The Goal and Intention of Lubachka, The Novel

Lubachka is not an attempt to write or rewrite a controversial period of history that has been recorded with great inaccuracy, sometimes as a result of intentional bias but more often because the memories of survivors are as convoluted as the emotional trauma and psychological struggle that accompanies such experience. Each survivor's experience is unique and powerful as a tool for comprehending how war impacts civilians and forever changes their lives. The collective history is told only through battles, and how the seats of power are shifted. That the weaponry and strategy continues to interest people, particularly those who have never served as soldiers, speaks volumes about the psyche. Americans, in particular, are inclined to focus on these details in order to distance themselves from the suffering of people like my mother. I lack any ability to connect intellectually with adults who tinker with toy soldiers like a sheltered child. It is cultural history, not military history, that, utilizing narratives such as Lubachka, can help us begin to understand humanity. Battle logistics are only significant in tracing the paths of those who were lost at war and those survived. The important story has been buried in the daily lives of people like my mother.

Through the lens of those who witnessed horrific atrocities comes profound and important insight into humanity, which must be considered alongside the triumphant accomplishments of humanity, such as great art and literature, both contemporary and contemporaneous.

As a former scholar (of literature not history) and as a journalist for more than two decades, I approach this project with the research skills I have developed. This is not, however, intended as a sweeping academic or investigative work. It is a layman's effort at contributing to the memory and shared experience of survivors like my mother, regardless of nationality, ethnicity or religion.  Any statistics I cite are official, and I intentionally avoid engaging in any debate over the “real” numbers that break down how many were killed or died based on ethnic or national profile.

My mother and her parents identify themselves as ethnic Russians, though they all were born in Belarus, so close to the Russian border that my grandmother walked to church in Russia to baptize my mother. There are many confusing details regarding when and why certain people were sent to specific camps, and my mother and her parents were often the minority ethnic population at a particular camp even when there were more facilities designated for Russians. It is significant to note that while Belorussians were often counted differently from Russians (largely because of the Partisan resistance movement of which my mother and her parents were targets), Ukrainians are generally lumped into the Russian category on official statistics. I am a quarter Ukrainian and a quarter Polish on my father’s side. That alone is reason enough for me to avoid any conversation or conflict stemming from national or ethnic pride. My mother is Russian Orthodox and any discussion of religion serves to bolster the cultural context of heinous crimes committed against people of many different faiths.

Lubachka is largely based on my mother’s early childhood memories, but it is written by me. My mother chose to not write this herself, nor did she commission me to write it.  She did, however, speak openly about an extremely traumatic period of her life. This is not a fictionalized account, nor is it written from my mother’s voice. I welcome critics for everything I publish, professional and personal, but I am not making any claims that are intended to set straight a record or undermine other people’s accounts. I welcome any information that might broaden my own understanding of the events surrounding my mother’s experience.

I’ve grown up in a world where “educated” people (those who have earned at least a bachelor’s degree from a college or university) have used the term Soviets after 1991 to describe people who live in (or hail from) countries bordering Afghanistan, China, (the former) Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, Iran, Mongolia, North Korea, Norway, Poland, Romania and Turkey. My frustration is nothing compared with my mother’s. Imagine watching all your siblings die in infancy and surviving concentration and slave camps only to be met with ignorance in a free America where you are marginalized and ostracized by people who were brainwashed by McCarthyism.

This is intended as an explainer, not a disclaimer. I am not Lubachka, but of course I am psychologically and socially impacted by my mother’s life story. Every effort is made to present information without cultural bias, using historical documentation as a framework for the events and experiences she describes. This is a deeply emotional account and I strive to represent all information with integrity.

The Shifting Emotion of an Immoveable Feast

To the modern American, or global citizen, the notion that for the last 11 years I have begun contemplating what to prepare for dinner on October 18 weeks in advance may seen obsessive or silly, unless of course, I am a caterer or planning some fabulous fete for the beautiful people. (The latter, of course, would require my hiring the perfect caterer.)

My father was born on Oct. 18, 1926, and died in 2002. Planning what to make for dinner, generally one of his favorite old world meals – the old world being some mix of what was born of my Ukrainian, Polish and Russian roots.

Call it comfort food, but most certainly not in the mainstream America-meets foodie way of indulging in the food itself. It comforts me to commemorate his memory by creating and serving something he would enjoy. Of course, growing up dirt poor in the slums of Newark, N.J., my father learned to appreciate – or at least to never waste – any food.

My father was not religious in the go-to-church-every-holy-day-or-feel-really-guilty-about-it-way, like my mother. There are 13 major holy days in the Russian Orthodox Church and a much longer list of secondary holy days to commemorate various events in the lives of prophets, apostles, fathers of the Orthodox Church, martyrs, saints and others who have aided the propagation of Christianity and the Orthodox religion, as well as certain events in the life of the church. Those days are divided into movable feasts, which have no definite days or even months appointed for their celebration, and the immovable feasts, which are always celebrated on definite days of the year, by the Julian calendar.

Suffice it to say, commemorating the dead, both on their death days and birthdays, is an immovable feast.

My father, who felt more kinship with Buddhists and Sikhs, practiced meditation mostly at home (though sometimes he’d visit a gurdwara with his best friend, a Punjabi Sikh). He attended Russian Orthodox services on the highest holy days, namely Pascha, and of course always for funerals and other services for friends of the family. In the end, my father, who died of Stage IV colon cancer metastasized to the liver, requested to be buried alongside where my mother will be laid to rest and in the plot next to her parents, at one of three cemeteries at Holy Trinity Monastery in the hamlet of Jordanville in central New York State’s Herkimer County, northwest of Albany and east of Syracuse. Blink or sneeze while driving on remote winding roads past sprawling farmland and nothingness -- save for the monastery with the cathedral’s imposing gilded cupolas and bell tower -- you will miss Jordanville. Founded in 1928, the monastery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011 and is the first Google hit for Jordanville.

Family friends who have made what most call the pilgrimage to the monastery and cemetery have alluded to the mystical, otherworldly qualities of a place so alien from any America (or present time) they’d ever experienced. This includes hardcore atheists and agnostics.

Why my father chose to be buried there will always elude, even haunt, me. Most people closest to me say it’s because he wanted to be besides my mom, at least in the end. Those who have witnessed the terror of Stage IV colon cancer know what it does to the brain. Those who have read Russian literature know what happens to men facing their own mortality. The deathbed confession is not fictional in my world, if not quite as dramatic. My father was a philosopher and intellectual, and in many ways was like Stepan Trofimovich Verkhovensky (the character in Dostoyevsky's “The Devils”), although my father cared deeply and dutifully for his children while Stepan put his own interests first and was a scumbag to his son. And I doubt my father picked his final resting place because he considered himself immortal since his love for God will never die.

Why my father chose the church burial and ongoing mourning process, with all their ancient and elaborate rituals, I will never know. I do know that his decision impacted me deeply and profoundly and rattled my own beliefs – or lack thereof. If I am not compelled to follow the church rules as a devout Russian Orthodox Christian, I can at least provide a fitting memorial tribute – just twice a year – to commemorate his life on the dates of his birth and his death.

This all now sounds even sillier to most Americans, or global citizens, I’m sure. But I do derive some comfort, some closeness to my father’s legacy and my ethnic heritage by making a special meal.

Along with the menu planning comes an annual bout of profound sadness, if not deep depression. My therapist, who is far removed from this old world where I dwell emotionally, says I need to overcome this depression and to create a celebration where I invite friends over for a feast without telling them why. That’s funny, as Russians (the Russians who raised me, not the people hail from there now) never tell other people about their own birthdays and would never, ever, invite other people out with the expectation of others paying any part of the bill. It is equally wrong to not prepare and present a meal in honor of the dead on “their day,” religiously on the day they died and culturally on the day they were born.

I do not know where I stand in this cultural framework – trapped somewhere between the vast divide of a bygone Russia and a hypersocial world where people celebrate themselves on any and every platform, posting old photos of departed loves ones as a substitute for traditions they have shunned. I'm not eager to revert to a world where the closest women come to heroism is martyrdom in the form of Nastassya Filippovna. I’m also not ready to embrace a soulless world where the number of characters you're allotted dictates the depth of your musings.

I think I’ll make piroshki, to start.  

--- NOTE: This entry is the first in a series of ideas, themes or stories that will eventually appear in a novel based largely on my mother's life. Working novel title: Lubachka