Philipovna

By (author): Valentina Gal

Philipovna: The Daughter of Sorrow is a creative non-fiction based on my mother’s surviving the holodomor [the Ukrainian starvation] in the early 1930’s.  It is the story of an orphan who goes to live with her aunt in a rural village in the Ukrainian countryside. The aunt swears on her dead sister’s Bible that Vera Philipovna, the daughter of a cobbler and seamstress from a small village in Chercassy, Ukraine will survive no matter what might befall the family.  No one foresees the horrors that they will have to face between the fall of 1930 and the spring of 1933. In the end, out of a healthy extended family, only Philipovna, a cousin and the aunt survive. The acts of real savagery that are perpetrated on the village are unflinchingly narrated by a pre-pubescent girl, who also gives us a good grasp of the beauty and richness of the Ukrainian culture with its superstitions, customs and celebrations.

AUTHOR

Valentina Gal

Valentina Gal is the blind daughter of Ukrainian immigrants who settled in Hamilton Ontario after WWII. While at McMaster University, she discovered that her city was diverse and peopled by colourful characters. Her writing and storytelling explore both her mother’s tragic history and her family’s adventures in becoming first generation Canadians.


Reviews

Gal has written a haunting, gut-wrenching account of her mother’s life in Stalin’s Ukraine. In carefully-measured prose, she recreates the daily lives of those who suffered—and endured.


Valentina Gal has written a remarkably, delightfully visual story… an introduction to the experience of the powerless. Her focus on the little things, the everyday concerns, doesn’t trivialize the suffering of the many, or the injustices all experienced. Valentina tells us the story from the bottom up.


[Philipovna] describes how in the early 1930s, tactics of deliberate starvation and denial of basic rights were used to force the people of Ukraine to surrender to the Stalin regime… told through the eyes of a young girl who witnessed the brutal results of what has been called a “crime against humanity.” This book illustrates the fragility of human rights and how such rights can easily be obliterated by corruption and power yet it is a very accessible and exciting read.


This is a hard story to read, sorrowful and unrelenting in the inhumanity inflicted on the Ukrainian people. Not many survived, and it is hard to imagine how the Ukrainian people fought to survive under such extreme conditions. This book is a loving daughter’s memorial to her mother.


Awards

  • Word Awards: Christian Non-Fiction- Life Stories category (Winner) 2020, Winner
  • Excerpts & Samples ×
    Philipovna: The Daughter of Sorrow is a creative non-fiction based on my mother’s surviving the holodomor [the Ukrainian starvation] in the early 1930’s.  It is the story of an orphan who goes to live with her aunt in a rural village in the Ukrainian countryside. The aunt swears on her dead sister’s Bible that Vera Philipovna, the daughter of a cobbler and seamstress from a small village in Chercassy, Ukraine will survive no matter what might befall the family.  No one foresees the horrors that they will have to face between the fall of 1930 and the spring of 1933. In the end, out of a healthy extended family, only Philipovna, a cousin and the aunt survive. The acts of real savagery that are perpetrated on the village are unflinchingly narrated by a pre-pubescent girl, who also gives us a good grasp of the beauty and richness of the Ukrainian culture with its superstitions, customs and celebrations.

    Reader Reviews

    Details

    Dimensions:

    285 Pages
    9in * 6in * 0.67in
    410gr

    Published:

    May 01, 2019

    City of Publication:

    Hamilton

    Country of Publication:

    CA

    Publisher:

    Guernica Editions

    ISBN:

    9781771833691

    Featured In:

    All Books

    Language:

    eng

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