Return to Ukraine FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Savage, a Ukrainian-born journalist, was invited in 1991 to teach a course on Western media at Kyiv State University, in the Ukrainian capital, and to serve as a guest editor for the Communist government-affiliated Ukraina's Society's English-language newspaper. Eager to see her birthplace again, Savage (who fled during WWII) returned to Ukraine with her mother (who was suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer's) and her aunt. As she recounts the emotional story of their travels, Savage writes of her ambivalent feelings about her country of birth. She writes of her trip to Babi Yar, where Jews were slaughtered during the Holocaust; of her encounters with Ukrainian censorship and surveillance (Ukraine gained its independence from the Soviet Union during her stay there); and of how years of Soviet oppression have left Ukrainians poorly housed, fed and educated. But she also recounts the warm welcome locals extended to her mother, her aunt and herself; the friendships she formed with several Ukrainians; and her affection for the suffering people and her hope for a better future for them after Communism. Part memoir and part history, this is a detailed and thoughtful look at a part of the world that until the 1990s was not easily accessible to Westerners. B&w photos. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|
Library Journal
This book is an account of the American author's quest for the "hidden bonds" of kinship in her native Ukraine. It is also a perceptive description of a country rediscovering its identity in the last tumultuous days of the Soviet Union. Savage takes us from the excavation of a mass grave for victims of Stalin's terror through the affirmation of Uniate Christianity in Lvov and the country's first independent parliament in Kiev. While the description is more anecdotal than analytical, the personal discovery is reassuring and redemptive. Savage begins in a sort of emigr netherworld marked by her and her hosts' ambivalence; but from a "hodgepodge" of values and knowledge, she finds herself on the path of an aspiring pilgrim who is both American and Ukrainian. It is ultimately a spirit of humanity and a persistence for the truth that give such a personal testimony so universal a theme. While the book's subject may limit its appeal, readers will not be disappointed. Recommended for larger public and academic libraries.--Zachary, T. Irwin, Pennsylvania State Univ., Erie Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\
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