Stepchildren of Mother Russia: The Story of a Jewish Family

By Boris Draznin

Book Overview

In this fascinating family memoir, Draznin reconstructs the experiences of his and his wife's families under Soviet rule. It's a dramatic, event-filled history that exemplifies many of the experiences of Soviet Jews throughout the 20th century. Draznin's paternal grandfather, Moshe, was a Communist Party aide--but that didn't save him from eventual arrest on the charge of being a spy for the West. The horrors of growing up Soviet are exemplified by Draznin's father, Nahum, who saw a schoolmate praised for turning in his father as an enemy of the state. And during WWII, Nahum was sent to a military penal colony as a deserter. For anyone whose family, like Draznin's, survived life in the U.S.S.R., or anyone interested in how Jews lived there for seven decades, this is an enlightening and moving personal history.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1887563903
• ISBN13: 9781887563901
• Release Date: June 2000
• Publisher: Schreiber Publishing
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Triumph from Tragedy

This book is a poignant personalized saga of a century of pre- and post-revolutionary Russian attempts to crush the spirit of the Draznin-Lerman families.Despite every attempt to contribute to the greater good of Russian intellectual and professional flourishing,generations of the families were rebuffed and villified at every turn because of their Jewish origins.The prose is gripping and the reconstructed dialogue almost fictional in heartfelt reality.The dramatic climax of the exodus from Russia at the Polish border in 1973 is a literary gem which epitomizes the triumph of the resilient family spirit over the overwhelming forces of a decaying empire.