Gaslighting our Memories

The other day, while dog walking I listened to The Eurasian Knot, a podcast discussing Soviet history,  The affable hosts were interviewing Tyler Kirk, an American scholar based in Alaska, about his 2023 release, After the Gulag, A History of Memory in Russia’s Far North. While his book focuses on the Komi region and my relatives were closer to Novasibirsk, nonetheless, I found the discussion fascinating because it made me reflect on the differences between history and memory.

AI quickly sums up the differences as follows: History is an interpretation of facts and depends on multiple points of view. Memory is limited to one point of view and not necessarily accurate. 

Memorial, the international human rights organization dedicated to collecting memories of those repressed under the Stalin regime, is banned in modern Russia. History is being re-written by Putin.  Political gaslighting thrives, making it more important than ever to focus on memories. 

Family get-togethers over the holidays are a great way to hear stories, share memories and to not let them get buried by time and political agendas. Our memories deserve to be the building blocks of our histories— not the other way around.  Happy Holidays. 

Circled area shows where my
grandmother died in transit camp in 1931

Glittered Past

My father was an avid reader and encouraged my own love of reading. When he passed away I inherited his collection of German language books. Many were about the war. After all, he might have been part of the Wehrmacht for about ten years, but soldiers had a very limited vision beyond their own circumstances. He read to figure out what the hell had happened between ages 18 and 32 when he finally came out of Soviet captivity. 

 In his collection there was one of my own forgotten books ... Tausend und eine Nacht. 

In my memory, the book, re-published by the Deutsche Buch-Gemeinschaft, had been embossed with glittering gold lettering on the outside.  I remembered that the Ali Baba cave, depicted on the inside covers, glittered with more gold. 

My adult eyes were disappointed to find no glitter … no fancy gold embossing. It's only through the power of my childish imagination, that the images glitter like gold. 

Does that still happen? Do books still offer children that glitter using only plain colours
and words on a page? I sure hope so. 

Canadian Authors and Ukrainian Memories

Canadian authors and Ukrainian memories come together in a new textbook released by Routledge this week. Very exciting (and scary!) to see my earlier books mentioned in a new academic release, Next- Generation Memory and Ukrainian Canadian Children’s Historical Fiction, The Seeds of Memory, by Dr. Mateusz Swietlicki, Assistant Professor of English Studies at University of Wrocław in Poland. 

Wrocław, known as Breslau until 1945, is a historic city on the Oder River in what was once known as Nieder-Silesien, or Lower Silesia. But its tranquil setting belies a violent past. Breslau, one of Hitler’s fortress cities, witnessed brutal fighting in the final months of the war. I can't help but think of today’s war and the destruction happening in Bakhmut. 

An old woman I used to visit in a local nursing home had lived in the area. In the final months of her life, as delirium took over more and more of her consciousness, she’d again be the fifteen-year-old teenager hiding in the woods of Lower Silesia, evading the Soviets, calling out to her parents. Once I sat helplessly with her for a whole hour, while she’d cry out, “Mama, wo bist du?”  (Mama, where are you?) What memories will those affected by today’s war have when they’re old?  Wars finally do end, but traumatic memories burrow deep inside a person, waiting for their chance to be relived.

Wrocław, Poland is an old University city with a youthful population. Not only is its town centre a UNESCO World Heritage site, more amazing, to me—a bookworm—is that in 2019 Wrocław was a UNESCO City of Literature.  How cool is that? I didn’t even know that they had such a thing. With a bit of googling, I discovered that Canada’s UNESCO city of literature is Quebec City, granted that privilege in 2017. What are the criteria, you ask? Check this link. 

For me, the thrill of having a textbook that refers to my mom’s story empowers me to keep researching, writing and sharing. My earlier books died premature deaths and I'm sad for that loss. The story of my mother’s kulak childhood and of collectivization was the beginning of my writing journey as I explored the source of my family’s homelessness and fracturing. Having found the story of the windmill and then losing it to unstable publishers still hurts and lesson learned! Having the kulak story mentioned in this academic text gives me courage to keep trying.

I’m grateful to this Polish academic who noticed The Kulak’s Daughter/Red Stone on Goodreads and sparked some life back into her. Even if her story’s no longer available in book form, at least there’s a conversation about her experiences of collectivization and the 1930 liquidation of the kulaks. In a world where truth is being manipulated by leaders like Putin, memories of those who lived through past atrocities matter ... more than ever.

I got my own copy of Dr. Swietlicki’s book earlier in the week and can’t wait to dive in. I’m sure I’ll be posting about it again as I peruse the other novels discussed alongside my own. 

Reducing, Re-using, Recycling: Creating a Story

Mom was into reducing, reusing and recycling long before it became trendy. Clothes were patched and re-patched. Nothing was thrown out. Dresses became skirts, pillow cases or if I was lucky, doll clothes. Eventually they became rags. Zippers and buttons found new uses. So it was with everything in our house when I was growing up. There was no waste. And now, I’m into recycling her life. Making it into something new. Unravelling it and re-knitting it

Katya is eighteen in Tainted Amber. She’s all grown up. She’s independent. She’s naïve and a bit insecure; tenacious and curious. I am my mother’s daughter and in the compost pile of my writer’s mind, our lives become one. While it’s her stories that I’m reducing, reusing and recycling, it's my imagination that feeds them.  The result? Tainted Amber. A love story created from the leftovers of my shared experiences with her.