In the Web of History: Old Russia and Soviet Union: With Unique Insight into Nikita Khrushchev’s Politically Formative Years as a Communist Politician and a Rising Party Leader (Historical Family Memoirs)

In the Web of History is an engaging odyssey of a family—one of millions—caught in the whirlwind of catastrophic historical events and wars sweeping across 20th century Russia and the Soviet Union. It brings to life the not-so-distant past—how history—the Russian revolution, the Communist Party, the Bolsheviks’ totalitarian dictatorial regime, and Stalin’s bloody terror influenced and shaped the family’s fate. It is a treasure of up-close, intensely personal accounts of Russian and Soviet Union history as lived, documented, and remembered in detail by the Gladky family—whose name is Legion. The saga of the family—of the new intelligentsia—who, from the Russian Revolution, the savage bitterness of Civil War, the Bolshevik dictatorship, and Stalin’s persecutions, became pawns of history. It is a treasure of up-close, intensely personal accounts of Russian and Soviet Union history as lived, documented, and remembered in detail by the Gladky and Berezhnoy family—whose name is Legion. The saga of a family—of the new intelligentsia—who, from the Russian Revolution, the savage bitterness of Civil War, the Bolshevik dictatorship, and Stalin’s persecutions, became pawns of history. In the Web of History begins with the introduction of the humble origins of Antonina and Orest’s families and their peaceful life in the Southern province of Old Russia, Ukraine. The family odyssey begins at the turbulent times in their country—World War One, Revolution, and Civil War—when 16-year-old Orest enrolls as a volunteer in the White Army to defend the Motherland from the Reds. After the victory of the Reds, Bolsheviks seized power and established the Soviet Union—the first socialist state. Antonina and Orest, like all the people in the country, became pawns of the Communist Party and Bolshevik totalitarian regime. To keep its control over the population, the State used fear, terror, persecutions of suspected enemies, among them White veterans who were disenfranchised and declared to be “enemies of the people. ”Antonina’s and Orest’s life became a struggle to survive not only the adversities imposed by the Soviet government on its people but also to prevent Orest from being caught by the State secret police. To interrupt the inquiries into his White veteran past, they moved from place to place in their native Ukraine, teaching in remote villages and small hamlets where there was a shortage of teachers and the inquiries took a long time. In the Web of History is the first book of a multi-volume work of Historical Family Memoirs where the readers are introduced to the beginning of a tumultuous odyssey of a family relentlessly hounded from place to place in their native Ukraine by the State watchdogs. The Gladkys: Orest—pursued by Bolshevik state police as an “enemy of the people” owing to his age 16 Civil War service in the White Army; Antonina, his teacher wife, who had Nikita Khrushchev as a student; their engineering student daughter, Olga, who at the end of the family odyssey became an author memoirist. Her saga-like memoirs—Historical Family Memoirs books—are a rich resource for a description of the culture and life of the late nineteenth and early-to-mid-twentieth centuries Russia—particularly the Ukraine—the Socialist Soviet Union, and World War Two and post-war Germany and Europe. The events, written and narrated as remembered by her mother and father, add an authentic voice to their stories that are personal in detail and historical in scope. Historical Family Memoirs is a compelling narrative consistently fascinating, frequently riveting, that speaks with verifiable historical accuracy and evokes novel-like response in the reader. It is an odyssey of danger, fear, imprisonment and escape; oppression and deliverance; separation and reunion. But also there is courage, tenderness, generosity and kindness—sometimes, even of the enemy. Above all, it is a record of enduring human spirit that in the end prevails against all odds.