small things left behind

Ella Zeltserman

• Publisher: University of Alberta Press
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781772120028
• eBook ISBN: 9781772120127
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Russian History
• Index: Literature

"Freedom is something my father has never known. How do I explain freedom to the ones born bent?" -from "Not Scared" Ella Zeltserman's poetry cuts both ways. The story of her flight from the USSR in 1979-of the young family she brought to Edmonton and the older one she left behind-does "explain freedom to the ones born bent," but it also explains oppression to the ones born free. Deftly modulating language, imagery, and events of past and present, comfort and tyranny, atrocity and family, home and war, Leningrad and Edmonton, she touches readers emotionally, drawing them into the journey. This authentic account of Russian-Jewish immigration to Canada during the Cold War will speak to all who have left their country or who moved far away from home.

contents

lucky stars

let my people go

release

end of my life in a box

not scared

baggage

last visit at my parents’ home

letters

crossing the line

pain

airborne

August 5th 1979

torn. gone.

crowds

déjà vu

watermelon

emigration

Ostia beach study with three lives one month after escape

I wake up in the middle of night

you will be strangers in a strange land

perekati-pole

Edmonton founded 1980

blue night

they still censor my life

the finger

prairie apples

small things left behind

rational foot forward

discoveries

connections

picking apples

no answer to the questions not asked

Mayday flowers

old dress

gold coins

you are my mother-in-law

my father tells me a story

wake-up call

perceptions

reflections

hedgehog and turtle in Soviet Union

silence

old photographs

watching a military parade in the Soviet Union

every May 9th of my childhood

war harvest

bog cranberries best picked at the first frost

Grandma, I don’t remember you

my cat Kilka

unravelling

recurring dream

choice

homesickness snapshot

linden honey

coat

I don’t put sugar in my tea

mirage

reunion

collapse

seta naturale is the natural silk

nebulous

striped cake

innocents in the Soviet Union

affliction

there is an empty space where I’ve been sitting

an outsider

passing

amnesia

talking to an old photo album

acknowledgements

lucky stars

I was born at the right time

in the history of the Soviet Union.

I missed being among millions

dead in Gulag camps.

I missed being thrown out

of cattle cars into the Siberian snow

in the summer dress

I wore on the day of my arrest.

I missed being shot...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• lucky stars
• let my people go
• release
• end of my life in a box
• not scared
• baggage
• last visit at my parents’ home
• letters
• crossing the line
• pain
• airborne
• August 5th 1979
• torn. gone.
• crowds
• déjà vu
• watermelon
• emigration
• Ostia beach study with three lives one month after escape
• I wake up in the middle of night
• you will be strangers in a strange land
• perekati-pole
• Edmonton founded 1980
• blue night
• they still censor my life
• the finger
• prairie apples
• small things left behind
• rational foot forward
• discoveries
• connections
• picking apples
• no answer to the questions not asked
• Mayday flowers
• old dress
• gold coins
• you are my mother-in-law
• my father tells me a story
• wake-up call
• perceptions
• reflections
• hedgehog and turtle in Soviet Union
• silence
• old photographs
• watching a military parade in the Soviet Union
• every May 9th of my childhood
• war harvest
• bog cranberries best picked at the first frost
• Grandma, I don’t remember you
• my cat Kilka
• unravelling
• recurring dream
• choice
• homesickness snapshot
• linden honey
• coat
• I don’t put sugar in my tea
• mirage
• reunion
• collapse
• seta naturale is the natural silk
• nebulous
• striped cake
• innocents in the Soviet Union
• affliction
• there is an empty space where I’ve been sitting
• an outsider
• passing
• amnesia
• talking to an old photo album
• acknowledgements
• about the author
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