In 2014 Sonya Bilocerkowycz is a tourist at a deadly revolution. At first she is enamored with the Ukrainians’ idealism, which reminds her of her own patriotic family. But when the romantic revolution melts into a war with Russia, she becomes disillusioned, prompting a return home to the US and the diaspora community that raised her. As the daughter of a man who studies Ukrainian dissidents for a living, the granddaughter of war refugees, and the great-granddaughter of a gulag victim, Bilocerkowycz has inherited a legacy of political oppression. But what does it mean when she discovers a missing page from her family’s survival story—one that raises questions about her own guilt?
In these linked essays, Bilocerkowycz invites readers to meet a swirling cast of post-Soviet characters, including a Russian intelligence officer who finds Osama bin Laden a few weeks after 9/11; a Ukrainian poet whose nose gets broken by Russian separatists; and a long-lost relative who drives a bus into the heart of Chernobyl. On Our Way Home from the Revolution muddles our easy distinctions between innocence and culpability, agency and fate.
Author(s): Sonya Bilocerkowycz
Series: 21st Century Essays
Publisher: Ohio University Press
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 231
City: Athens
ON OUR WAY HOME FROM THE REVOLUTION: Reflections on Ukraine by Sonya Bilocerkowycz
Half title page
Series title page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
CONTENTS
NOTE ON THE TEXT
THE VILLAGE (FUGUE)
ON OUR WAY HOME FROM THE REVOLUTION
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
BLOODLINES (OR, ALTHOUGH A GOOD MAN, A MUSCOVITE)
INSTRUCTIONS FOR PARENTS IN UPBRINGING CHILDREN (1950)
DUCK AND COVER
I. Sasha, student, age 8
II. Yelena, hospital orderly, age 41
III. Anna, journalist, age 48
WORD PORTRAIT
VESELKA
ARTICLE 54 OF THE CRIMINL CODE OF THE UKRAINIAN SSR (1927 & 1934)
SAMIZDAT
I. The Land of Green Plums, Herta Müller, 1993
II. Soviet Ukrainian Dissent: A Study of Political Alienation, Jaroslaw Bilocerkowycz, 1988
III. The Captive Mind, Czesław Miłosz, 1953
IV. Depeche Mode, Serhiy Zhadan, 2004
V. The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov, 1966
THE VILLAGE (INTERLUDE)
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EARTHLY THINGS
A STORK
POPPY
HERRING (ANIMAL)
HERRING (HUMAN)
BLACK SOIL
COAL
THE CORNER of a TABLE
A WILD BOAR
A WINDOW
THE OSTRICHES
AN ONION
A BIRCH
A WHISTLE
A MOUFLON
AMBER
KYIV, UKRAINE
ICON of ST. VOLODYMYR the GREAT
TCDD DIOXIN
A GOLDEN BEET
DNIPRO RIVER
A DOLPHIN
A SPOON
A SUNFLOWER FIELD
ANOTHER SUNFLOWER FIELD
A EUROPEAN BISON
A MARSHRUTKA
A MUSHROOM
A RAINBOW
THE STEPPE
A MILK CHURN
SALAMANDER
COKE
A HOUSE
RED RUE
WHEAT
AN ALTERNATIVE STORK
A RED BEET
SWING STATE
THE VILLAGE (REPRISE)
I SAW THE SUNSHINE, MELTING
THE VILLAGE (DA CAPO)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
NOTES
WORKS CONSULTED
Series Page
