MY FIRST LIFE
by Margaret Mordukhovich
A retired computer scientist tells of her life’s journey from Minsk to Michigan in this debut memoir.
After noting that both of her parents “came from long lines of rabbis,” Mordukhovich adds, “What could have been worse than that in the twenties and thirties in the Soviet Union?” Her book’s first half centers on her upbringing in Belarus and her extended Jewish family’s rich history. World War II had left her parents deeply impoverished, and the economic policies of the Stalinist regime that followed did little to inspire hope. Even after Josef Stalin’s death, Mordukhovich recalls, life did not improve, due to KGB censorship, antisemitism, a lack of economic mobility, and an oppressive government. The book’s second half focuses on the author’s adulthood, beginning with her experiences in the Soviet Union’s troubled university system and her marriage to an underpaid mathematics professor. As the Soviet economy continued to stagnate in the 1970s and ’80s amid ecological and political disasters, Mordukhovich and her family began the long, difficult, but ultimately successful journey to American citizenship. The author describes her 1988 arrival in the United Statesas the beginning of a “second life”; she landed a job with a nascent computer companywhile her husband began a prestigious professorship at the University of Michigan. They subsequently traveled the world in trips recapped in the book’s concluding chapter, living a life they could never have imagined while in the U.S.S.R. Over the course of this decades-spanning remembrance, Mordukhovich offers an accessible account that provides ample context for its myriad historical and geopolitical references, despite its brisk format; it’s divided into more than 50 chapters of no more than five pages each, which effectively aids readability. Its clear emphasis on reader engagement is only enhanced by a wealth of maps and family photographs, which date from the early 20th century to the present.
A powerful story of resilience that provides firsthand insights into life in the Soviet Union.