Philipovna, Daughter of Sorrow

 

Philipovna, Daughter of Sorrow / Valentina Gal
Gananoque, ON: MiroLand, c2019.
285 p.

Yesterday was Holodomor Memorial Day, as I shared in my last post. This was a manufactured famine, created by Stalin with genocidal intent. But it's still not widely known, and often denied. So I thought I would share a few novels which I've read, dealing with this event. 

I'm starting with this fictionalized memoir which was based on the author's mother's stories. And it is very powerful. It's told from the viewpoint of Vera Philipovna, a young orphan who is sent to live with her Aunt Xena's family in another small village in Ukraine. But this is the early 30s, and Stalin's famine-genocide is about to begin. 

The story covers three years of Philipovna's life, and they are hard and tragic. Most of her family dies of starvation; she is sent away to an orphanage in a town in hopes that she will survive there - in the end she is one of the few members of her family to live past the famine. But life in the orphanage is no treat. There is horrific abuse and mistreatment of both children and the women caring for them.  

This book is both hard and easy to read. Hard because of the content: there is such clear description of violence and cruelty of all kinds, all based in experiences of Ukrainians like the author's mother. Easy because the writing is fluid and clear, and in its simplicity it holds so much power.

But the book also shares details of Ukrainian culture and daily life at the time, and this is also so valuable. We see the family structures and the habits, routines, rituals, customs and traditions which Ukrainians are trying to hold on to and hide from the abusive state and its figureheads. The evocation of life before this tragedy is strong and memorable. Philipovna is lucky enough to be taken in by a loving Aunt & Uncle, and cousins too. Their life together was warm and connected, if not for the political events coming to disrupt everything about life and community. 

There is so much loss and grief here, however. It's a memorial to all those who weren't as lucky as Gal's mother and who didn't make it out of Ukraine. Gal is a Canadian writer who was encouraged to write this after taking a creative writing class, and I'm grateful that she did. It's moving, unforgettable, and rings with truth.