even Odessa, long thought to be "not Ukraine" because of the language (most Odessans still speak Russian), must decide on her identity.

Download or read book Russian Folk Art written by Alison Hilton and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russian Folk Art surveys the traditions, styles, and functions of the many objects made by Russian peasant artists and artisans. Placing the objects within the settings in which folk artists worked -- the peasant household, the village, and the local market -- Alison Hilton discusses the principal media artists employed and the items they produced, from dippers and goblets to clothing and window frames. Emphasizing the balance between time-honored forms and techniques and the creativity of individual artists, the book explores how images and designs helped to form a Russian esthetic identity in the 19th and 20th centuries. Abundantly illustrated with examples from Russian museums, Russian Folk Art is a treasure for anyone interested in Russian culture.

Download or read book After the Holocaust the Bells Still Ring written by Joseph Polak and published by Urim Publications. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This memoir is a fascinating portrait of mother and child who miraculously survive two concentration camps, then, after the war, battle demons of the past, societal rejection, disbelief, and invalidation as they struggle to reenter the world of the living. It is the tale of how one newly takes on the world, having lived in the midst of corpses strewn about in the scores of thousands, and how one can possibly resume life in the aftermath of such experiences. It is the story of the child who decides, upon growing up, that the only career that makes sense for him in light of these years of horror is to become someone sensitive to the deepest flaws of humanity, a teacher of God's role in history amidst the traditions that attempt to understand it—and to become a rabbi. Readers will not emerge unscathed from this searing work, written by a distinguished, Boston-based rabbi and academic.

Download or read book Our Own Worst Enemy written by David G. Bowman and published by . This book was released on 2005-04 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is comprised of two tales with a similar group of young adults trying to make their place in the world while dealing with relationships within the group. It is a story of young people at a crossroads in their lives and how they comically deal with situations that come up in their lives. Both can be considered satires. The author affectionately deals with the characters, however, with empathy towards their plights.

Download or read book Agent Sniper written by Tim Tate and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The thrilling never-before-told story of Agent Sniper, one of the Cold War's most effective counter-agents Michal Goleniewski, cover name Sniper, was one of the most important spies of the early Cold War. For almost three years, as a Lieutenant Colonel at the top of Poland’s espionage service, he smuggled thousands of top-secret Soviet bloc intelligence and military documents, as well as 160 rolls of microfilm, from behind the Iron Curtain. Then, in January 1961, he abandoned his wife and children to make a dramatic defection across divided Berlin with his East German mistress to the safety of American territory. There, he exposed more than 1,600 Soviet bloc agents operating undercover in the West—more than any single spy in history. The CIA called Goleniewski “one of the West’s most valuable counterintelligence sources,” but in late 1963, he was abandoned by the US government because of a split inside the agency, and over questions about his mental stability and his trustworthiness. Goleniewski bears some of the blame for his troubled legacy: He made baseless assertions about his record, notably that he was the first to expose Kim Philby. He also bizarrely claimed to be Tsarevich Aleksei Romanoff, heir to the Russian Throne who had miraculously survived the 1918 massacre of his family. For more than fifty years, American and British intelligence services have sought to erase Goleniewski from the history of Cold War espionage. The vast bulk of his once-substantial CIA and MI5 files remain closed. Only fragments of his material crop up in the de-classified dossiers on the KGB spies he exposed or the memoirs of CIA officers who dealt with him, but his newly-released Polish intelligence file reveals the remarkable extent of his espionage on behalf of the West. A never-before-told story that brings together love and loyalty, courage and treachery, betrayal, greed and, ultimately, insanity, Tim Tate's Agent Sniper is a crackling page-turner that takes readers back to the post-war world and a time when no one was what they seemed.

Download or read book Words for War written by Oksana Maksymchuk and published by Academic Studies PRess. This book was released on 2022-06-14 with total page 511 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The armed conflict in the east of Ukraine brought about an emergence of a distinctive trend in contemporary Ukrainian poetry: the poetry of war. Directly and indirectly, the poems collected in this volume engage with the events and experiences of war, reflecting on the themes of alienation, loss, dislocation, and disability; as well as justice, heroism, courage, resilience, generosity, and forgiveness. In addressing these themes, the poems also raise questions about art, politics, citizenship, and moral responsibility. The anthology brings together some of the most compelling poetic voices from different regions of Ukraine. Young and old, female and male, somber and ironic, tragic and playful, filled with extraordinary terror and ordinary human delights, the voices recreate the human sounds of war in its tragic complexity.

Download or read book Into Russia s Cauldron written by Steven Fisher and published by Forest Cat Productions. This book was released on 2021-10-31 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Into Russia's Cauldron takes you on the dramatic journey of an individual and an institution fighting the inevitable in revolutionary Russia, a story grippingly brought to life in the century-old journal of Leighton Rogers.

Download or read book I Named My Dog Pushkin And Other Immigrant Tales written by Margarita Gokun Silver and published by Thread. This book was released on 2021-07-29 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Buy a pair of Levi’s, lose the Russian accent, become an American… how hard could it be? Moscow, 1988. After years of antisemitic harassment, countless hours waiting in line for toilet paper, and having zero access to cool jeans, Margarita decides it’s time to get the hell out of the Soviet Union. While dreaming of buying the boat-sized Buick she’d seen in a pirated VHS of Miami Vice and getting a taste of whatever it is Bruce Springsteen is singing about, she comes up with a plan to escape Mother Russia for good. When Margarita arrives in the US with her family, she has one objective – become fully American as soon as possible, and leave her Soviet past behind. But she soon learns that finding her new voice is harder than avoiding the KGB. Because, how do you become someone else completely? Is it as simple as changing your name, upgrading your wardrobe and working on your pronunciation of the word ‘sheet’? Can you let go of old habits (never, ever throw anything away), or learn to date without hang-ups (‘there is no sex in the Soviet Union’ after all)? Will you ever stop disappointing your parents, who expect you to become a doctor, a lawyer, an investment banker and a classical pianist – all at the same time? And can you still become the person you dreamed you’d be, while learning to embrace parts of yourself you’ve wanted to discard for good when you immigrated? Absolutely hilarious, painfully honest and sometimes heart-breaking, the award-winning I Named My Dog Pushkin will have fans of David Sedaris and Samantha Irby howling with laughter at Margarita’s failures, her victories and the life lessons she learns as she grows as both a woman and an immigrant, in a world that often doesn’t appreciate either. What readers are saying about I Named My Dog Pushkin: ‘Hilariously funny, whip-smart and absolutely fascinating… Silver shows that the only person she needs to ever become is herself. Just amazing.’ Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and With or Without You ‘Laugh-out-loud funny... a particular pleasure to see our splintered country through the eyes of this determined and appreciative emigree.’ NPR Books ‘An eye-opener… a whole other brand of Jewish humor… The book's wit, drama and erudition appear to me wholly miraculous. Margarita deserves a literary prize.’ Alicia Bay Laurel, New York Times bestselling author of Living on the Earth ‘Hysterically funny and thought-provoking… perfect for anyone fascinated with the USSR’ FangirlNation ‘I thoroughly enjoyed Margarita's witty and acerbic voice. This book was a delight!’ Jen Mann, New York Times bestselling author of People I Want to Punch in the Throat ‘Hilarious… From one USSR immigrant to another... I related a lot.’ Margarita Levieva, HBO's The Deuce ‘Hilarious and thought-provoking.’ California Bookwatch ‘A memoir like this is so very rare, one in which you learn a great deal, while laughing throughout. Highly, highly recommended.’ Wandering Educators ‘Plunges the reader into a world in which Coca-Cola is synonymous with freedom… riveting… moving… Gokun Silver is a gifted, witty writer.’ Los Angeles Review of Books ‘Sure to delight while tugging at your heartstrings.’ Jewish Book Council ‘Had me laughing and smiling all the way through… a perfect balance of wit and seriousness… Superb.’ Goodreads reviewer ‘Laughed my socks off!’ Goodreads reviewer ‘I loved this book so much… I just could not stop reading.’ NetGalley reviewer ‘A sharp, witty memoir… Margarita captured Jewish joy and grief together perfectly.’ Goodreads reviewer ‘Darkly funny… reminiscent of other acerbic comedian authors like Sara Barron… fascinating.’ NetGalley reviewer

Download or read book On Bloody Sunday written by Julieann Campbell and published by Monoray. This book was released on 2023-01-05 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first ever complete oral history of one of the darkest episodes in modern Irish history *** In January 1972, a peaceful civil rights march in Northern Ireland ended in bloodshed. Troops from Britain's 1st Battalion Parachute Regiment opened fire on marchers, leaving 13 dead and 15 wounded. Seven of those killed were teenage boys. The day became known as 'Bloody Sunday'. The events occurred in broad daylight and in the full glare of the press. Within hours, the British military informed the world that they had won an 'IRA gun battle'. This became the official narrative for decades until a family-led campaign instigated one of the most complex inquiries in history. In 2010, the victims of Bloody Sunday were fully exonerated when Lord Saville found that the majority of the victims were either shot in the back as they ran away or were helping someone in need. The report made headlines all over the world. While many buried the trauma of that day, historian and campaigner Juliann Campbell - whose teenage uncle was the first to be killed that day - felt the need to keep recording these interviews, and collecting rare and unpublished accounts, aware of just how precious they were. Fifty years on, in this book, survivors, relatives, eyewitnesses and politicians, shine a light on the events of Bloody Sunday, together, for the first time. As they tell their stories, the tension, confusion and anger build with an awful power. ON BLOODY SUNDAY unfolds before us an extraordinary human drama, as we experience one of the darkest moments in modern history - and witness the true human cost of conflict.

Download or read book Empire of Friends written by Rachel Applebaum and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The familiar story of Soviet power in Cold War Eastern Europe focuses on political repression and military force. But in Empire of Friends, Rachel Applebaum shows how the Soviet Union simultaneously promoted a policy of transnational friendship with its Eastern Bloc satellites to create a cohesive socialist world. This friendship project resulted in a new type of imperial control based on cross-border contacts between ordinary citizens. In a new and fascinating story of cultural diplomacy, interpersonal relations, and the trade of consumer-goods, Applebaum tracks the rise and fall of the friendship project in Czechoslovakia, as the country evolved after World War II from the Soviet Union's most loyal satellite to its most rebellious. Throughout Eastern Europe, the friendship project shaped the most intimate aspects of people's lives, influencing everything from what they wore to where they traveled to whom they married. Applebaum argues that in Czechoslovakia, socialist friendship was surprisingly durable, capable of surviving the ravages of Stalinism and the Soviet invasion that crushed the 1968 Prague Spring. Eventually, the project became so successful that it undermined the very alliance it was designed to support: as Soviets and Czechoslovaks got to know one another, they discovered important cultural and political differences that contradicted propaganda about a cohesive socialist world. Empire of Friends reveals that the sphere of everyday life was central to the construction of the transnational socialist system in Eastern Europe—and, ultimately, its collapse.

Download or read book The Compatriots written by Andrei Soldatov and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The authors of The Red Web examine the shifting role of Russian expatriates throughout history, and their complicated, unbreakable relationship with the mother country--be it antagonistic or far too chummy. The history of Russian espionage is soaked in blood, from a spontaneous pistol shot that killed a secret policeman in Romania in 1924 to the attempt to poison an exiled KGB colonel in Salisbury, England, in 2017. Russian émigrés have found themselves continually at the center of the mayhem. Russians began leaving the country in big numbers in the late nineteenth century, fleeing pogroms, tsarist secret police persecution, and the Revolution, then Stalin and the KGB--and creating the third-largest diaspora in the world. The exodus created a rare opportunity for the Kremlin. Moscow's masters and spymasters fostered networks of spies, many of whom were emigrants driven from Russia. By the 1930s and 1940s, dozens of spies were in New York City gathering information for Moscow. But the story did not end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some émigrés have turned into assets of the resurgent Russian nationalist state, while others have taken up the dissident challenge once more--at their personal peril. From Trotsky to Litvinenko, The Compatriots is the gripping history of Russian score-settling around the world.

Download or read book The Spy Who Knew Too Much written by Howard Blum and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2022-06-07 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Howard Blum writes history books that read like thrillers.”—New York Times A retired spy gets back into the game to solve a perplexing case—and reconcile with his daughter, a CIA officer who married into the very family that derailed his own CIA career—in this compulsive true-life tale of vindication and redemption, filled with drama, intrigue, and mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Goodnight, It’s a real-life thriller whose stunning conclusion will make headline news. On a sunlit morning in September 1978, a sloop drifts aimlessly across the Chesapeake Bay. The cabin reveals signs of a struggle, and “classified” documents, live 9 mm cartridges, and a top-secret “burst” satellite communications transmitter are discovered aboard. But where is the boat’s owner, former CIA officer John Paisley? One man may hold the key to finding out. Tennent “Pete” Bagley was once a rising star in America’s spy aristocracy, and many expected he’d eventually become CIA director. But the star that burned so brightly exploded when Bagley—who suspected a mole had burrowed deep into the agency’s core—was believed himself to be the mole. After a year-long investigation, Bagley was finally exonerated, but the accusations tarnished his reputation and tainted his career. When Bagley’s daughter Christina, a CIA analyst, married another intelligence officer who was the son of the man who had played a key role in the investigation into Bagley, it caused a painful rift between the two. But then came Paisley’s strange death. A murder? Suicide? Or something else? Pete, now a retired spy, launches his own investigation that takes him deep into his own past and his own longtime hunt for a mole. What follows is a relentless pursuit to solve a spy story—and an inspiring tale of a man reclaiming his reputation and his family. It’s a very personal quest that leads to a shocking conclusion. The Spy Who Knew Too Much includes 8 pages of black-and-white photographs.

Download or read book Red Valkyries written by Kristen Ghodsee and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2022-07-12 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through a series of lively and accessible biographical essays, Red Valkyries explores the history of socialist feminism century Eastern Europe. By examining the revolutionary careers of five prominent socialist women active in the 19th and 20th centuries-the aristocratic Bolshevik, Alexandra Kollontai; the radical pedagogue, Nadezhda Krupskaya; the polyamorous firebrand, Inessa Armand; the deadly sniper, Lyudmila Pavlichenko; and the partisan turned scientist turned global women's activist, Elena Lagadinova-Kristen Ghodsee tells the story of the personal challenges faced by earlier generations of socialist and communist women. None of these women were "perfect" leftists. Their lives were filled with inner conflicts, contradictions, and sometimes outrageous privilege, but they still managed to move forward their own political projects through perseverance and dedication to their cause. Always walking a fine line between the need for class solidarity and the desire to force their sometimes callous male colleagues to take women's issues seriously, these five women pursued novel solutions with lessons for activists of today. In brief conversational chapters-with plenty of concrete examples from the history of the state socialist countries in Eastern Europe and contemporary reflections on the status of women in the world today-Ghodsee renders the big ideas of socialist feminism accessible to those newly inspired by the emancipatory politics of insurgent left feminist movements around the globe.