The author, Franceska Michalska, was a very brave lady. I found her memoir profoundly moving. Despite mainly covering events which took place in the 1930s and 1940s it is frighteningly relevant with the unlawful Russian invasion of Ukraine. I hope and pray we can yet stop history repeating itself.
After nearly starving to death in the great famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine, in which three million people died, the young Franceska and her family were exiled to the Steppes of Kazakhstan by the Soviet tyrant Stalin. The utter inhumanity and depravity of the Soviet regime is recounted here. The author's belief in providence and her dogged determination to survive inform this extraordinary historical testament of a brutal way of life inflicted on innocent people. Franceska tells her story with untarnished honesty and brutal frankness always avoiding sentimentality and self-pity.

Ukraine, among all other nations, holds a unique place in history as the gateway between the East and the West. Referred to as the Breadbasket of Europe, it enjoys rich, fertile land and has a thriving agricultural sector. It is a nation, not unlike the United States, who takes great pride in its culture and identity. These are a few of the many reasons Ukraine is a threat to Putin’s Russia and before it, Stalin’s USSR.

To break the country, Stalin imposed measures in the 1930s that caused millions of deaths by execution or starvation. Those who were exiled to distant camps were forced to live in barbaric conditions that few survived. While Ukrainians were starving to death, Stalin extracted enough grain from their country to feed twelve million people for a year. His cruelty and the cruelty of those who carried out is directives are beyond comprehension.

Those who want to remind themselves that support for Ukraine is not a political debate but a moral obligation, should read this first-hand account of Franceska Michalska, who lived in occupied Ukraine in the 1930s. The Historical Novel Society says this is “not an easy read, but an important one.” It could not have been translated at a better time.

Many thanks to World Editions and NetGalley for providing this eARC.

Finally a 5 star read. Here`s why:
Franciszka Michalska was a Pole who endured and survived a real hell. The Holodomor (a great famine in Ukraine) during which up to 40 million people had died (various numbers in various sources, I recommend an excellent book by Ann Applebaum), not because of some natural disaster, but because the authorities, vide Stalin, wanted to break people minds. They just took everything that could be taken away from ordinary people. If that`s not enough then here`s more: Franciszka`s brother was sentenced to 8 years in a hard labor camp in the Far East, he got out after 10 by a miracle. His crime was simple he accidentally destroyed Stalins' portrait while drunk. If you read this type of nonfiction literature you`ll recall many more very similar, almost identical cases. Soon the entire family was sent to exile, just because they were Poles. In the middle of nowhere, a lot people was forced to build a settlement having nothing. No tools, no building materials. Let`s not forget there was no medicine, no healthcare stuff, no electricity, no food, no water, no clothes, no shoes! Please ponder on that...
Today, when on the market there are hundreds of books titled "xxx of/from Auschwitz", which have next to nothing with historical facts and tell made up stories just to shake up a bit today's comfortable reader, Franciszkas`memoir is a real gem. Because it`s REAL. She survived so we could learn what totalitarianism is. She survived so we could live in free and happy countries. She survived so we could recognize and stop the tyranny before it happens again.

We were steadily learning how to live on the steppe. Its permanent inhabitants would explain to us: “No one will take you away from here, and you can’t escape. You need to adapt.” p32

This memoir is slightly inaccessible because of the narrator's voice. I still liked it. Mikelska's voice is firm, but reassuring. Even comforting. As i read, I always believed she would tell me of her own happy ending, no matter what trials she conveyed. Her optimism inspires me!

Her story also tells a little-told story of someone who survives and escapes a communist regime. This perspective is very important and I'm glad I read Mikelska's memoir.

I recommend this book for readers interested in political memoir, international politics, and history of communism in eastern Europe.

Three (or more) things I loved:

1. This was such a hard existence. Everyone was starting, and they weren't even given meaningful work. Instead, the were assigned to "snow retention": But as often as not, arriving at the same spot the next day, they’d find no trace of the previous day’s work. The steppe gales swept the snow clean, with only dry grass poking out. Even so, almost every day they had to go do this “zaderzhaniye snega.” p35

2. This is really a harrowing story, and thus moving. I love when she gives us a human aspect of the story: Each week got worse and worse. The lecturers were going hungry too. Our Latin professor told us how to make the bread last longer. He was a very good man who was often taken advantage of or mocked. “Today, for instance,” he would say, “I haven’t eaten any bread and I’ve got nothing left on my ration card. The saleslady gave me three days of rations, but I’ve got nothing, I just don’t know if I ate it or if someone stole it from me.” This man clearly had nowhere he could go, because he slept in the lecture hall, in the last row at the top. He carried a little shopping bag with him, which held an empty food can that he used as a mug, and a little piece of bread, with which he would demonstrate to us how much he would eat, how much he would leave himself, and how long it needed to last. p50

3. [O]nce in a while they’d steal a calf from the kolkhoz. Several families would divide the meat among themselves. When the theft was discovered the following day, there’d be no way to prove anything against anyone, since everything would get eaten up right away. p67 This dark humor makes the story accessible.

4. Some really great stylistic choices in this book. For instance, each time the author mentions a figure or value in money, she would go on to define it in terms of food.

5. If nothing else, stick in there for the Roosevelt / Stalin joke on p104.

6. The translator's note at the end of the book is extremely interesting, as they often are.

Three (or less) things I didn't love:

This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.

1. The first twenty pages were a little slow for me. After that, the story of the author's people started to emerge.

2. This story is less personal and more historical. The tone is superficial, like the author wanted to tell the story from arm's length.

Rating: 💵💵💵💵 /5 travel papers
Recommend? Yes!
Finished: Oct 28, '24
Format: Digital, NetGalley
Read this book if you like:
🕰 historical accounts
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 family stories
🌎 immigrant/refugee stories
💇‍♀️ women's coming of age
🥖 survivor stories

Thank you to the author Franceska Mikelska, publishers St. Martin's Press, and NetGalley for an advance digital copy of STUBBORN LIFE. All views are mine.

Stubborn Life by Franceska Michalska is an outstanding memoir about existing under desperate circumstances in the 1930s Ukraine and Kazakhstan, ushered in by the Soviets. Poverty, sorrow, anguish and torment don't even begin to describe what families such as Franceska's endured. The translator superbly managed to convey the emotions of the author beautifully. I have read hundreds of books set before, during and after the world wars and this is one of the most tragic, gripping and heartbreaking. The writing is profound in its simplicity and rawness without an iota of self pity. The photographs are difficult to look at, knowing they are of real people. Comprehending that level of suffering is impossible for most of us. It was necessary for me to take frequent breaks to process the atrocities which repulsed and nauseated me. Yet stories such as this are crucial to know about and I am so honoured to have read this one. My heart was moved and my mind was reeling.

In Russian-occupied Ukraine, Polish Franceska was exiled to Kazakhstan and then lived in Poland. Poverty was so severe that survivors had to become even more enterprising, though constantly exhausted, sick, helpless and hopeless. I will never forget stories such as the sugar cubes, "dekulakization", belongings and money hidden and stolen, clothing exchanged for food (some literally wore thin rags), insane taxes, severe persecution and humiliation, wasting grain piles in season which couldn't be touched by the starving, the woman spitting out dumplings in soup to reserve for her dying mother, willow leaf flatbread, the author's family of six being designated 1.5 square meters to live in, drinking from wells contaminated with corpses, frozen milk disks, frigid temperatures and Franceska's father's harrowing wolf story. Hygiene wasn't possible and the living weren't...living. The little energy they had went into searching for food which often wasn't fit for human consumption.

In spite of insurmountable problems, the author became a doctor (talk about a fascinating story!). Her professors were starving also and along with students were allotted 400 g of bread daily. The students (mostly females) were forced into hard labour. Franceska and housemates built their own stoves out of bits and pieces and took lecture notes in between lines of book pages as there were no scraps of paper. After the horrors, she traveled to Poland which seemed like a comparative paradise where the walls were clean, there were beds and bedding and it was possible to obtain soap. Franceska met and married a fellow doctor. They were accustomed to the most primitive of conditions in life and work. The story describes their children, medical journeys, later lives and Franceska's death.

My sincere thank you to World Editions and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this astonishingly powerful and important book. It should be mandatory reading for everyone who is old enough to read and understand. Kudos to Franceska (now deceased) for her courage in documenting her experiences lest they be alive in the minds of only a few. She exhibited true heroism.

I requested this book out of an interest for Ukrainian history in the wake of the recent war in Ukraine and because the grandparents of a friend of mine were also deported to Kazakhstan. This short but densely packed memoir fulfilled my wish to learn more about this period of history and region of the world. It is not the quickest read due to the amount of information and the constant bombardment of bad luck the author and her family seemed to experience. I did at times wish for a bit more connecting information and narrative between life events but overall, this was a fantastically informative memoir of determination and survival.

||: One day a woman came up to me with an advanced pregnancy. She was wearing a dress that hung down her shoulders, but her belly was bare. It's skin was very hard and grey, scratched and flecked with scabs. I had never seen anything like it and wondered what could have caused it. The woman explained it to me herself: she worked on a kolkhoz feeding cows; the feed was sharp, prickly steppe grass, which she scooped up by hand. First her dress got damaged and torn at the belly, so nothing could protect the skin any longer. She had no underclothes or any other dress. She worked and slept in the same one, and in that same one came to see me. :||

This is a incredible story from an amazing person who worked through hardships and inhumane acts to be the person she is today despite a whole country against her. She was unfairly categorized with those unfortunate enough to be damned by the same hand. For her the war started way before and carried on alot longer than a lot of others people's experiences.
But through a country ravaged and mutilated by tainted acts of the top cowardly reforms she managed to educate herself and become a doctor through her own will to survive and thrive.

This is a truly inspiring story.

Stubborn Life is a compelling memoir that chronicles the extraordinary journey of survival and resilience experienced by the author, a Polish exile navigating the harrowing landscape of the Soviet Union during the Great Famine and the tumult of the Second World War. Michalska's narrative is unflinchingly honest, marked by a spare and matter-of-fact prose style that heightens the emotional weight of her story. This straightforward approach renders her experiences in stark and vivid reality, allowing readers to engage deeply with the gravity of her circumstances.

Translator Sean Gasper Bye deserves commendation for his remarkable ability to capture Michalska's tone, ensuring that her authentic voice resonates throughout the English version. The translation skillfully conveys the rawness and immediacy of her experiences, making it accessible to a broader audience. This fidelity to the original text enriches the memoir, allowing readers to fully appreciate the emotional nuances and cultural context of Michalska's life.

At the heart of Stubborn Life is Michalska's indomitable spirit and determination to forge a life amidst overwhelming adversity. Her unwavering resolve to survive and to carve out a space for herself and her family is both inspiring and poignant. She recounts the challenges she faced, the choices she made, and the sacrifices required to endure in a world marked by brutality and loss. Each chapter reveals not just her struggles but also her moments of hope and resilience, painting a portrait of a woman who refuses to be defeated by her circumstances.

As she reflects on her past, Michalska's insights into the human condition—particularly the themes of survival, identity, and the impact of historical forces on individual lives—resonate powerfully. Stubborn Life serves as a testament to the strength of the human spirit, illustrating how one can emerge from the shadows of history with courage and tenacity.

Michalska's memoir is an evocative account that transcends mere recollection; it is a profound exploration of the complexities of survival and the quest for belonging. Her story is both personal and universal, offering readers a window into a tumultuous period in history through the eyes of a remarkable individual. For anyone interested in the intersection of personal narratives and historical events, Stubborn Life is an essential and enlightening read that lingers long after the final page is turned.

http://thesecretbookreview.co.uk

Stubborn Life is a memoir of survival and carving out a life as a Polish exile in the Soviet Union during the Great Famine and Second World War. Michalska's spare and matter-of-fact prose makes her story all the more impactful, rendering events in stark reality (praise must also go to translator Sean Gasper Bye for capturing her tone so well). Despite the lack of literary flourish, I found I had no difficulty in imagining the scenes or characters she remembers - and through it all, Michalska's determination to succeed shines through.

What an incredible journey of travesty yet overlaid with the stubborness to survive! Definitely this has been a memoir of one who was in survival of the fittest mode.

Author Franceska Michalska tells it like it was, no holds barred. Her story of displacement after displacement with harrowing journeys from Volhynia (Poland Belarus Ukraine), Kazakstan and her native Poland during WWII. The abuse and cruelty of captors, mainly Russian, was exponential. Enduring starvation, fear, sub-zero temps, hard labor, and more, she lived by her wits and managed an education and a medical degree by snips and snaps.

This book has been translated from Polish into English by Sean Gasper Bye. In my opinion it is has been good for me to learn of these things. It feels like the people in these Eastern Europian regions have had it even worse than those in western zones. One would definitely not wish to have this happen all over again. However, this region seems to be so repeatedly hard hit, even now. This book will certainly give clarity on the situation to those readers who care and wish to understand more.

~ Eunice C., Reviewer/Blogger ~

June 2024

Disclaimer: This is my own and honest opinion based on the complimentary review copy sent by NetGalley and the publisher.

I received a free ebook from Netgalley in exchange for fair unbiased review of this book. I really like non fiction. I didn't know much about what happened in Ukraine, Krykstan, and Poland in the early years. It was good learning more about the conflicts.

It took me longer to read this book than usual. The chapters are short. So MUCH happens that it is a very detailed book. The book deals with so many tragic events. Sometimes it was too much for me.

The ending is more my style of a book. It looks back at the events. There is hope and love at the end.

I learned a lot from this book. Most of the horrors I know of in the 30s were of the Holocaust. I didn't realize so MUCH horrors happened in other countries in those days.

It is an important book to read. I am thankful for the opportunity to read this book. Thank you to Netgalley and the extraordinary author of this book.

The subtitle is a bit misleading, because at no point does Franceska Michalska make "hope" a crucial element of her lived experience. Instead, what takes centre-stage is the determination she possessed to keep going in times of tremendous social and political adversity. The brusqueness of tone in writing the memoir gives it the sort of edge Elie Wiesel's style gave to "Night": the brutality and cruelty becomes starker for the lack of graphic description.