Forget Russia: A Tale of Interconnections Linked Across Time

Dec 27, 2020 by Two Sues On the Aisle

By Sue Weston and David Dobkin

Forget Russia (Tailwinds Press), Lisa Bordetsky-Williams’ newly published quasi-biographical historic novel, spans 65 years and splices together three generations across two continents. It is loosely based on Bordetsky’s family story even though she had to use her imagination “to create these characters and their lives.”

“I wanted to understand how an initial act of violence could affect the subsequent generations of women and what this obsession with Russia was all about,” she says.

Told through the eyes of Anna, a senior at the University of Connecticut who spends a semester in Moscow in 1980 at the Institue Imeni Pushkina, the book delves into the unbreakable bond between first Russia and then the Soviet Union and her family, pushing her to learn about her heritage by opening a door to the past which her grandmother tried to forget.

A Quest

Anna’s overwhelming urge to “go back” prompts her to return to the country where her great-grandmother was raped and murdered in the little town of Gormostaypol, dying alone on a boat.

Only by becoming aware of what happened to Zlata will Anna be able to understand how her great-grandmother’s “tragic, unspoken life” has affected her own.

The story reveals strong parallels between the family’s tragedy and classic antisemitism that began with the great-grandmother’s rape and murder by the Cossacks in 1920, influenced her mother’s childhood, and even continued to affect Anna’s experiences in 1980.

Unable to Forget Russia

Anyone who knows Russian Jews can sense that many have an unspoken need to connect with their past; driven to return, despite their ancestors’ desperate struggles to flee.

Anna’s family is no different. Believing in the communist dream that, in the “workers’ paradise,” they would have food, livelihoods, and a good place to live, her grandparents, Leon and Sara, return to Russia to escape the Great Depression in the United States. “At least in the Soviet Union, everything’s getting better and better, even if it’s happening slowly,” Leon says.

Knowing this depiction is mere propaganda, Sara, nevertheless, agrees to try. Upon arriving in the Soviet Union, they discover the reality: Workers live in communal shared apartments in which each family gets a small, bedbug-infested room. Food is in short supply, and every evening after work, Sara must stand in long lines for the meager rations before collecting her daughters from daycare.

Eleventh-Hour Escape

No question, life in Russia is harder than it had been in the United States. In Roxbury, Massachusetts they had lived in a house. In Leningrad, medical care and personal hygiene are far from the standard that they were accustomed to in America.

They had been told that creating the communistic ideal would require sacrifice, but they did not know that death, starvation, illness, and harsh conditions were part of the Soviet experience they were required to endure to build that better society.

When winter hits and their two children contract whooping cough, Leon and Sara, disillusioned by the unfulfilled promise of communism, return to America, fortunate to be among the last to leave. As Stalin rose to power, people turned against each other; disloyal comrades were exiled, often to the cold barren wilderness of Siberia; and the borders were closed.

Communism in 1980

When Anna visits Russia in 1980, she arrives at the height of the Cold War. Everyone is afraid of being watched, hotel rooms are bugged, and phones are tapped by the KGB Secret Police. Fear limits Anna’s ability to speak openly to the friends she makes at synagogue. They are forced to meet in the shadows, careful to avoid being seen.

The Russian government makes a clear distinction between foreigners and citizens and does whatever possible to keep them apart. Only visitors from abroad have access to special hard-currency stores where books and other materials are available to them, but not to Russian citizens.

In the dormitory compound where Anna lives along with other foreign visitors, she is aware that all her movements are monitored.

Refuseniks

Some of her new Russian-Jewish friends have applied for exit visas and fear that their requests will be denied, making them “refuseniks” without jobs and forced to sell their belongings to survive.

Secrets abound, adding mystery and intrigue as Anna, through chance, discovers a connection to her grandparents. She also falls in love with tall, dark, lanky Iosif, a young man destined to remain in Russia.

This is not a linear story. Time passes back and forth as the past intertwines with the present connecting through recurrent themes, especially the love many Jews intrinsically feel for Russia and the concomitant need to get out.

Russian-Jewish Experience

In the 1930s, Sara realizes that although she loves Russia in ways she cannot even fathom, she does not want to remain in the country. Throughout Russian history, the Jewish people faced brutality and discrimination, but, somehow, people forget the past and see only what they want. Leon believed communism was the future, but he and his wife learn that if they stayed for more than one year, they could lose their ability to leave and remain trapped.

In 1980, the Russian Jews Anna meets are trying desperately to leave Russia in search of freedom and opportunities, but their paths are constantly blocked by governmental bureaucratic restrictions.

From generation to generation, Russia attracts Jews just as a flame draws a fly. They are pulled together by an irresistible magnetic allure, a pattern repeated time and again in which the need to escape oppression and antisemitism must outweigh the attraction of a nostalgic past that never was.

Never Forget

Bordetsky-Williams’ personal quest to locate her dead ancestors and “find her path homeward” chronicles the importance of remembering the atrocities Jews have often faced in countries they called home. Learning from the past, treasuring it, but insisting on not romanticizing those memories is a necessary challenge Anna must face.

The novel’s compressed family histories speak of the seldom-discussed tragedies Anna’s ancestors encountered as they fought against discrimination in search of a brighter future.

The power of storytelling allows Bordetsky-Williams to construct a timeline that weaves improbable interconnections between her characters with patterns of hate and antisemitism. In a time of certainty, Forget Russia presents an important reminder: Do not forget.

****

In TheJewishVoiceAndOpinion, ratings are based on how many challahs it pays to buy (rather than make) in order to see the book being reviewed. (5 Challah is our highest rating)  Forget Russia receives 4 challahs.