BookLists by ODYSSEYA
| ODYSSEYA -- An Epic Journey from Russia to Australia ISBN 978-0-646-48901-8 | 0 | The effects of the arrival of the Viking warriors and how this can be traced and understood to have lead to the fall of the Romanov Empire are excellently drawn together. Spanning Old Russia to the Russian Diaspora,the content provides much historical information sourced from a diverse collection of Russian Chronicles and history. However the human interest of the author's family of Russian colonists is continually brought to the fore through the interweaving of personal accounts, reflection and, as the author attests, an anthropological and forensic application to what he recalls and has been told. The book resonates with life The author has packed around his family’s history some interesting asides about cuisine, theosophy, art, music and literature, the effects of the war on ordinary lives and the hard work, sense of freedom and ultimately the development of families thrust into a new and totally different country. | ||
| Alexander Vassilieff | 0 | PREFACE (Extract from ODYSSEYA) Life must be lived forward but it can only be understood backwards Soren Kierkegaard 1813-55 In Imperial Russia, there used to be four social classes. As in the West, the main three were the working class – peasants and labourers; the middle class or bourgeoisie – administrative personnel, merchants, clerks, professionals and clergy; and the aristocracy, including the nobility (both ‘personal’ and ‘hereditary’) and the titular (title-holders), such as princes and counts. The fourth class, the Cossacks, was rather unique. The Cossacks were allotted land, a certain degree of autonomy and self-government. For this semiautonomy,each man was required to give twenty years of military service to the Tsar, commencing at the age of eighteen. Their services were mainly used for protection against border incursions and during times of war. At birth, the class of an individual was recorded on the birth certificate and in a special ‘Book of Births’ so there could be no future doubt as to his or her status. To some degree, the Cossack Clans could be said to resemble the Scottish Clans; the Macgregors, MacDonalds, Campbells and so on. This is a story which covers a period of about 200 years. It is near enough to a biography about my family, or rather a number of families whose roots intertwine all class barriers and stretch across half the globe as they journeyed to new lands to better their lives and sometimes to save them. The story also covers briefly a period of Russian history from the beginning – the summoning of the Viking warriors to the fall of the Romanov Empire and the resulting Russian Diaspora. It does it in a way to introduce the reader, unfamiliar with the Russian beginnings, to what Russia used to be. The historical information is sourced from Old Russian chronicles, eminent historians, encyclopaedias, and word of mouth, from those who lived through some of the more recent horrors of the Russian tragedy. The historic outline covers the development and richness of Russian thought and culture, its neverending turmoils and some of its contributions to our world. My family’s life is deeply intertwined in Russian history and the resulting Diaspora and typifies to the reader what millions of Russians went through during the turbulent times of the 20th century. Although I was unable to acquire all of my family’s history, I filled in the gaps the way it may have happened to the best of my ability through deductive reasoning of events – similar family behavioural patterns of blood relatives, family chitchat and factoring in of surrounding events of the time. As such I take full responsibility for any errors in the story for which I hope my ancestors will forgive me. My grandparents and parents fled from Russia to China during the Russian Civil War immediately after World War I. Most of my family survived two generations of the worst bloodshed, political and economic upheaval experienced during the 20th century (World War I, the Russian Civil War, Japanese occupation, World War II, Stalin’s GULAGS and Political Oppression). Although my father and two of my uncles survived Stalin’s postwar GULAGS, four of my granduncles were killed in the Russian Civil War and one distinguished himself and lived to tell the tale. Both of my grandfathers died during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, one as a result of torture, and the other from stress and related physical ailments. My wife, who brought much love and joy to my development, experienced with her parents and grandparents similar dislocation and turmoil in fleeing from Russia at about the same time as my family, but fleeing in the opposite direction of France and Germany. They experienced life under Hitler, the destruction of Berlin and the postwar Displaced Persons camps prior to coming here to Australia. CHAPTER 1 – REMINISCENCE (Extract from ODYSSEYA) I love you, work of Peter’s warrant, I love your stern and comely face, The Broad Neva’s majestic current, Her bankments’ granite carapace, The patterns laced by iron railing, And of your meditative night The lucent dusk, the moonless paling; When in my room I read and write… The Bronze Horseman 1833 A. Pushkin Now that the future which I used to dream of is in the past, my memories of past and former future have merged in the sea of life gone by. But, the past is like a ghost it never goes away. Now in the autumn of my years the question that I most often ask is: What legacy will my generation leave for the next? Closer to the point, will my grandchildren know what we left them and what our grandparents left us? Life is sweet now and I have experienced great times and met some extraordinary people who by their example influenced my life. In fact, both my wife and I were blessed living in perhaps the best country in the world with a good, healthy, happy and relatively secure life. Yet it was not always like this. I was too young to remember my birthplace – Shanghai. However, I have some recollection of Harbin, where I went to school for a while. It was a newly built city in Manchuria, where my parents and grandparents lived a significant part of their life. But what were they doing there? They were not Chinese, they were Russians. I remember the stories my mother and later my aunts and grandmother used to tell me, as well as many other people with a similar background to ours. My paternal grandfather’s past is sketchy at best. His father brought his family to Harbin probably to work on the then construction of the China Eastern Railway. My maternal grandparents, who belonged to the aristocracy, were colonists in the Ukraine near the Black Sea and their immediate ancestors were believed to have come from the northern part of Russia. So in effect my family’s journey of about 200 years had started in the Russian north, went on to China and ended up in Australia. Hence, our: Odysseya – From the Far North via the Middle Kingdom to the Land Down Under or for brevity – An Epic Journey from Russia to Australia. As my grandchildren, like most people in Australia, do not know much about Russia and the Russians I have decided to devote a brief but concise section to Russian history and the 20th century Russian Diaspora, the largest in its history, as an introduction to the reader to help to understand our ancestry better. In doing so I hope to make my contribution to the history of my family and to the unique cultural and national identity that Australia, like the United States of America, is developing through the assimilation of its indigenous and immigrant populations in this Southern Land under one language, one government and one flag. However, we all have ghosts; English, Irish, Chinese, German, Indian, etc. My Ghosts from the Past are the Russians. So who were they? IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO READ THE REST OF THE STORY: ODYSSEYA is available from: (Aus) Autographed direct from author alex.vass@bigpond.com (NZ) www.teremok.co.nz (US & Globally) Amazon.com | ||
| To-Read | 0 | |||
| ODYSSEYA | 0 | PREFACE (Extract from ODYSSEYA) Life must be lived forward but it can only be understood backwards Soren Kierkegaard 1813-55 In Imperial Russia, there used to be four social classes. As in the West, the main three were the working class – peasants and labourers; the middle class or bourgeoisie – administrative personnel, merchants, clerks, professionals and clergy; and the aristocracy, including the nobility (both ‘personal’ and ‘hereditary’) and the titular (title-holders), such as princes and counts. The fourth class, the Cossacks, was rather unique. The Cossacks were allotted land, a certain degree of autonomy and self-government. For this semiautonomy,each man was required to give twenty years of military service to the Tsar, commencing at the age of eighteen. Their services were mainly used for protection against border incursions and during times of war. At birth, the class of an individual was recorded on the birth certificate and in a special ‘Book of Births’ so there could be no future doubt as to his or her status. To some degree, the Cossack Clans could be said to resemble the Scottish Clans; the Macgregors, MacDonalds, Campbells and so on. This is a story which covers a period of about 200 years. It is near enough to a biography about my family, or rather a number of families whose roots intertwine all class barriers and stretch across half the globe as they journeyed to new lands to better their lives and sometimes to save them. The story also covers briefly a period of Russian history from the beginning – the summoning of the Viking warriors to the fall of the Romanov Empire and the resulting Russian Diaspora. It does it in a way to introduce the reader, unfamiliar with the Russian beginnings, to what Russia used to be. The historical information is sourced from Old Russian chronicles, eminent historians, encyclopaedias, and word of mouth, from those who lived through some of the more recent horrors of the Russian tragedy. The historic outline covers the development and richness of Russian thought and culture, its neverending turmoils and some of its contributions to our world. My family’s life is deeply intertwined in Russian history and the resulting Diaspora and typifies to the reader what millions of Russians went through during the turbulent times of the 20th century. Although I was unable to acquire all of my family’s history, I filled in the gaps the way it may have happened to the best of my ability through deductive reasoning of events – similar family behavioural patterns of blood relatives, family chitchat and factoring in of surrounding events of the time. As such I take full responsibility for any errors in the story for which I hope my ancestors will forgive me. My grandparents and parents fled from Russia to China during the Russian Civil War immediately after World War I. Most of my family survived two generations of the worst bloodshed, political and economic upheaval experienced during the 20th century (World War I, the Russian Civil War, Japanese occupation, World War II, Stalin’s GULAGS and Political Oppression). Although my father and two of my uncles survived Stalin’s postwar GULAGS, four of my granduncles were killed in the Russian Civil War and one distinguished himself and lived to tell the tale. Both of my grandfathers died during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, one as a result of torture, and the other from stress and related physical ailments. My wife, who brought much love and joy to my development, experienced with her parents and grandparents similar dislocation and turmoil in fleeing from Russia at about the same time as my family, but fleeing in the opposite direction of France and Germany. They experienced life under Hitler, the destruction of Berlin and the postwar Displaced Persons camps prior to coming here to Australia. CHAPTER 1 – REMINISCENCE (Extract from ODYSSEYA) I love you, work of Peter’s warrant, I love your stern and comely face, The Broad Neva’s majestic current, Her bankments’ granite carapace, The patterns laced by iron railing, And of your meditative night The lucent dusk, the moonless paling; When in my room I read and write… The Bronze Horseman 1833 A. Pushkin Now that the future which I used to dream of is in the past, my memories of past and former future have merged in the sea of life gone by. But, the past is like a ghost it never goes away. Now in the autumn of my years the question that I most often ask is: What legacy will my generation leave for the next? Closer to the point, will my grandchildren know what we left them and what our grandparents left us? Life is sweet now and I have experienced great times and met some extraordinary people who by their example influenced my life. In fact, both my wife and I were blessed living in perhaps the best country in the world with a good, healthy, happy and relatively secure life. Yet it was not always like this. I was too young to remember my birthplace – Shanghai. However, I have some recollection of Harbin, where I went to school for a while. It was a newly built city in Manchuria, where my parents and grandparents lived a significant part of their life. But what were they doing there? They were not Chinese, they were Russians. I remember the stories my mother and later my aunts and grandmother used to tell me, as well as many other people with a similar background to ours. My paternal grandfather’s past is sketchy at best. His father brought his family to Harbin probably to work on the then construction of the China Eastern Railway. My maternal grandparents, who belonged to the aristocracy, were colonists in the Ukraine near the Black Sea and their immediate ancestors were believed to have come from the northern part of Russia. So in effect my family’s journey of about 200 years had started in the Russian north, went on to China and ended up in Australia. Hence, our: Odysseya – From the Far North via the Middle Kingdom to the Land Down Under or for brevity – An Epic Journey from Russia to Australia. As my grandchildren, like most people in Australia, do not know much about Russia and the Russians I have decided to devote a brief but concise section to Russian history and the 20th century Russian Diaspora, the largest in its history, as an introduction to the reader to help to understand our ancestry better. In doing so I hope to make my contribution to the history of my family and to the unique cultural and national identity that Australia, like the United States of America, is developing through the assimilation of its indigenous and immigrant populations in this Southern Land under one language, one government and one flag. However, we all have ghosts; English, Irish, Chinese, German, Indian, etc. My Ghosts from the Past are the Russians. So who were they? IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO READ THE REST OF THE STORY: ODYSSEYA is available from: (Aus) Autographed direct from author alex.vass@bigpond.com (NZ) www.teremok.co.nz (US & Globally) Amazon.com | ||
| Favorites | 1 | |||
| Gogol | 1 | the vices and failings, rather than the merits and virtues, of the commonplace Russian individual; and the characters which revolve around him have been selected for the purpose of demonstrating the national weaknesses and shortcomings. | ||
| Books I | 0 |
BROWSE BOOKS