What do you think?
Rate this book
Lietuviai prie Laptevų jūros
Geriausi lietuvių tremties literatūros pavyzdžiai – Dalios Grinkevičiūtės (1927–1987) atsiminimai ir miniatiūros.
152 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
About the author
Dalia Grinkevičiūtė
3 books9 followersDalia Grinkevičiūtė (1927–87) was born in Kaunas, the former capital of Lithuania. She spent her teenage years in a Siberian gulag. At twenty-one she escaped and returned to her home country only to be deported to Siberia once again in 1951. She was released five years later, then studied medicine. Grinkevičiūtė’s writings are now placed firmly in the Lithuanian canon.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 108 reviews
April 27, 2024
Sukrečianti, labai skaudi, bet tikra istorija. Nepagražinti prisiminimai apie kovą už svarbiausias teises – išgyventi ir išlikti žmogumi, neįtikėtina tvirtybė. Stipru. ❤️ Audio knyga. 🎧
June 20, 2021
nepaprastai įspūdinga knyga, ypač "Atsiminimai", kuriuos po daugybės metų rado užkastus stiklainyje. ištaškė, sudaužė širdį, pašiurpino, sužavėjo blaivumu, šita knyga tikras lobis, tiek kaip istorinis dokumentas, tiek kaip literatūros kūrinys.
March 3, 2019
Yet what splendour above. The northern lights are a magnificent web of colour. We are surrounded by grandeur: the immense tundra, as ruthless and infinite as the sea; the vast Lena estuary backed up with ice; the colossal 100-metere-pillaar caves on the shores of Stolby; and the aurora borealis. Against a background of such majesty, we are the pitiful things here – starved and infested like dogs, and nearly done in, rotting in our befouled and stinking ice caves.
This book was published by the UK small press, Peirene Press “a boutique publishing house with a traditional commitment to first class European literature in high-quality translation” and is part of their 2018 series on “Home in Exile”: “how to find a home within oneself when the outside no longer exists”.
The first in the series was the Latvian Soviet Milk, this novel too has a Baltics author – the Lithuanian Dalia Grinkeviciute, but reminded me more of another Peirene publication Chasing the King of Hearts. Whereas that book was a remarkable but true-life tale of survival in the Holocaust, this is a remarkable but true-life and terribly harrowing tale of survival in a Soviet Gulag.
Oddly I never thought I might die. I believed absolutely that no matter what the future had in store, I would survive. It was as simple as that. During the days that followed, a kind of tenacity began to take shape as part of my character. I became stubborn. I felt a growing desire to confront life, to grapple with it, to prevail. I was convinced of my survival..
The author we are told in the Introduction and Afterword was transported, at the age of 14, with her mother and brother from their Lithuanian home on a 14 month journey (from June 1941 to August 1942) that ended on an arctic island by the Laptev sea on the vast estuary of the Lena river – where they were forced to build their own camp in a climate close to that of Northern Greenland. The transportation was part of the systematic exile, shortly before the German-Soviet war broke out, and one year after the Soviet army occupation of Lithuania, of virtually all of that country’s political, economic and cultural elite. This book is her memoirs of her time from being exiled until the end of her first year in the arctic – written around 7-8 year later when she and her mother are in hiding in Lithuania and buried by her shortly before she was re-arrested and found in 1991m four years after her death (by which time she had written some shorter memoirs).
The memoirs told in the present tense ,and approximately chronologically – and tell a deeply harrowing tale of extreme cold and even more extreme hunger. Through the narrator we learn of the effects of food deprivation and disease and the terrible struggle for survival as people watch their mothers or children die slowly in front of them – and how many turn inwards, trading and stealing what they can just to keep alive for one more day. Even the memories of their beloved homeland take on the aspect of fantasy as they can no longer remember what it was like to be warm or full, and only add to the torment they are facing.
But the hunger in my gut is too sharp. This terrible place – this prison, this fortress on the bleak, icebound tundra – is too real, too horrific; the sores on my shoulder from the harness to which I am hitched are too deep. I’m afraid of thoughts that bite and sting. Images from the past can be more powerful than a branding iron. They tear me apart. But they’ve also done me a favour. They’ve ignited a furious desire to live, to persevere, to engage in the struggle for life, even if what remains to be endured turns out to be a hundred times worse. I want to live, to live, to be alive, to return to life, damn it..
Among many of the horrors recounted, perhaps the most absurd and thus most chilling, is how even this living torture and effective near death sentence was adapted into the Soviet system (a little like how some of the most terrible parts of Holocaust stories are the bureaucratic way in which concentration camps were operated) – the prisoners are forced to form collectives and to meet targets to earn their starvation rations, many draw the line at stealing from each other but will steal and cheat the state willingly to stay alive, leading the narrator, looking back, to reflect on the complete failings of the Soviet state
In time. I came to realize that this was the thinking of most Soviet citizens. The only difference between them was how and what they took. But everyone pilfered, stole, helped themselves to whatever they could get their hands on.
A terrible but necessary read.
December 24, 2021
Kaip visada grįžtu prie tokių temų. Nors viešojoje erdvėje buvo girdėti pasisakymų, kad moksleiviams tokių knygų brukti nereikėtų, bet čia jau kitas reikalas, nes mokiniams paprasčiausiai knygos pateikiamos neįdomiai ir reikia skaityti priverstinai, kas vėliau jaunuolius apskritai atbaido nuo skaitymo.
Man knyga patiko, ir dėl temos, ir dėl pateikimo, lengvai skaitomo stiliaus, ir dėl istorinių faktų. Čia rasite ne vien bolševikų žiaurumus, bet ir žmogaus elgseną ribinėmis situacijomis. Niekaip nesuvokiau, kaip autorė, patekusi į Sibirą būdama dar vaiku, staiga sugebėjo persiorientuoti į suaugusio asmens mąstyseną ir dirbti lygiai ar net daugiau už suaugusiuosius.
Šis leidimas platesnės apimties, todėl čia pateikiamuose tekstuose galima susipažinti su autorės gyvenimu nuo pat vykimo į Sibirą iki jos gyvenimo Lietuvoje, jau grįžus iš tremties. Desertui yra ir miniatūrų.
Man knyga patiko, ir dėl temos, ir dėl pateikimo, lengvai skaitomo stiliaus, ir dėl istorinių faktų. Čia rasite ne vien bolševikų žiaurumus, bet ir žmogaus elgseną ribinėmis situacijomis. Niekaip nesuvokiau, kaip autorė, patekusi į Sibirą būdama dar vaiku, staiga sugebėjo persiorientuoti į suaugusio asmens mąstyseną ir dirbti lygiai ar net daugiau už suaugusiuosius.
Šis leidimas platesnės apimties, todėl čia pateikiamuose tekstuose galima susipažinti su autorės gyvenimu nuo pat vykimo į Sibirą iki jos gyvenimo Lietuvoje, jau grįžus iš tremties. Desertui yra ir miniatūrų.
April 29, 2018
I’m the first to write a review of this book!
It’s devastating. I can’t remember reading anything as horrible before. I didn’t want to read it but couldn’t stop and finished 200 pages in 24 hours.
It’s devastating. I can’t remember reading anything as horrible before. I didn’t want to read it but couldn’t stop and finished 200 pages in 24 hours.
November 29, 2018
Shadows on the Tundra, by Dalia Grinkevičiutė (translated by Delija Valiukenas), is a memoir of the young author’s deportation, along with her mother and seventeen year old brother, from their comfortable home in Kaunas, the then capital of Lithuania, to a Gulag in Siberia. At the time Dalia was fourteen years old but to earn food for her family was required to work sixteen hour days of gruelling manual labour alongside adults. The memoir was written following her escape aged twenty-two, the pages buried in the garden of her Kaunas home before she was arrested and deported again. The papers were discovered quite by chance many years later, after Lithuania had once again attained independence. They were published in 1997, four years after the author’s death. They provide an account of life during Dalia’s terrible journey and her first year in the Gulag. The memoir has an immediacy often lost when writers rely on long held memories. It is a devastating depiction of the dehumanising of a people.
On June 14, 1941 at three o’clock in the morning, following orders from Moscow, mass arrests and deportations began simultaneously in all of the Baltic states—Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Juozas Grinkevičius, the head of the Lithuanian Bank’s currency commission and a mathematics teacher at the gymnasium, was taken to a concentration camp in the northern Urals where he died from starvation in October 1943. The extermination of his family had also been planned.
This book, his daughter Dalia’s account of her experiences, opens in June 1941 after she has been placed in one of sixty-three covered wagons being pulled by a train leaving Kaunas. Fifteen hundred Lithuanians are heading into an uncertain future.
“Secondary school, childhood, fun, games, theatre, girlfriends – everything is in the past. You’re a grown-up now. You’re fourteen. You have a mother to look after, a father to replace. You have just taken your first step in the battle for life.”
The train journey lasts for weeks. At stops along the way carriages are uncoupled as some of the deportees are bound for collective farms. Dalia’s worth is assessed as one would an animal. She is housed in a barracks and put to work in the fields alongside deported Ukrainians. Their supervisors treat them as criminals.
The next stage of Dahlia’s journey again starts by train but this time they are packed in so tightly they can only stand. Illness and lice now plague them. When finally unloaded they sleep in a stable, or perhaps it is a club hall – five thousand filthy, unwashed people, grateful to be able to stretch out and relax exhausted legs. They are near a river and a rumour circulates that they are to be transported to America. Dalia wants to believe this, it offers hope, but in her heart she cannot.
Housed in wooden sheds and selling their few possessions for food they sing songs from their homeland and gather wood from nearby forests to burn for heat. Soon they are moved onto barges and taken down the Angara River before being unloaded onto a beach. From there lorries transport them the three hundred kilometres to the Lena River. By now leaders have emerged within the group and they are learning of each other’s histories.
After a two week wait, the Lithuanians are once again loaded unto barges. They are being fed but there are still regular deaths. Those who had felt superior in their former lives try to give themselves airs and graces. Dalia understands that any influence they may have had, any ability to offer favours, has been stripped away.
Forests and lesser vegetation are replaced by tundra. Dalia is disembarked where the riverbank is steep and a cold wind blows down from the mouth of the Lena. The people find just a few tents and wooden structures alongside piles of bricks. It is now August 1942 and they have reached their destination – Trofimovsk Island in the Arctic. They must build their own accommodation on this previously uninhabited outpost if they are to survive. They wear only the clothes they brought from Kaunas.
The Soviets have decreed that a fish processing plant will be built and worked by these exiled people. The Lithuanians and then Finnish prisoners are racing against time before the onset of a frozen, blizzard filled winter. In Trofimovsk the sun sets in November and does not rise again until February.
Inadequate brick and timber shelters are built, each housing too many people. Those who can work, including Dalia, are sent each day to walk for miles into the tundra and search for logs carried down from the upper reaches of the Lena river. These must be chopped out of the ice, tied into rope harnesses and dragged to Trofimovsk to be used to heat the apartments and offices of the supervisors. The prisoners do not have the right to take any of this wood. It is the only source of fuel. Dalia sneaks out and steals it, at great risk.
Dalia describes the terrible pain – from illness and wounds caused by the rope harnesses – as she helps drag the logs up the steep and frozen shores of Trofimovsk Island. The workers have no strength or energy. Their feet are wrapped in frozen sacks tied together with ropes. They suffer from exhaustion, scurvy, frostbite, gangrene and starvation. Hundreds die.
The Trofimovsk superiors live in warm houses built from logs. They dress in furs, eat bread, butter, sugar and canned goods sent to the Soviet Union by the allies from America. They regard the Finns and Lithuanians as sub species, observing their: lice ridden, rag covered bodies; the damp and filth of their shelters; the pails overflowing with shit from diarrhea. The dead are piled up and left for the wild animals – around three hundred that first winter. Food is withheld from the living to force them to work until they drop. Any possessions the prisoners have managed to retain are taken by the supervisors for a pittance – gold watches for a bag of flour or tinned food that may then be stolen by the other starving people.
Those who somehow survive that first, terrible winter are offered small respite when a doctor arrives at the Gulag and demands that the supervisors allow the workers to eat the fish and other provisions that were always available – the supervisors would have preferred the barrelled fish to rot. Baths are constructed and clothing disinfected.
As the river starts to thaw the workers are sent to other islands to catch and process fresh fish – the working factory envisaged. Dalia lives in a basic yurt but after the horrors of the winter even the pain caused by dipping damaged hands into frozen water and then salting fish is tolerable because she can now steal enough to eat. Unlike the theft of the wood to burn at Trofimovsk, pilfering of fish is tolerated. The work they are doing is pointless anyway. In a country where payment is made per unit and corruption a way of life, the barrels leak and fresh fish mixed with putrid meaning produce rots and will eventually be dumped in the sea.
Dalia describes the main camp supervisor as a psychopath. It is hard to understand how such treatment of other human beings could be allowed to occur, although at a lesser level brings to mind the actions of our current government towards refugees and the homeless.
This is a striking and searing depiction of survival in horrific circumstances. A disturbingly evocative yet vital read.
On June 14, 1941 at three o’clock in the morning, following orders from Moscow, mass arrests and deportations began simultaneously in all of the Baltic states—Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Juozas Grinkevičius, the head of the Lithuanian Bank’s currency commission and a mathematics teacher at the gymnasium, was taken to a concentration camp in the northern Urals where he died from starvation in October 1943. The extermination of his family had also been planned.
This book, his daughter Dalia’s account of her experiences, opens in June 1941 after she has been placed in one of sixty-three covered wagons being pulled by a train leaving Kaunas. Fifteen hundred Lithuanians are heading into an uncertain future.
“Secondary school, childhood, fun, games, theatre, girlfriends – everything is in the past. You’re a grown-up now. You’re fourteen. You have a mother to look after, a father to replace. You have just taken your first step in the battle for life.”
The train journey lasts for weeks. At stops along the way carriages are uncoupled as some of the deportees are bound for collective farms. Dalia’s worth is assessed as one would an animal. She is housed in a barracks and put to work in the fields alongside deported Ukrainians. Their supervisors treat them as criminals.
The next stage of Dahlia’s journey again starts by train but this time they are packed in so tightly they can only stand. Illness and lice now plague them. When finally unloaded they sleep in a stable, or perhaps it is a club hall – five thousand filthy, unwashed people, grateful to be able to stretch out and relax exhausted legs. They are near a river and a rumour circulates that they are to be transported to America. Dalia wants to believe this, it offers hope, but in her heart she cannot.
Housed in wooden sheds and selling their few possessions for food they sing songs from their homeland and gather wood from nearby forests to burn for heat. Soon they are moved onto barges and taken down the Angara River before being unloaded onto a beach. From there lorries transport them the three hundred kilometres to the Lena River. By now leaders have emerged within the group and they are learning of each other’s histories.
After a two week wait, the Lithuanians are once again loaded unto barges. They are being fed but there are still regular deaths. Those who had felt superior in their former lives try to give themselves airs and graces. Dalia understands that any influence they may have had, any ability to offer favours, has been stripped away.
Forests and lesser vegetation are replaced by tundra. Dalia is disembarked where the riverbank is steep and a cold wind blows down from the mouth of the Lena. The people find just a few tents and wooden structures alongside piles of bricks. It is now August 1942 and they have reached their destination – Trofimovsk Island in the Arctic. They must build their own accommodation on this previously uninhabited outpost if they are to survive. They wear only the clothes they brought from Kaunas.
The Soviets have decreed that a fish processing plant will be built and worked by these exiled people. The Lithuanians and then Finnish prisoners are racing against time before the onset of a frozen, blizzard filled winter. In Trofimovsk the sun sets in November and does not rise again until February.
Inadequate brick and timber shelters are built, each housing too many people. Those who can work, including Dalia, are sent each day to walk for miles into the tundra and search for logs carried down from the upper reaches of the Lena river. These must be chopped out of the ice, tied into rope harnesses and dragged to Trofimovsk to be used to heat the apartments and offices of the supervisors. The prisoners do not have the right to take any of this wood. It is the only source of fuel. Dalia sneaks out and steals it, at great risk.
Dalia describes the terrible pain – from illness and wounds caused by the rope harnesses – as she helps drag the logs up the steep and frozen shores of Trofimovsk Island. The workers have no strength or energy. Their feet are wrapped in frozen sacks tied together with ropes. They suffer from exhaustion, scurvy, frostbite, gangrene and starvation. Hundreds die.
The Trofimovsk superiors live in warm houses built from logs. They dress in furs, eat bread, butter, sugar and canned goods sent to the Soviet Union by the allies from America. They regard the Finns and Lithuanians as sub species, observing their: lice ridden, rag covered bodies; the damp and filth of their shelters; the pails overflowing with shit from diarrhea. The dead are piled up and left for the wild animals – around three hundred that first winter. Food is withheld from the living to force them to work until they drop. Any possessions the prisoners have managed to retain are taken by the supervisors for a pittance – gold watches for a bag of flour or tinned food that may then be stolen by the other starving people.
Those who somehow survive that first, terrible winter are offered small respite when a doctor arrives at the Gulag and demands that the supervisors allow the workers to eat the fish and other provisions that were always available – the supervisors would have preferred the barrelled fish to rot. Baths are constructed and clothing disinfected.
As the river starts to thaw the workers are sent to other islands to catch and process fresh fish – the working factory envisaged. Dalia lives in a basic yurt but after the horrors of the winter even the pain caused by dipping damaged hands into frozen water and then salting fish is tolerable because she can now steal enough to eat. Unlike the theft of the wood to burn at Trofimovsk, pilfering of fish is tolerated. The work they are doing is pointless anyway. In a country where payment is made per unit and corruption a way of life, the barrels leak and fresh fish mixed with putrid meaning produce rots and will eventually be dumped in the sea.
Dalia describes the main camp supervisor as a psychopath. It is hard to understand how such treatment of other human beings could be allowed to occur, although at a lesser level brings to mind the actions of our current government towards refugees and the homeless.
This is a striking and searing depiction of survival in horrific circumstances. A disturbingly evocative yet vital read.
March 6, 2020
Grinkevičiūtė's posthumous record of life in a Soviet forced labour camp stands not just as testament to her endurance in the face of unimaginable hardships , but also of man's capacity to inflict suffering not out of a sense of innate evilness, but more from a more everyday and banal sense of selfishness and desire to conform.
That the story is told in the present tense from the perspective of a teenage girl only adds to the sense of horror and indignation about the conditions people were forced to endure in these labour camps. Whether it be the systematic violence and torture which they went through, or the food shortages, or the psychological suffering they experienced, Grinkevičiūtė dissects not just the wider political conditions which created the labour camps, but also how how we react to these situations is reflective of our own individual personalities; the people who are inclined to selflessness will choose to help others, whereas the more selfish people will use the situation to their advantage.
Grinkevičiūtė's raw and unpolished style adds a further layer of authenticity to her account, with 'Shadows on the Tundra' capturing the sufferings of people who otherwise would have been long forgotten.
That the story is told in the present tense from the perspective of a teenage girl only adds to the sense of horror and indignation about the conditions people were forced to endure in these labour camps. Whether it be the systematic violence and torture which they went through, or the food shortages, or the psychological suffering they experienced, Grinkevičiūtė dissects not just the wider political conditions which created the labour camps, but also how how we react to these situations is reflective of our own individual personalities; the people who are inclined to selflessness will choose to help others, whereas the more selfish people will use the situation to their advantage.
Grinkevičiūtė's raw and unpolished style adds a further layer of authenticity to her account, with 'Shadows on the Tundra' capturing the sufferings of people who otherwise would have been long forgotten.
January 10, 2023
Bu kitap aslında Dalia Grinkeviciute’n sürgündeyken(15 yaşında bir genç kızdı o zaman) yazmış olduğu notlar. Onları bir cam kavanoz içinde gömüyor ve sonra kendi de bulamıyor notlarını. Ölümünden dört yıl sonra bir şakayık çiçeğinin yeri değiştirilirken notların gömülü olduğu kavanoz bulunuyor. O notlar şimdiye kadar okuduğum en iyi gerçek hikaye notları. Yazılma biçimi düşünüldüğünde edebi değerlendirme yapmak yersiz olur. Dalia’nın kaleminin ve anlatımının naifliği yazıldığı şartlar altında değerlendirildiğinde ise mükemmel.Nefis! Aktarılanların doğruluğundan o kadar emin okuyorsunuz ki, tek bir abartı, manipülasyon yok. Tertemiz bir kalemle yazılmış. Çaresizliği bu denli hissettiğim çok az kitaptan biri Oysa Gökyüzü Muhteşemdi.
Sadece kendi yaşadıklarını değil, yolculukta, kampta yanında olan herkesin anılarını kaleme alıyor kitabında Dalia. Aslında bir sürgün belgeseli, fotoğraflarla belgelenmiş. Kitabın içeriğinde birçok fotoğraf mevcut.
Eklemesem olmaz: “Anılarımdan korkuyorum. Beni paramparça ediyorlar. Ama tek bir işe yarıyorlar-başıma ne gelirse gelsin, içimdeki önlenemez yaşama arzusu yandırıyorlar.
Yaşamak istiyorum, yaşamak, lanet olsun, yaşama dönmek istiyorum.”
Kalben bittiğim satırlardı çünkü.
Sadece kendi yaşadıklarını değil, yolculukta, kampta yanında olan herkesin anılarını kaleme alıyor kitabında Dalia. Aslında bir sürgün belgeseli, fotoğraflarla belgelenmiş. Kitabın içeriğinde birçok fotoğraf mevcut.
Eklemesem olmaz: “Anılarımdan korkuyorum. Beni paramparça ediyorlar. Ama tek bir işe yarıyorlar-başıma ne gelirse gelsin, içimdeki önlenemez yaşama arzusu yandırıyorlar.
Yaşamak istiyorum, yaşamak, lanet olsun, yaşama dönmek istiyorum.”
Kalben bittiğim satırlardı çünkü.
June 29, 2022
Auf den ersten hundert Seiten habe ich mich mit dem Lesen schwer getan. Was Dalia Grinkevičiūté erzählt, passt nicht zum Sommer am Lago Maggiore, zu Liegestuhl und Schoggicornet, und es ist auch am Bodensee bei bedecktem Himmel schwer erträglich. Definitiv keine (typische) Ferienlektüre. Jetzt bin ich froh, habe ich die Notizen der fünfzehnjährigen Litauerin zum Lagerleben in Sibirien nicht schneller gelesen. Vielleicht hätte ich sie sogar noch langsamer und in noch kleineren Tranchen lesen sollen. Jede Beobachtung, jedes Erlebnis, jede Beschreibung verdient höchste Aufmerksamkeit und Anerkennung. Dafür, dass die Autorin das alles ausgehalten und überlebt hat, und dafür, wie sie es gemacht hat: in einer unbestechlichen Sprache, klug und schnörkellos.
„(…) Na, und wenn wir schon Zwangsarbeit verrichten müssen, dann besser im Kopf und nicht mit den Händen.“
„(…) Na, und wenn wir schon Zwangsarbeit verrichten müssen, dann besser im Kopf und nicht mit den Händen.“
April 15, 2023
Written after Dalia returned to her home, she goes through the process of coming to terms to the trauma she faced as a teenager in a Siberian gulag. In those moments, she writes down her experiences, almost chronologically, on scraps of paper. Afraid of being watched, she buries these pages in her backyard and these pages remained missing and then forgotten, after she was arrested. She wrote more after she was released but she could not recover those pages.
Accidentally discovered much later, the pages remain as a testament of the horrors faced by many in the tundra, hauling logs, watching the size of her class gradually reduce, seeing people die due to lack of nutrition and watching her own mother wither away.
Yet from the eyes of a fifteen year old, she constantly lives and compares her circumstances to her home, unable to hope but unable to let go of that hope as well. There is an incident where she is being questioned for stealing some food. During the exchange, she is asked if she realizes, being a school student, how wrong her actions were. The absurdity of this situation is enough to make anyone speechless but to be in the situation is something else.
Must read.
Accidentally discovered much later, the pages remain as a testament of the horrors faced by many in the tundra, hauling logs, watching the size of her class gradually reduce, seeing people die due to lack of nutrition and watching her own mother wither away.
Yet from the eyes of a fifteen year old, she constantly lives and compares her circumstances to her home, unable to hope but unable to let go of that hope as well. There is an incident where she is being questioned for stealing some food. During the exchange, she is asked if she realizes, being a school student, how wrong her actions were. The absurdity of this situation is enough to make anyone speechless but to be in the situation is something else.
Must read.
May 4, 2021
Country prompt challenge: Lithuania
I found this one on Scribd and knew from the get-go that this wouldn't be an easy read. Dalia was arrested and deported to Siberia from her home country Lithuania and had to endure severe mental and physical hardships along with her mother, brother and the others that were deported. Some of the details about the experiences are very graphic and therefore, may make uncomfortable reading for readers who struggle with long, visual descriptions of physical injuries and illnesses. This one reminded me a lot of another book Between Shades of Grey which I read in my mid-teens.
I found this one on Scribd and knew from the get-go that this wouldn't be an easy read. Dalia was arrested and deported to Siberia from her home country Lithuania and had to endure severe mental and physical hardships along with her mother, brother and the others that were deported. Some of the details about the experiences are very graphic and therefore, may make uncomfortable reading for readers who struggle with long, visual descriptions of physical injuries and illnesses. This one reminded me a lot of another book Between Shades of Grey which I read in my mid-teens.
May 24, 2018
“I have a feeling I will never see Kaunus again,” my mother says to me. Her words cut me like a knife. The fight of your life has begun, Dalia. Secondary school, childhood, fun, games, theatre, girlfriends - everything is in the past. You’re a grown-up now. You’re fourteen. You have a mother to look after, a father to replace. You have just taken the first step on the battle for life.
Shadows on the Tundra is published by the excellent Peirene Press:
On 14 June 1941, 14 year old Dalia Grinkevičiūtė her mother and brother were deported from Lithuania as part of a Stalinist purge of the Lithunian intelligentsia. After a lengthy, and for many deadly, journey, in August 1942 they and hundreds of others reached their final destination, in the Laptev Sea in the Siberian Arctic Ocean, where they had to build their own Gulag work camp, largely employed to process fish caught from the freezing seas.
This book is Grinkevičiūtė’s own non-fictional memoir of period of her time there until October 1943, when the next harsh winter was about to begin.
The story of how the book came to be published would make a good novel in itself.
In 1948, unsuccessfully, and then again in 1949 Grinkevičiūtė escaped from exile with her mother and returned to their Lithuania homeland, to fulfil her dying mother’s wish.
While in hiding from the authorities in 1949-50, she wrote these memoirs and after her mother died in 1950, buried them in her family garden. She was arrested shortly after and only returned from prison in 1956, but was unable to find the buried manuscript.
In the mid 1970s Grinkevičiūtė wrote a more condensed version of her memoirs, which was circulated illicitly in Lithuania and elsewhere in the Soviet Union. She died in 1987.
In 1991, and after Lithuania gained independence, the original manuscript from 1950 was found, quite by accident, and in 1997 both version of her memoirs were published posthumously in the same volume.
This version, brought to the attention of Peirene by the German translator Vytene Mushick, is an English rendition of only the 1950 version as, per Muschick “They reflect Dalia’s experiences in exile more directly, emotionally and in greater detail than the later work.” The English translation is by Delija Valiakenas whose own parents fled on 1944 to escape the Russian occupation and emigrated to the US.
Shadows on the Tundra deserves to take its place alongside other classic accounts of the gulags (most obviously One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich) and indeed other "international survival literature" (the publisher's term) such as that by Primo Levi and, given the age of the protagonist, Anne Frank, althoug as the opening quote suggests Dalia's childhood ends the day the book starts.
Her tale is mainly told in the present tense, lending the recollections a more immediate air of lived experience and (deliberate) lack of later perspective (by contrast say with Primo Levi's reflections), although she does occasionally lapse into past tense reflection.
Although one reads these memoirs knowing that the author survived her experience, and (again providing a contrast to Levi’s guilt at surviving) Dalia is fiercely determined to survive, and takes a pride in this determination.
The Arctic setting of the book is ostensibly beautiful but the cold is literally deadly and the surroundings of the camp anything but pleasant:
Yet what splendour above. The Northern Lights are a magnificent web of colour. We are surrounded by grandeur: the immense tundra, as ruthless and infinite as the sea; the vast Lena estuary backed up with ice; the colossal 100-metre-pillar caves on the shores of Stolby; and the aurora borealis. Against a background of such majesty, we are the pitiful things here - starved and infested liked dogs, and nearly done in, rotting in our befouled an stinking ice caves.
Indeed the book is most powerful on how the exiles are so rapidly dehumanised, how distant their normal day-to-day live bakc in Lithuania rapidly becomes:
So here we are - creatures you used to think of themselves as human, who laughed, flirted and call friends to visit, who planned summer holidays after exhausting winters of work in the city, who fumed because the tailor had botched an order or a two-bedroom apartment seemed too small. All are silent. But they are no longer here. The people they used to be have long gone. They died on 14 June ... only three categories of people remain: the corpses, the soon-to-be corpses and the dying who might survive. These survivors will bear witness to the horrific trials they have undergone. But by then each will have become someone else.
Although for Dalia it is these very memories, however distant and painful, that give her the desire to survive:
I’m afraid of thoughts that sting and bite. Images from the past can be more painful than a branding iron. But they’ve also done me a favour. They’ve ignited a furious desire to live, to persevere, to engage in the struggle for life, even of what remains to be endured turns out to be a hundred times worse. I want to live, to live, to be alive, to return to life, damn it.
The exiles soon develop an economy of their own, one largely developed around stealing, often from each other but this is not universal, but more universally from the supplies of the command economy in which they are employed. In one of the relatively infrequent parts of the narration where Daria allows her older post-camp self to reflect, she recounts a time when she witnessed and commented on a particularly outrageous piece of pilfering, her fellow exile:looked at me as if I had lost my mind and said, ‘U gosudarstva karman shiroky, ne bespokoysa.’ - ‘The state’s pockets are deep, don’t worry about it.’
In time I came to realise that this was the thinking of most Soviet citizens. The only difference between them was what they took. But everyone pilfered, stole, helped themselves to whatever they could get their hands on.
Another theme that runs underneath the surface of the narration is nationalism. The whole point of the exile of the intelligensia of the satellite Soviet states was to take-away national identity, but in practice it had the opposite effect and Dalia doesn't censor (indeed at times seems proud) of the nationalistic feelings she has in response:
It is here ... that I learned how to hate. And i thirsted for revenge against everyone and everything that demeans and brutalises other human beings.
Overall a powerful and necessary account, although certainly not a pleasant read. And while the history perhaps justifies the presentation of the original manuscript, the large cast of fellow exiles can be rather hard to follow (including emotionally) at times. It would also have been interesting to publish the 1970s version of the memoir, as in the original Lithuanian version, alongside the 1950s original, partly as a shorter account might have been more focused and partly to see how time and maturity had changed the way the author presented the events.
3.5 stars
Shadows on the Tundra is published by the excellent Peirene Press:
Peirene Press takes its name from a Greek nymph who turned into a water spring. The poets of Corinth discovered the Peirene source and, for centuries, they drank this water to receive inspiration.The idea of metamorphosis fits the art of translation beautifully. To turn a foreign book into an enjoyable English read involves careful attention to detail.Shadows on the Tundra is the second in their 2018 Home in Exile series ("How to find a home within oneself when the outside home no longer exists.") after Soviet Milk.
Peirene specializes in contemporary European novellas and short novels in English translation. All our books are best-sellers and/or award-winners in their own countries. We only publish books of less than 200 pages that can be read in the same time it takes to watch a film.
We curate our international fiction according to themes. Each year Peirene publishes a new series – three books that belong together in terms of style and/or content.
On 14 June 1941, 14 year old Dalia Grinkevičiūtė her mother and brother were deported from Lithuania as part of a Stalinist purge of the Lithunian intelligentsia. After a lengthy, and for many deadly, journey, in August 1942 they and hundreds of others reached their final destination, in the Laptev Sea in the Siberian Arctic Ocean, where they had to build their own Gulag work camp, largely employed to process fish caught from the freezing seas.
This book is Grinkevičiūtė’s own non-fictional memoir of period of her time there until October 1943, when the next harsh winter was about to begin.
The story of how the book came to be published would make a good novel in itself.
In 1948, unsuccessfully, and then again in 1949 Grinkevičiūtė escaped from exile with her mother and returned to their Lithuania homeland, to fulfil her dying mother’s wish.
While in hiding from the authorities in 1949-50, she wrote these memoirs and after her mother died in 1950, buried them in her family garden. She was arrested shortly after and only returned from prison in 1956, but was unable to find the buried manuscript.
In the mid 1970s Grinkevičiūtė wrote a more condensed version of her memoirs, which was circulated illicitly in Lithuania and elsewhere in the Soviet Union. She died in 1987.
In 1991, and after Lithuania gained independence, the original manuscript from 1950 was found, quite by accident, and in 1997 both version of her memoirs were published posthumously in the same volume.
This version, brought to the attention of Peirene by the German translator Vytene Mushick, is an English rendition of only the 1950 version as, per Muschick “They reflect Dalia’s experiences in exile more directly, emotionally and in greater detail than the later work.” The English translation is by Delija Valiakenas whose own parents fled on 1944 to escape the Russian occupation and emigrated to the US.
Shadows on the Tundra deserves to take its place alongside other classic accounts of the gulags (most obviously One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich) and indeed other "international survival literature" (the publisher's term) such as that by Primo Levi and, given the age of the protagonist, Anne Frank, althoug as the opening quote suggests Dalia's childhood ends the day the book starts.
Her tale is mainly told in the present tense, lending the recollections a more immediate air of lived experience and (deliberate) lack of later perspective (by contrast say with Primo Levi's reflections), although she does occasionally lapse into past tense reflection.
Although one reads these memoirs knowing that the author survived her experience, and (again providing a contrast to Levi’s guilt at surviving) Dalia is fiercely determined to survive, and takes a pride in this determination.
The Arctic setting of the book is ostensibly beautiful but the cold is literally deadly and the surroundings of the camp anything but pleasant:
Yet what splendour above. The Northern Lights are a magnificent web of colour. We are surrounded by grandeur: the immense tundra, as ruthless and infinite as the sea; the vast Lena estuary backed up with ice; the colossal 100-metre-pillar caves on the shores of Stolby; and the aurora borealis. Against a background of such majesty, we are the pitiful things here - starved and infested liked dogs, and nearly done in, rotting in our befouled an stinking ice caves.
Indeed the book is most powerful on how the exiles are so rapidly dehumanised, how distant their normal day-to-day live bakc in Lithuania rapidly becomes:
So here we are - creatures you used to think of themselves as human, who laughed, flirted and call friends to visit, who planned summer holidays after exhausting winters of work in the city, who fumed because the tailor had botched an order or a two-bedroom apartment seemed too small. All are silent. But they are no longer here. The people they used to be have long gone. They died on 14 June ... only three categories of people remain: the corpses, the soon-to-be corpses and the dying who might survive. These survivors will bear witness to the horrific trials they have undergone. But by then each will have become someone else.
Although for Dalia it is these very memories, however distant and painful, that give her the desire to survive:
I’m afraid of thoughts that sting and bite. Images from the past can be more painful than a branding iron. But they’ve also done me a favour. They’ve ignited a furious desire to live, to persevere, to engage in the struggle for life, even of what remains to be endured turns out to be a hundred times worse. I want to live, to live, to be alive, to return to life, damn it.
The exiles soon develop an economy of their own, one largely developed around stealing, often from each other but this is not universal, but more universally from the supplies of the command economy in which they are employed. In one of the relatively infrequent parts of the narration where Daria allows her older post-camp self to reflect, she recounts a time when she witnessed and commented on a particularly outrageous piece of pilfering, her fellow exile:looked at me as if I had lost my mind and said, ‘U gosudarstva karman shiroky, ne bespokoysa.’ - ‘The state’s pockets are deep, don’t worry about it.’
In time I came to realise that this was the thinking of most Soviet citizens. The only difference between them was what they took. But everyone pilfered, stole, helped themselves to whatever they could get their hands on.
Another theme that runs underneath the surface of the narration is nationalism. The whole point of the exile of the intelligensia of the satellite Soviet states was to take-away national identity, but in practice it had the opposite effect and Dalia doesn't censor (indeed at times seems proud) of the nationalistic feelings she has in response:
It is here ... that I learned how to hate. And i thirsted for revenge against everyone and everything that demeans and brutalises other human beings.
Overall a powerful and necessary account, although certainly not a pleasant read. And while the history perhaps justifies the presentation of the original manuscript, the large cast of fellow exiles can be rather hard to follow (including emotionally) at times. It would also have been interesting to publish the 1970s version of the memoir, as in the original Lithuanian version, alongside the 1950s original, partly as a shorter account might have been more focused and partly to see how time and maturity had changed the way the author presented the events.
3.5 stars
March 8, 2020
Dalia Grinkeviciūte - Shadows on the Tundra
"I'm afraid of thoughts that bite and sting. Images from the past can be more painful than a branding iron. They tear me apart. But they've also done me a favour. They've ignited a furious desire to live, to persevere, to engage in the struggle for life, even if what remains to be endured turns out to be a hundred times worse. I want to live, to live, to be alive, to return to life, damn it."
This is an extraordinary story of a woman's survival against all odds in a Soviet work camp, on the unforgiving arctic tundra where winter lasts 10 months.
"In 1941, 14-year-old Dalia Grinkeviciūte and her family are deported from their native Lithuania to a labour camp on Siberia. As the strongest member of her family the girl submits to sixteen hours a day of manual labour. At the age of 21, Dalia escapes the Gulag and returns to Lithuania. She writes her memories on scraps of paper and buries them in a glass jar in the garden, fearing they might be discovered by the KGB. They are not found until 1991, four years after her death."
This book will go down on my list of recommendations. It was such a harrowing story of hunger, sickness, desperation and perseverance. A vivid scene for me is the man who is so hungry and will do anything to eat his fill and Dalia's description of him eating frozen fish, guts and all.
"There are corpses everywhere, naked legs and breasts, frozen hair poking out through the snow. Like blocks of wood, the bodies have frozen solid in every conceivable posture - hands and legs bent or outstretched, petrified at the moment of death."
This book puts your small sufferings in perspective today on International Woman's Day. Although the fight for women's rights continue, it is important that we look back at strong women stories and draw strength and inspiration from their battles, and that we never forget.
Thanks to tandemcollectiveuk and Peirene Press for the review copy.
"I'm afraid of thoughts that bite and sting. Images from the past can be more painful than a branding iron. They tear me apart. But they've also done me a favour. They've ignited a furious desire to live, to persevere, to engage in the struggle for life, even if what remains to be endured turns out to be a hundred times worse. I want to live, to live, to be alive, to return to life, damn it."
This is an extraordinary story of a woman's survival against all odds in a Soviet work camp, on the unforgiving arctic tundra where winter lasts 10 months.
"In 1941, 14-year-old Dalia Grinkeviciūte and her family are deported from their native Lithuania to a labour camp on Siberia. As the strongest member of her family the girl submits to sixteen hours a day of manual labour. At the age of 21, Dalia escapes the Gulag and returns to Lithuania. She writes her memories on scraps of paper and buries them in a glass jar in the garden, fearing they might be discovered by the KGB. They are not found until 1991, four years after her death."
This book will go down on my list of recommendations. It was such a harrowing story of hunger, sickness, desperation and perseverance. A vivid scene for me is the man who is so hungry and will do anything to eat his fill and Dalia's description of him eating frozen fish, guts and all.
"There are corpses everywhere, naked legs and breasts, frozen hair poking out through the snow. Like blocks of wood, the bodies have frozen solid in every conceivable posture - hands and legs bent or outstretched, petrified at the moment of death."
This book puts your small sufferings in perspective today on International Woman's Day. Although the fight for women's rights continue, it is important that we look back at strong women stories and draw strength and inspiration from their battles, and that we never forget.
Thanks to tandemcollectiveuk and Peirene Press for the review copy.
January 25, 2023
Oysa Gökyüzü Muhtesemdi, Litvanya’nın işgalinden sonra Sovyetler tarafından ailesiyle birlikte Sibirya’ya sürülen Dalia Grinkevičiūtė’nin sürgünde geçen çocukluk hatıralarından oluşuyor.
Dalia, 21 yaşında sürgünden kaçmayı başarıp Litvanya’ya döndüğünde, sürgünle ilgili anılarını yazdığı kağıt parçalarını KGB’nin bulacağından korkarak, cam kavanoza koyup bahçeye gömer.
Kötü hava koşulları, açlık, yokluğa rağmen hayatta kalma mücadelesinin ardından tıp eğitimi alip, bir sure doktorluk yapan Dalia' nin ölümünden 4 yıl sonra bulanan yazılar, aynı zamanda yaşanilan döneme ait bir kanıt niteliğinde.
Dalia, 21 yaşında sürgünden kaçmayı başarıp Litvanya’ya döndüğünde, sürgünle ilgili anılarını yazdığı kağıt parçalarını KGB’nin bulacağından korkarak, cam kavanoza koyup bahçeye gömer.
Kötü hava koşulları, açlık, yokluğa rağmen hayatta kalma mücadelesinin ardından tıp eğitimi alip, bir sure doktorluk yapan Dalia' nin ölümünden 4 yıl sonra bulanan yazılar, aynı zamanda yaşanilan döneme ait bir kanıt niteliğinde.
January 7, 2021
Gdy mamy do czynienia z opublikowanymi wspomnieniami z łagru bądź zsyłki zazwyczaj pojawia się jeden wniosek wokół którego buduje się całą recenzję – wola przetrwania. Bo czegoż nie dowodzi sam fakt, że możemy czytać cudze wspomnienia, jak nie woli przetrwania?
Dla mnie „Litwini nad Morzem Łaptiewów” to nie tylko relacja 15nastoletniej dziewczynki, której barbarzyństwo ZSRR odebrało dzieciństwo i cieniem położyło się na całe dorosłe życie. To nie tylko opis bezsensowności radzieckiego zarządzania czy prześladowania, którego Dalia doświadczała także po powrocie na Litwę. To przede wszystkim bardzo bolesne uzmysłowienie sobie tego, co przeżyła (i nie przeżyła) część mojej rodziny nim dane im było powrócić do Szyrwint.
Jak mnie tak książka boli. Nie dziwię się sobie, że odkładałam ją ciągle na później.
Dla mnie „Litwini nad Morzem Łaptiewów” to nie tylko relacja 15nastoletniej dziewczynki, której barbarzyństwo ZSRR odebrało dzieciństwo i cieniem położyło się na całe dorosłe życie. To nie tylko opis bezsensowności radzieckiego zarządzania czy prześladowania, którego Dalia doświadczała także po powrocie na Litwę. To przede wszystkim bardzo bolesne uzmysłowienie sobie tego, co przeżyła (i nie przeżyła) część mojej rodziny nim dane im było powrócić do Szyrwint.
Jak mnie tak książka boli. Nie dziwię się sobie, że odkładałam ją ciągle na później.
July 8, 2018
If you want a glimpse into socialism, this book by a Lithuanian gulag survivor will confirm all doubts you had about the most demoralizing system to ever mark the globe. In the style of Anne Frank and others, the writer Dalia gives a vividly chilling first-hand account of her time in the gulag in the Laptev Sea near the Arctic Circle. Through all the harsh and ghastly experiences and images she endured, she survived. You must read it to do her story justice. This mirrors the gulag experience my Lithuanian maternal grandpa had at the Belomor Canal in 1945-46 at the Russian-Finnish border. This is a must-read. Please get a copy today!
March 14, 2021
I had to read this for school. meh... I feel so sorry for people who had to go through this but it was such a slow read.
October 2, 2020
An interesting piece of Gulag literature in that Dalia was only 14 when she was sent to Siberia, and you have to keep remembering that these awful things are happening to a child.
July 2, 2022
Meskit į mane akmenį, kas tik skaitė “Tarp pilkų debesų” ir laiko viena geriausių tą laikotarpį aprašančių knygų.
“Lietuviai prie Laptevų jūros” yra be galo emociškai paveiki, nuosekliai svarbi mums. Rekomenduoju. Skaitykit ir mąstykit.
“Lietuviai prie Laptevų jūros” yra be galo emociškai paveiki, nuosekliai svarbi mums. Rekomenduoju. Skaitykit ir mąstykit.
May 22, 2018
Knyga mano lentynoje gulėjo beveik dešimt metų, kol pagaliau paėmiau į rankas ir nepaleidau, kol neperskaičiau iki galo. Tremtis mano ir, ko gero, daugelio mano kartos žmonių vaizduotėje yra tik blankus prisiminimo prisiminimas, nes tremtinių karta, išgyvenusi ir grįžusi atgal į Lietuvą, jau baigia išmirti, o su ja ir pats tremties faktas nutolsta saugiu atstumu, nugula istorijos vadovėlių puslapiuose, bet ne mūsų sąmonėse. Kad ir kiek skaityčiau prisiminimų ir liudijimų apie tremtį, poveikis visada tas pats - pasibaisėjimas. Baisu dėl visų tų žmonių, kurie buvo be pasigailėjimo, be priežasties, be jokio teismo pasmerkti mirti Sibire, o ir išgyvenusieji buvo visam likusiam gyvenimui pažymėti traumuojančių patirčių. Grinkevičiūtė, kaip ir kiti "laimingai" į tėvynę grįžę tremtiniai, savo šalyje tapo nepageidaujami, todėl juos stengtasi ir toliau uiti ir tildyti. Būtent todėl nuostabu, kad "Atsiminimai" išliko, o kartu su jais išliko liudijimas apie tą istorijos pusę, kuri pusę amžiaus oficialiai nebuvo pripažįstama.
Vertinti Grinkevičiūtės "Atsiminimų" vien literatūriniu požiūriu negaliu, nes daug reikšmingiau čia yra istorijos liudijimas, savo gyvenimo įprasminimas, palikimas tiems, kurie nežino ir neįsivaizduoja, ką reiškia mirti iš bado tikrąją tų žodžių prasme, visur matyti mirtį, jausti kūną ir sielą stingdantį poliarinės žiemos šaltį, vogti lentas, kad išgyventum, būti už tai teisiamam, suprasti situacijos absurdą, bet negalėti nieko pakeisti, jausti visišką bejėgystę, būti užmirštam. Mes to nepatyrėme, bet svarbu nepamiršti, kad tai (vis dar) yra įmanoma.
Vertinti Grinkevičiūtės "Atsiminimų" vien literatūriniu požiūriu negaliu, nes daug reikšmingiau čia yra istorijos liudijimas, savo gyvenimo įprasminimas, palikimas tiems, kurie nežino ir neįsivaizduoja, ką reiškia mirti iš bado tikrąją tų žodžių prasme, visur matyti mirtį, jausti kūną ir sielą stingdantį poliarinės žiemos šaltį, vogti lentas, kad išgyventum, būti už tai teisiamam, suprasti situacijos absurdą, bet negalėti nieko pakeisti, jausti visišką bejėgystę, būti užmirštam. Mes to nepatyrėme, bet svarbu nepamiršti, kad tai (vis dar) yra įmanoma.
November 10, 2016
Šita knyga yra pritrenkianti. Čia aprašyta neįtikėtinai daug tiesų, įrodančių,kodėl vis dėlto mes esam dvasiškai skurdūs (žinoma, per griežta teigti ,,mes", nes tikrai ne visi :) ). Koks iš tiesų teisingas yra posakis ,,tik tada supranti, kai prarandi". Skundžiamės dėl menkiausių problemų, lekiam akis išdegę iš savos šalies ir tuo didžiuojamės (??), tampame ypatingo maisto gurmanais, mėtomės skambiom frazėm, kiek šiandien privargome minkydami kompiuterio klavietūrą. Na, knyga pernelyg trumpa, kad įtikintų kiekvieną skaitytoją kažką keisti savo gyvenime, bet įspūdį ji tikrai paliks.
,,Štai aš šiame ledo urve kartu su padarais, kurie kadaise vadinosi žmonėmis, kurie kadaise juokėsi, flirtavo, eidavo į svečius ir pas save kviesdavosi, rūpindavosi, kur praleisti vasarą, pavargus po žiemos darbų mieste, kuriems nusivylimą teikdavo blogai pasiūtas rūbas, dviejų kambarių butas buvo per ankštas. Jie dabar tyli. <...> guli tik merdinčios būtybės."
Panašios knygos : Balys Sruoga ,,Dievų miškas", Nando Parrado ,,Stebuklas Anduose" ( pats Nando aprašo savo istoriją apie išgyvenimą bet kokiomis priemonėmis . Bet nieko bendro su tremties ar įkalinimo idėja).
,,Štai aš šiame ledo urve kartu su padarais, kurie kadaise vadinosi žmonėmis, kurie kadaise juokėsi, flirtavo, eidavo į svečius ir pas save kviesdavosi, rūpindavosi, kur praleisti vasarą, pavargus po žiemos darbų mieste, kuriems nusivylimą teikdavo blogai pasiūtas rūbas, dviejų kambarių butas buvo per ankštas. Jie dabar tyli. <...> guli tik merdinčios būtybės."
Panašios knygos : Balys Sruoga ,,Dievų miškas", Nando Parrado ,,Stebuklas Anduose" ( pats Nando aprašo savo istoriją apie išgyvenimą bet kokiomis priemonėmis . Bet nieko bendro su tremties ar įkalinimo idėja).
January 17, 2021
4-4.5 ⭐️ read! Dalia's story is as important as Anne Franks.
It's her own survival story (told from her own buried papers and published after she died) of her time at 14 years old, being ripped from her home country of Lithuania, to one of Stalin's Gulag labour camps in Siberia, in the Artic. Harrowing forced labour in unimaginable artic conditions for years, with her mother and brother and fellow deportees. Her story is extraordinary and essential reading. I'm ashamed to say I didn't know much about the mass deportations by Stalin during the 1940s and this has been a necessary lesson in history and one that must not be forgotten.
It's her own survival story (told from her own buried papers and published after she died) of her time at 14 years old, being ripped from her home country of Lithuania, to one of Stalin's Gulag labour camps in Siberia, in the Artic. Harrowing forced labour in unimaginable artic conditions for years, with her mother and brother and fellow deportees. Her story is extraordinary and essential reading. I'm ashamed to say I didn't know much about the mass deportations by Stalin during the 1940s and this has been a necessary lesson in history and one that must not be forgotten.
July 30, 2023
Hræðilegar og ólýsanlega átakanalegar frásagnir af veru í Gúlaginu.
October 22, 2024
Sukrečia ir priverčia pagalvoti, kaip gerai mes gyvenam.
November 18, 2022
Très difficile à lire en raison des descriptions détaillées sur les blessures graves et les morts aux différents camps. Quelle souffrance pour ses confrères et elle!
Le premier manuscrit est dur à suivre, car il y a beaucoup de noms et de mots en lituanien ou en russe. La chronologie des événements est plus facile à comprendre dans le deuxième manuscrit. Dommage qu'on en sait pas plus sur son frère et si Dalia a vécu seule lors des dernières années de sa vie...
Le premier manuscrit est dur à suivre, car il y a beaucoup de noms et de mots en lituanien ou en russe. La chronologie des événements est plus facile à comprendre dans le deuxième manuscrit. Dommage qu'on en sait pas plus sur son frère et si Dalia a vécu seule lors des dernières années de sa vie...
October 12, 2022
Nieko baisiau apie tremtį, lagerius, naikinimo stovyklas nesu skaičiusi. O visa tai, ką skaičiau, atrodo nė perpus nebuvo taip baisu, ką patyrė lietuviai ir suomiai prie Laptevų jūros. Ir nors lyginti kur baisiau nederėtų, su kiekvienu perskaitytu puslapiu siaubas augo ir pranoko bet kokia fantaziją.
Nepaisant to, Dalia apie šias tamsybes rašo kažkaip šviesiai ir net su savotišku humoru, ironija. Kažkuo priminė Balio Sruogos stilių Dievų miške.
Tiesą sakant liūdniausia man buvo knygos pabaiga, kurioje ji pasakoja, kaip grįžusi į Lietuvą dirbo Laukuvoje gydytoja ir susidūrė su komunistinio rėžimo persekiojimu. Šioje dalyje autorės gyvybingumo nebeliko, o jį pakeitęs juodas beviltiškumas ir nusivylimas visiškai prislėgė. Nu ir nafik šitą rėžimą ir santvarką. Kiek sulaužytų, bereikalingai sunaikintų likimų... Turiu pasakyti, retai kada knygos taip giliai paliečia...
Nepaisant to, Dalia apie šias tamsybes rašo kažkaip šviesiai ir net su savotišku humoru, ironija. Kažkuo priminė Balio Sruogos stilių Dievų miške.
Tiesą sakant liūdniausia man buvo knygos pabaiga, kurioje ji pasakoja, kaip grįžusi į Lietuvą dirbo Laukuvoje gydytoja ir susidūrė su komunistinio rėžimo persekiojimu. Šioje dalyje autorės gyvybingumo nebeliko, o jį pakeitęs juodas beviltiškumas ir nusivylimas visiškai prislėgė. Nu ir nafik šitą rėžimą ir santvarką. Kiek sulaužytų, bereikalingai sunaikintų likimų... Turiu pasakyti, retai kada knygos taip giliai paliečia...
July 10, 2020
I studied the Stalinist USSR at A-Level History in the UK, which of course did not give me any idea as to what 'being sent to a gulag' actually entailed, so this book should probably be compulsory reading. I see it is compulsory reading in Lithuanian schools, which must be pretty difficult. It reinforces my belief that history should be taught and framed upon personal experiences, not national lines or politics (or perhaps, with equal weight to those). Because here, there is no substitute for reading the first-hand descriptions of the extreme suffering, inhumane conditions and harsh "work" - I think a few times Dalia refers to them as slaves, which seems much more apt to me. The level of detail into people's illnesses is covered (how gaunt and discoloured they look in the light, how often they collapse, how their bodily systems break down, they can't walk, they freeze over all the time), their desperation, the squalid conditions in which they live and how they are given absolutely nothing speaks for itself, especially in the first person and the present tense.
I also found all the stories about stealing really thought-provoking; perhaps it shouldn't have been called stealing at all. I don't know about other languages, but English does not have a word for when you've been persecuted in all manners and you try to take some food to survive - we should have one though, it's in our history as well. It's always interesting how language around 'crime' works. And then there is the substance of the stealing stories, here are parents encouraging or even begging their children to steal things which is difficult to read with Dalia's matter-of-fact, de-emotionalised tone. Lidia provokes a lot of respect. Dalia's trial provokes internal squirming for the reader where you want her to stand up for herself, but are aware how little power she has. And Kespaiko, despite being subject to several allegations, is one of the few people who showed any signs of generosity in the entire book. I think there's plenty of philosophical consideration to do there.
My 'ask the translator' bits (translation was as ever, extremely well done for this):
-Is there anything more the original phrase "taking life by the horns", just seems this sums up Dalia's entire character, astoundingly;
- Lots of different words for 'eating' e.g. "gorged", "wolfed down" - is this in the original, or is it a device to increase attention to the famine? If the latter, it's extremely effective;
-Does the nickname/insult 'boot-licker' have any background, or is this one the deportees made up at their own camp?
This is very good https://www.neonbooks.org.uk/review-s....
I also found all the stories about stealing really thought-provoking; perhaps it shouldn't have been called stealing at all. I don't know about other languages, but English does not have a word for when you've been persecuted in all manners and you try to take some food to survive - we should have one though, it's in our history as well. It's always interesting how language around 'crime' works. And then there is the substance of the stealing stories, here are parents encouraging or even begging their children to steal things which is difficult to read with Dalia's matter-of-fact, de-emotionalised tone. Lidia provokes a lot of respect. Dalia's trial provokes internal squirming for the reader where you want her to stand up for herself, but are aware how little power she has. And Kespaiko, despite being subject to several allegations, is one of the few people who showed any signs of generosity in the entire book. I think there's plenty of philosophical consideration to do there.
My 'ask the translator' bits (translation was as ever, extremely well done for this):
-Is there anything more the original phrase "taking life by the horns", just seems this sums up Dalia's entire character, astoundingly;
- Lots of different words for 'eating' e.g. "gorged", "wolfed down" - is this in the original, or is it a device to increase attention to the famine? If the latter, it's extremely effective;
-Does the nickname/insult 'boot-licker' have any background, or is this one the deportees made up at their own camp?
This is very good https://www.neonbooks.org.uk/review-s....
February 3, 2019
Visit locations in the novel
This is such a heartbreaking read, it took me ages to be able to sit down and write this review. I honestly don’t think there are any words to do this book justice. It made me cry, think, want to sit silently for a while and let it soak in. How this woman and her family survived this horror, how Dalia managed to write it all down. Then think of burying the evidence so the KGB wouldn’t find it. It deserves to be published , translated and spread far and wide.
We start off in Kaunas, the then capital of Lithuania where Dalia is just fourteen. She is forced to endure a seemingly endless journey of deportation with her mother and brother. What makes this all the more remarkable is that her buried story was found in 1991. That’s not that long ago. Think of that as you read as it will make this even more poignant.
Moscow had ordered mass deportations from all the Baltic states—Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. I admit that I knew nothing about this and had never really thought about these countries during the war. We hear of stories in Germany, Poland and Russia but not the Baltic states.
The story and journey are hard to read at times. Dalia is transported like cattle in a truck, then by train. The journey lasts for days, weeks, months. The final destination is bad enough but along the way the train stops to unload some of the human cargo. The most valuable cargo travels on further to the working labour camp in Siberia.
This battle has many highs and lows. As the train stops somewhere, the people on board dream of where they might be. A new start. New hope. You can only imagine the dire circumstances, the stench of the train, the fear in the people. Few words needed to bring this across.
The journey as a whole is heartbreaking and cruel. How people can treat other humans like this is beyond me. Despite this, it was the humanity and friendships forged between the prisoners which really shone through.
I was barely able to read as I reached the part where the gulag is described, but am so glad I did. Dalia and her family showed courage and strength not many people ever have.
The setting of Trofimovsk Island and the workings of the gulag were heartbreaking to read about yet fascinating too. I admire Dalia so much for writing this down. Her voice is being heard and it’s a powerful one.
September 24, 2019
In June 1941, Stalin ordered the mass deportation of Lithuanian citizens to remote regions of the Soviet Union. Thousands died in the harsh labour camps. Dalia Grinkevičiūtė was fourteen years old when she was deported with her mother and brother Juozas. They ended up hauling timber in a fish-processing factory near the Laptev Sea.
SHADOWS ON THE TUNDRA (translated 2018) is a shocking memoir of one girl’s survival against all the odds, the appalling conditions she was forced to endure and the inhumanity she witnessed. Dalia wrote this memoir after escaping back to Lithuania after nearly a decade in Siberia. She hid it in a hole in the ground just before she was arrested and deported (again!) for six additional years. Her memoir was discovered by accident after her death (and after Soviet withdrawal).
The book follows the first year of her captivity. They arrive in autumn and they are ordered to build their own precarious shelters. They spend their gruelling work days hauling immense logs. Dalia describes how ‘death, along with famine, typhus, lice, scurvy and frigid temperatures, had wormed its way into our ghastly barracks’. When the polar winter arrives they are trapped inside their wretched dwellings for weeks, and Dalia watches as the corpses pile up and are left to lie alongside the living.
Dalia survived against all odds. She studied medicine and died in 1987, aged 60. Her writings are placed in the Lithuanian literary canon.
SHADOWS ON THE TUNDRA is a raw, devastating book. It is a story of survival, resilience and unimaginable cruelty.
SHADOWS ON THE TUNDRA (translated 2018) is a shocking memoir of one girl’s survival against all the odds, the appalling conditions she was forced to endure and the inhumanity she witnessed. Dalia wrote this memoir after escaping back to Lithuania after nearly a decade in Siberia. She hid it in a hole in the ground just before she was arrested and deported (again!) for six additional years. Her memoir was discovered by accident after her death (and after Soviet withdrawal).
The book follows the first year of her captivity. They arrive in autumn and they are ordered to build their own precarious shelters. They spend their gruelling work days hauling immense logs. Dalia describes how ‘death, along with famine, typhus, lice, scurvy and frigid temperatures, had wormed its way into our ghastly barracks’. When the polar winter arrives they are trapped inside their wretched dwellings for weeks, and Dalia watches as the corpses pile up and are left to lie alongside the living.
Dalia survived against all odds. She studied medicine and died in 1987, aged 60. Her writings are placed in the Lithuanian literary canon.
SHADOWS ON THE TUNDRA is a raw, devastating book. It is a story of survival, resilience and unimaginable cruelty.
February 14, 2019
This is a memoir recounting the experiences of 14 year old Dalia Grinkevičiūtė, who was deported along with her family and large numbers of Lithuanians to a labour camp up near the Arctic Circle. She tells the story of her first year, surviving an Arctic winter and all of the hardships imposed on them by the camp bosses and the weather. Particularly gruesome are the descriptions of the winter months when the workers were essentially snowed in to their cabins, without food and running water. They slowly starve and succumb to the diseases associated with their malnutrition. People die in the night and their bodies are rolled under beds until a time they can be removed. Then, the rest go on trying to survive. Despite being so young and living in the face of such difficulties, Dalia's fierce grip on life is clear to see when it would have been easy to give up. I have read other famous stories of gulag life (Solzhenitsyn and Sharlamov, for example) and this deserves to be as well known as them.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 108 reviews