Russia's current political and economic turmoil, and the inevitable hardship that will follow, have come as a shock after the surface calm and relative prosperity of the post-perestroika era. But as the country braces for a harsh winter, it is instructive to remind ourselves that, for most of this century, Russians' lives have been underpinned by suffering and instability, and that people have gone on finding small joys and triumphs even in the darkest days.
Daughter of Revolution: A Russian Girlhood Remembered, by Vera Broido, is an arresting and poignant account of family life at the dawn of our century. It was not a comfortable existence - the daughter of committed revolutionaries, Broido suffered exile in Siberia under the tsar, extreme poverty and hardship during the Revolution and civil war, and was finally forced into exile in Berlin.
The author, now 91, describes the experiences in the book as belonging "to the furthermost reaches of living memory." But what is startling is how very real and immediate those experiences become for the late 20th century reader. Broido's powerful recollection and attention to detail breathe human suffering and joy into every page.
Broido's parents were Jewish revolutionaries, which meant that, even for this period, they led an unusually precarious existence. Often on the move, and always fiercely committed to their cause, Eva and Mark Broido rose to the heights of leadership in the Menshevik party.
It seems appropriate that they married on the journey to their first exile in Siberia. Their family life was always to be determined by the effects of their extremely active political allegiance.
As a young child growing up in St. Petersburg, Vera became used to the long absences of her parents. Since her brother and two half-sisters were at school, she learned to play and read alone, and started to develop more of an attachment to the bricks and mortar of her surroundings than to people.
In 1914, when Vera was seven, her mother was arrested again and decided to take her two youngest children with her to western Siberia where she was exiled for three years.
Although life in exile was obviously a struggle for Eva Broido, who had to work hard to supplement the meager state allowance allotted to political prisoners, Vera's life at that time was full of childish fascination in the new, and delight in her surroundings.
She remembers the houses in their village, with their window frames, each painted and carved in a different manner; she delighted in sucking the frozen milk bought at the market which tasted "as good as ice-cream;" and she describes the unusual practice of "gold-washing" in the summer. This involved panning the sand at the edge of the river until particles of gold could be seen. These particles were then magnetized out by quicksilver, rented out by a man who visited all the villages in the region during the gold-washing season.
Throughout the book, Broido maintains a careful balance between descriptions of her innocent childhood memories and her adult understanding of political events, gained long afterwards.
She describes the momentum of political activity in St. Petersburg after the 1917 February Revolution when the provisional government was formed, a time when her parents were furiously active.
Her mother became first secretary of the Menshevik party, and her father was imprisoned for a while. Vera, then 9, cold and hungry, was all but abandoned "with not a clue as to what was happening," and had to queue for food rations.
It was here on the streets that she witnessed peaceful revolutionary gatherings and, without understanding properly what they were about, she enjoyed the "special warmth that a happy Russian crowd generates" and found "elation and joy."
In 1918, when the new Bolshevik government moved to Moscow, the central committees of all the major political parties followed. So Broido found herself with her mother in Moscow, staying first with friends and then with her young aunt. A summer spent on the country estate of friends gave the little girl her "first taste of carefree childhood" since her time in Siberia, and she writes: "It was to be my last."
Back in St. Petersburg, Broido was sent to school and suffered the deprivations of the siege of the city in 1919. She recalls that school was so cold that the ink froze in the inkwells and the children cried in agony each morning as they crowded around the stove to thaw their feet. They all wore shoes several sizes too small as it was impossible to buy footwear in the city at that time.
The adventure of Broido's escape with her mother to Poland and from there to Vienna to find her father could come from a novel. The family settled in exile in Berlin with many other Russian refugees. Even outside Russia, Broido's parents remained active Mensheviks. The author spent some time studying in Paris before returning to Berlin, where she set up a dressmaking salon with her mother.
In 1927, Eva Broido traveled to Russia illegally as a Menshevik courier, where she was arrested and imprisoned for three years before being sent once again into exile, this time to Central Asia. It was only after the fall of the Soviet regime and the opening of the archives that Vera learned what finally happened to her mother. Sentenced to death in 1940 by a military tribunal, Eva Broido was shot in September 1941.
It would have seemed more fitting for Broido to end her saga with her mother's departure for Russia, and a brief description of what happened to her and to the rest of the family. The two chapters outlining Broido's seven-year menage a trois with the Dadaist artist Raoul Hausmann and his wife are extraneous.
What is remarkable about this book, aside from the detailed historical insight it gives the reader, is that from amid the struggles and deprivations of a family torn apart by revolution, comes the voice of a child.
"Daughter of Revolution: A Russian Girlhood Remembered" by Vera Broido. Constable and Company. 224 pages. pounds 16.99 ($28.30)