Victoria Belim - U.S. Embassy Literature Series 2023

U.S. Embassy Literature Series 2023

The Rooster House: My Ukrainian Family Story, A Memoir
Reading and discussion (German/English)

In 2014, the landmarks of Victoria Belims personal geography were plunged into tumult at the hands of Russia. Her hometown, Kyiv, was gripped by protests and violence. Crimea, where shed once been sent to school to avoid radiation from the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, was invaded. Kharkiv, where her grandmother Valentina studied economics and fell in love; Donetsk, where her father once worked; and Mariupol, where she and her mother bought a cherry tree for Valentinas garden, all became battlegrounds.

Victoria, by then a naturalized American citizen then living in Brussels, felt she had to go back. She had to spend time with her aging grandmother and her cousin Dmytro. She had to unravel a family mystery spanning several generations. And she needed to understand how her countrys tragic history of communist revolution, civil war, famine, world war, totalitarianism, and fraught independence had changed the course of their lives. A young womans quest to uncover her familys difficult past reveals broader truths about the present conflict. Victoria Belim´s memoir is a personal history of her family´s turbulent past and a celebration of Ukrainian identity.