A book on the new arrivals shelf at our local library caught my eye. I snatched it quickly, as if I feared someone else might have been around to grab it before I did. The Rooster House: My Ukrainian Family Story, is a deeply moving memoir by Victoria Belim, who was born in Ukraine and then emigrated to America with her mother and stepfather when she was 15 years old. Many years later, after Russia seized Crimea in 2014, she felt pulled to return to Ukraine for a lengthy visit with her aging grandmother Valentina, who was still living in the village of Krutyy Bereh.
The book started with two of my favorite things, a family tree diagram and a map of the villages in Ukraine where the stories of the lives of the author’s ancestors and relatives unfolded. Central to the story was the Rooster House, an attractive mansion in the city of Poltava, with two red roosters flanking the door. But to her late great-grandmother Asya it had been a sinister place to be avoided, the home of the secret police.
Back in February 2022 I wrote a short post about Russia invading Ukraine and the vague memories that event stirred up for my sister and me. See post here. Ever since I have been wondering about those possible genetic memories.
My father once told me that when he was 4 years old, in 1926, his father was finally able to send for his 18 year-old sister, who grew up in Ukraine with their grandparents. When she came to live with her family in America she brought with her some notions that were puzzling to the rest of her siblings. Once, my father went up into the attic to play with a couple of his friends. When his sister heard them having fun up there she came up the stairs and scolded him severely. Didn’t he know that attics are where families keep their secrets?
While visiting her grandmother Valentina, Victoria Belim found and started reading her great-grandfather’s journal about their family. In it was a short underlined sentence mentioning one of his brothers: “Brother Nikodim, vanished in the 1930s fighting for a free Ukraine.” And so began a very long and frustrating search for Belim’s great-granduncle Nikodim’s story, which very sadly, finally led her to the guarded archives at the Rooster House.
Reading about Nikodim reminded me that I also have a mystery in my Ukrainian family. In 1999, when my aunt was 91 years old, I had a chance to interview her about the grandparents, aunts and uncles she left behind, but kept in touch with, in Ukraine. She was very reluctant to share anything and only met with me after being somewhat persuaded to by another aunt. One thing she did reveal was that her uncle had served in the Austrian army and later studied to be a teacher in the Soviet Union. At some point he went to Czechia. He is thought to have been killed by Stalin when he returned to Ukraine. I wondered what ‘being killed by Stalin’ involved. This book gave me some ideas about what life was probably like for my father’s aunts and uncles during those years.
My portrait of Ukraine is personal, tracing my own story against the tidal wave of Ukrainian history. At the same time the book reveals the complicated nature of Ukrainian identity and the country’s difficult relationship with its Soviet past. As such, The Rooster House explains the context in which the current war takes place.
~ Victoria Belim
(The Rooster House: My Ukrainian Family Story)
What I appreciated so much in this book was those personal details, how her family made the best of things in the midst of so much turmoil, over many years and several generations. I loved reading about how much their gardens meant to them, how they cared for their cherry orchard. I was surprised to learn about how culturally important Ukrainian embroidery is, not just used for clothing, but also for ritual cloths used in weddings and funerals. Some patterns had hidden meanings, handed down in families. They hung on to their scant possessions, they were students and teachers, all while suffering through famine and random arrests and interrogations, and adapting to never-ending changes in circumstances, including the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl.
They had no jewels passed down from illustrious forebears and no books of family trees. They knew of their distant ancestors only by virtue of their own existence. They left few traces. It was hard to accumulate belongings and uninterrupted history when one lived in a place referred to as ‘the bloodlands’, ‘the borderland’, or ‘the frontier’. Asya and Sergiy lived through many upheavals in the twentieth century and their way of life was swept away by one tsunami of events after another. In the end, anything that survived was valued simply because it had emerged out of the chaos. My mother and aunt disputed ownership of Asya’s chipped cups from the 1930s with the passion of Greeks talking about the repatriation of the Parthenon marbles.
~ Victoria Belim
(The Rooster House: My Ukrainian Family Story)
How the author finally encouraged her reluctant grandmother and cousin to talk about the past was heartwarming. It took multiple extended visits to Ukraine for her to connect all the dots, but thanks to her persistence and research skills Victoria Belim’s family now has this beautifully written book to treasure, a record of the lives of their ancestors and relatives, and what she went through to find some of their stories.
So glad persistence paid off for her. So many families’ history is lost with the passing of generations.
I’ve encountered so many “brick walls” in my own research, it was encouraging for me to see how the author finally got around some of hers.
This book was a good find for you Barbara. It gave you even more insight than you already had about Ukraine. It is good if there is storytelling going on to pass information from generation to generation. Some people had it so tough – we cannot fathom how things were. Years ago my mom sat me down with HER photo albums she had put together as a young woman; they included photos of her parents and grandparents. She explained who everyone was and where the photos were taken as I would never have known otherwise. I am grateful for her storytelling as there is no one around to ask now.
Sometimes when my aunts were talking with my father they would switch to speaking in Ukrainian, which my mother, my sister, my cousins and I couldn’t understand. I know my aunt kept in touch with her aunts and uncles and some terrible things were happening over there while I was growing up. But back then adults tended to protect children from bad news and sad situations. What they did share with us was the Ukrainian foods and recipes they enjoyed. No stories, though. My cousin did give me some of my aunt’s photos from the old country and her immigration papers. I found my grandfather’s journal in my father’s things after he died. I’m trying to find someone to translate it for me.
You’re right about adults protecting us back then – shielded from atrocities, not like now. Back when I was old enough to understand conversations being said in the house, the rule was that nothing I heard was ever repeated outside the house.
The good part is the sharing of dishes and recipes and the art of making those fancy eggs. That is an art and I think you wrote about it at the beginning of the war, or maybe at Easter time.
I hope you can find someone to translate the journal into English for you. That will be interesting to learn what he wrote!
When you mentioned your family rule of never repeating outside of the house what is said inside the house it made me think of my mother’s repeated warnings to never to air our dirty laundry in public. Maybe that’s where I developed my love of using metaphors in conversation. 😉
Yes, people used to use that expression a lot and my grandmother had a great retort for people who were nosy or criticized her for something: “sweep your own doorstep, before sweeping mine!”
Well, I never heard the step sweeping metaphor before but I love it! My mother used to say, “people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.”
I think my mom and grandmother had a treasure trove of sayings “to live by” and my mom used the glass houses saying as well!
🙂