RETURN TO UKRAINE

An ‚migr‚ family travels to the homeland they had fled some 50 years before, in this sensitive, thoughtful account by

Ukrainian-American journalist Savage. Savage was born in Ukraine but settled in the US after WWII. In 1991 she was offered a post teaching journalism at Kyiv State University and took advantage of the opportunity to travel through Ukraine with her mother and aunt—who had brought her to America as a child. It was a bittersweet journey for them all: Her mother was suffering from the first stages of Alzheimer's, and Ukraine, even in the hopeful glow that followed the fall of communism, was a very different country from the one they remembered. Much of the charm of the old cities had been destroyed by communist bureaucrats or by the war, there were long lines for food (in a country that was once known as "the breadbasket of Europe"), and most people lived in soulless, dirty, and malodorous apartments. Savage saw the lingering impact of totalitarian rule firsthand. Her students could not imagine, much less understand, the concept of a free press; the authorities intercepted and read her faxes from the US; country resorts in the Crimea were accessible only to the KGB. Although she made close friends during her stay, Savage often wondered how she would have been able to live in a society where the slightest unguarded comment could have disastrous consequences. Nonetheless, she ends on a hopeful note: she was present to witness the reestablishment of Ukraine as a sovereign country independent of Russia. "Ukraine," she declares, "was bound to succeed, and the people with it."

A fine account of ordinary life in the former USSR as the Iron Curtain is rolled up.